Is Ron Paul the fresh air in a polluted political environment?

Labor peace too, on the bosses' terms

I have met quite a few young workers who are attracted in some way or another to the ideas of Ron Paul, the Libertarian Republican politician.  Politics in the US is a barren landscape with only about 40% of the electorate turning out for last year's elections, so those who do feel compelled to participate in the process can be drawn even to right wing anti-Union candidates like Paul.

It seems that the issues that appeal to these young folks are issues that appeal to most of us, an opposition to the US wars and opposition to Wall Street and the corporations, he is, as a young friend just remarked to me, the only politician that is standing up for anything.  Paul seems like the only sane voice when it comes to Iran for example correctly warning of the catastrophe that would follow such an attack with the Strait of Hormuz being closed and gas climbing to $8 or $10 a gallon.  The entire Middle East will explode. Attacking Iran would be "a disaster,” he warns.

There is, "no U.N. evidence" that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program, and that claims by the Obama administration and  others is"war propaganda." “It is still totally bewildering to me when I see men and women in the Congress that I know and like doing this just to get along." Paul says,  "Most of them will say ‘I agree with you on all you say but the Iranians are bad people and they might attack us some day. . . . I hear members of Congress saying if we could only nuke them.’” 

Paul also calls for abolishing the Federal Reserve which resonates with a lot of young people and others who are foes of Wall Street and the banks.  Evangelical Christians are wary of him on the other hand as they consider his views on the Middle East a threat to the security of Israel.  These Christian Zionist have no time for Jews.  Their support for Israel is based on their faith that Jesus will be landing there in the not too distant future and they want to be there to greet him and head on up to heaven.  If the Jews want to convert and renounce their religion which denies that Jesus is god, they will rot in hell for all eternity with that apostate Lucifer as head man.

Paul's views on workers' rights are clear, we shouldn't have any.  Yes you can join a Union.  But you have no right to force your will on an business.  He is a supporter of right to work states like Texas where he's from and blames high Union wages in the US north for the loss of jobs and the influx of jobs in to Texas and other right to work states where the environment is more business friendly. Texas has no income or corporate tax he claims.

He couches his pro-corporate views on Union rights by saying that the government shouldn't interfere and codify in law basically what workers have won through struggle. This is "artificial power" he says and the government should not interfere in the competitive struggle between capital and Labor. "The Union wage is and artificial wage mandated by the federal government under the NLRB" and is unconstitutional he argues. It wouldn't occur to Paul that any pro-worker legislation is the result of struggles in the streets----the battles over the years between capital and Labor.  The legislation written in the thirties that we still enjoy today was written as workers were occupying their workplaces in the hundreds of thousand and general strikes occurred in three US cities. The same with the civil rights legislation that came out of the 50's and 60's. The politicians merely codify what has already been won on the ground and then claim credit for it.

Paul has written or amended legislation that prevents government surveillance of "peaceful" first amendment activities, the introduction of national ID  numbers and other measures that appear on the surface to protect people's rights.  The issue is that all these practices are OK as long as they are not effective, just like forming workers' organizations, it's OK if they're not effective.  The NLRB should not interfere with business and the state "shouldn't pass laws that inhibit business decisions." Paul argues, but when it comes to the so-called free competition between workers and employers that government should stay out of I am sure he doesn't oppose laws that protect business rights or using the police and the courts (a very prominent arm of the government)  to "interfere" and crush strikes when workers appear to be gaining the upper hand in these struggles. 

As for a woman's right to an abortion he has no problem using the law and government interference to make sure they can't get one, not legally anyway. As president he has pledged to veto any legislation repealing Roe versus Wade. But isn't that government interference?

The reason that a pro-corporate anti-worker politician like Paul can get an echo at all is the absence of a mass working people's political party in the US that would change the political landscape and the nature of the debates. The blame for this situation lies primarily with the heads of organized Labor who have at their command tremendous resources in terms of money, structure and human power.  My former Union, AFSCME, has almost 4000 locals and numerous state and regional councils and turned out 40,000 volunteers for the big business candidate Mondale in the 1980's. The AFL-CIO has about 1000 state councils.  Organized Labor in the US could have its own TV channels, its own papers, its own party; it can win strikes instead of ensuring their defeat.  But the heads of these potentially powerful organizations support and propagate the views that workers and bosses have the same interests, that we must help the boss make profit, help our own individual employers, or national employers globally, compete and drive their rivals from the marketplace---market share is the business term that the Union officials have adopted from the employers.

This view is also used to justify organized Labor's leadership support for the Democrats, the other Wall Street Party that Labor officials have donated a few billion dollars of our hard earned dues money to over the years.  The Team Concept it is called----- the Team Concept on the job and in politics.
The tragic consequences of this is that the Labor leaders are pretty much silent on all major issues.  The ideology of the capitalist class and their solutions to their problems dominate the media and the airwaves and have a powerful effect on mass consciousness.  This has been negated to a certain extent by the Occupy Wall Street movement that has put the bankers and speculators on the defensive somewhat and forced some of the politicians in the two Wall Street Parties to make some pro-worker rhetoric.

To any worker entering or thinking about politics for the first time, Ron Paul can seem like a breath of fresh air in this polluted political landscape.  But so does a poison well in the desert at first glance.  The conclusion we must draw is the need to build an independent mass workers' political alternative, rooted in the workplaces and working class communities and struggles.  This is an idea that unfortunately the Occupy Wall Street movement generally rejects due to the ideological opposition to it among many influential players in that movement.

The price will have to paid to learn that lesson.