The Rust Belt is Ground Zero in the Fight to Survive
The Greater Pittsburgh area must reclaim its progressive working-class roots in the struggle to stop the fascist slide into ecocide.
The following story is published for Rust Belt Revolution. Please support the Greater Pittsburgh area in our ground zero struggle for human survival.
Reasonable people understand, the United States must be delivered from the grips of corporate dominion and placed back into the hands of popular democracy. What most of us don’t realize is that struggle has centered in the Rust Belt region of the nation.
The hotbed of a once progressive working class was forced to suffer industrial abandonment in the 1980s due to the ravages of globalization. In the decades that followed, political grifters dressed as representatives ignored budding green technologies for the sweet taste of cash and power, delivered by the fossil fuels industries. Desperate workers in search of purpose, with no other choice for survival, have since gravitated toward ecocide via sustainable employment in natural gas fracking.
The world’s former epicenter of steel production in the Greater Pittsburgh area has now become the main battleground in the long fight to reclaim the nation’s moral progress from the grips of corporate fascism. Evidence of the ideological right-wing shift was recently demonstrated by the Allegheny County Democrats. That party’s establishment embraced an extreme slate of anti-choice, anti-environment, and anti-healthcare candidates during an endorsement meeting in February.
Left to flutter in the political winds, the working class population has been forgotten again, this time with an ecosystem that begs for relief.
THE RUST BELT’S RACE TO COLLAPSE
The Democrats’ despotic endorsements and support of fracking have caught up with the Republican race to ecological collapse. Serving as soulless actors to con the population on behalf of faceless industries, both major political factions have again sold out the people for the interests of power.
While neither the blue or red parties have the fortitude to ensure the health of our people, self-serving legislators have tripped over each other to guarantee billions of dollars in corporate tax giveaways for more fracking and petrochemical processing. The egregious decision to fund the further destruction of the ecosystem will undoubtedly increase the planet’s temperature past the 1.5C and 2C set by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018.
The total disregard for human life has left us with one small political faction to speak for the health of the entire region: the Green Part of Allegheny County.
While local workers at the Cracker Plant in Monaca, PA rightly celebrate their current employment security, it’s hard to ignore the long-term suffering to come. As recently witnessed in Australia’s, Brazil’s, and California’s wildfires, the most vulnerable lives are always cast aside as expendable losses.
FIGHT FOR THE GREEN NEW DEAL
If committed people truly want to save humanity from the brink of destruction, we must empower our communities with the renaissance of American manufacturing found in the Green New Deal. That begins with the dissemination of truth to build an emotional and practical investment in clean energy, worker dignity, and justice.
Knowledge and solidarity have always been the silver bullets to ignorance. Higher understanding provides each of us the tools to curtail the fascist slide into despair. We can then transform our society to meet our energy demands, build a robust economy, and offer good jobs for a healthier future.
Failure to engage and activate enough people in this struggle will lead to a wider class divide. Life expectancy rates will continue to decline. Finally, the impacts of climate change will destroy the ecosystem that sustains organized human life. We simply cannot allow that to happen.
SUPPORT THE FIGHT
Your help in this endeavor is absolutely critical. Nothing in this world is easy, but your devotion to the cause can very well make the difference between progress and human destruction.
Every single one of us has a limitless mind, a soul ready to explore the cosmos, a deep imagination, and a true sense of honor. Together, we must unleash that human power to disseminate the truths that connect our communities.
The time to act is NOW.
Note to Readers: The Greater Pittsburgh area is ground zero in the nationwide struggle to stop the fascist slide into ecocide. I’ve developed a grassroots platform titled Rust Belt Revolution to take on the long fight for environmental, labor, and civil justice. We must raise public consciousness and apply pressure to political and corporate actors to end fracking and usher in the American renaissance of union manufacturing under the Green New Deal. Your support is absolutely required.
Join this fight for popular democracy, for the many, not the few. ▶︎ https://www.patreon.com/RustBeltRevolution
Solidarity forever!
