US PRESIDENT Joe Biden made his first annual State of the Union Address late Tuesday night, opening with an attack on Russia that was clearly designed to unify Republican and Democrats in a war to overthrow president Putin and carry out a regime change.
This was revealed in a completely unscripted call by Biden at the very end of his speech with a clarion call to ‘Go get him’ a clear reference to Putin.
This statement of intent to effect regime change by undermining the Russian economy and ousting Putin was similarly blurted out by UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, who openly stated that: ‘The measures we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime.’
Biden’s address also exploded the myth that all the sanctions being brought on Russian banks and industry are a last minute response to the military action in the Ukraine.
He said: ‘We prepared extensively and carefully. We spent months building a coalition of other freedom-loving nations from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa to confront him.’
His statement that sanctions ‘will sap its (Russia) economic strength and weaken its military for years to come’ was met with wild screams of approval from both Democrats and Republicans.
This great show of unity was undermined by reports in the press that Republicans had been issued with strict instructions to cheer every time Biden attacked Russia.
In his speech, Biden was careful to insist that ‘our forces are not engaged and will not engage in conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine’ and that US forces in Europe are there to ‘defend our NATO allies’ and that the US ‘will defend every inch of territories of NATO countries with the full force of our collective power.’
While Biden was happy to boast that sanctions would strangle the Russian economy he was reluctant to spell out the effects of these sanctions on the US economy. He announced the release of ’60 million barrels’ of oil promising that this ‘will help blunt gas prices at home’, assuring workers that ‘we are going to be OK’.
Despite Biden’s assurances, the fact remains that the price of oil on the global market has soared to over $110 a barrel while the price of wheat and grain has rocketed as a result of Russia, one of the world’s largest producers of these commodities, being sanctioned.
Natural gas prices surged by 50% on Wednesday meaning that workers will face increases on energy, and food bills that will drive them into poverty.
The sanctions on Russia in pursuit of regime change is driving inflation across the world to unheard of highs – but this is the price capitalism intends to inflict on the working class of the US, UK and Europe.
Biden used the second part of his address to try and present himself as the friend of workers saying he would fight inflation by lowering costs not wages.
All Biden’s proposals for lowering costs and creating a high wage economy are worthless, a sop to the trade union leaders in the US to encourage them to hold back the rising tide of strikes from workers who have seen their wages destroyed through inflation.
None of his proposals to increase taxes on the rich and invest in infrastructure stand a chance in getting through the Senate in the face of opposition from Republicans and members of his own Democratic Party, and Biden knows it.
Biden, like Johnson in the UK, is banking on a war against Russia to divert the working class from the real enemy at home – a capitalist system that in its final imperialist stage can only survive through reasserting its domination over the world while waging war on its own working class to make it pay for capitalism’s crisis.
The working class will not passively accept poverty and destitution as the price to keep capitalism going.
The burning issue of the day is not regime change in Russia but system change in the US, EU and the UK – to bring down capitalism through socialist revolutions.
This requires building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International to lead the struggle for the world socialist revolution to victory.
There is not a moment to lose!