By Political Commission PCPR
Let’s make some points about the reality in which we live and under which the majority suffers but perhaps is not fully conscious. The malady of humanity is that we live in a capitalist society and if we do not exchange our labor for money we cannot live. If we agree with these broad yet important arguments, we will also agree that all these years we have been under the power and dictatorship of the capitalists, the bondholders, and the disgraceful hoodlums that are in the colonial legislature. The workers agree that conditions have deteriorated which limit our ability to meet our basic needs like education, food, work, and healthcare among other things. Why do we increasingly feel weighed down just to live in this system? Because, precisely, the system is pernicious and unjust for the working class, humanity and our environment. Without our daily toil, without our sweat (even if we work in air conditioning), without our labor, the capitalists would not have the feast of profits they enjoy.
Suffering, poverty, oppression as well as unemployment are all ways in which the State dictatorship collectively violates us. Our individual situation within our families is a reflection of millions of cases in Puerto Rico and the world. Yet, even though our oppression is collective, capitalists have tried to keep us divided. They have tried to keep us apathetic when there is talk of organizing ourselves, getting active or showing solidarity with our workmates. Who does it benefit if we are dispersed? Precisely the capitalists, the bondholders, the colonial overseers, the opportunists in colonial elections; in short, those that hold us down with the slave master’s whip in the colony. So how can we combat these injustices in favor of the majority?
The men and women of the Communist Party of Puerto Rico are convinced that in order to eradicate those that oppress and manipulate it, the working class must organize. As such, workers must not vote in the colonial elections. Instead of voting we must focus on promoting an organizational process that is actually for the workers. This is an active boycott of the elections.
The young and older workers reject the colonial elections with an active boycott. An active boycott is not a rejection of the right to vote. Voting and the colonial elections are two distinct things. The Wall Street junta everything done within the structures of the colonial State from the budget to the rest of its appendages. So why vote? Does anyone really believe that the three main political parties or any of the individual candidates can or will combat the junta? Of course they can and will not. The only ones that can defeat the junta are the organized and class conscious workers. The working class has suffered by being stripped of its rights and paid a price for supporting the main political parties. For years, the working class has been led to condone this system of oppression through the vote. But, this November we say, “No more to this oppression. For an Active Boycott of the colonial elections! Let’s build workers councils!
Working man and woman, let us organize workers councils in every working class neighborhood and in each workplace. Let us break the ice as well as the fear of organizing for our selves. Let us defend out country, our rights our children and elders as well as all humanity.