I have often gotten in to heated discussions with friends who accuse the millions of Americans who don’t vote as being apathetic or that they don’t care about what happens in the world. “You can’t complain if you don’t vote.” they often say. They are wrong on all accounts.
The democratic rights and social gains made over the years have been won through mass action and bitter struggle, not through the ballot box. The willingness to violate laws that were written by the rich and powerful in order to maintain their status is what brings change. The mass strikes of the 19th century, the factory occupations of the 1930’s and the sit-downs during the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s; this is what won the rights and social protections that we have today. What were announced in public proclamations by opportunistic politicians and then written in to law, were done so reluctantly and after these rights were won in the streets and workplaces.
This does not mean that we should never vote. We can vote for initiatives or referendums, or small parties whose program speaks to our needs. The right to vote itself was also won through struggle and we should defend it. If we don’t take advantage of the rights we have won we lose them. This does not mean they are adequate and that the struggle for freedom stops there. We need a party of our own, independent of the corporate parties.
In the US at the moment there is no real choice for working people to vote for. There is no mass party of the working class that could also win the support of the middle class and we are left with one big business party with two wings, the Democrats and Republicans. On the major issues affecting working people, these two parties have no significant differences; the interest of the bankers, financiers, and industrialists, in other words, the capitalist class, will be defended and the corruption that is rampant will continue.
The rhetoric from President Obama and the cult of the personality that dominates US politics does not change this. Republicans and Democrats are making workers and the middle class pay for this crisis. Today’s San Francisco Chronicle reports on the California budget crisis and this unholy alliance between these two parties of capital is clear as a bell. State legislators and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s millionaire governor, “seek common ground”, the headline reads. Why would a political party that claims to represent the interests of workers and the middle class seek common ground with a politician whose policies destroy the living standards, rights and social gains that workers have won through years of struggle?
Obviously they are all in agreement.
The article makes this very clear. “The Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers” the article points out, “have been unable to agree on how much to slash spending on popular services such as health care for the state’s more than 900,000 children the welfare-to-work-program for single mothers and California’s in-home support services for the elderly and disabled.” (My added emphasis).
They don’t disagree that those who are the victims of this crisis should be savaged further; they only squabble over the amount. “California residents are going to feel a reduction in services---there’s just no way around that.” Noreen Evans, a Democratic state assembly member, budget chair and advocate for California’s wine industry assures the bankers.
And the Democrats have a majority in both houses as they did nationally during the Carter administration and the first two years of the Clinton administration. What’s more, the label “popular” ranks these services up there with an American Idol contestant, they’re just “popular”. But these services are life saving. They are necessities and should be a given in a civilized society.
The severity of the cuts and even the threat of them amount to economic terrorism designed to terrify us in to submission. And to cap it all, there is the absurd situation with the banks that threatened to reject California’s IOU’s. Bill Lockyer, the state Treasurer and a Democrat was desperate as he needed time to “borrow from Wall Street to avoid a cash crunch.” According to the SF Chronicle (6-24-09) “Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a personal overture to the heads of America’s largest banks to persuade them to accept the IOUs being issued by California in lieu of cash.” says today’s Financial Times. Bank of America and Wells Fargo have decided to accept them. How nice of them. B of A, received $45 billion from the US taxpayer, Wells Fargo $25 billion. In all, the US government has allotted some $11.4 trillion of taxpayer’s money to bail out capitalism. (Wall Street Journal 6-13-09) We have the absurd situation where the government hands over our money to the banks because the private sector is on a capital strike, and then they lend this money to us so we can educate our children; provide (very limited) health care to those who need it most and other such necessities that make society function.
The best democracy money can buy.
The low voter turn out in the US is not due to apathy. It is not because Americans don’t care. It is because they have drawn the conclusion that the politicians are corrupt and that voting changes very little. The choice is death on Thursday from Republicans or on Friday from Democrats. Why bother?
The problem is not that all politicians are corrupt, although many of them are; we live in a corrupt society. The problem is that we have no choices except to vote every four years for one of Warren Buffett or Bill Gates’ candidates; they are defending their class interests. Politics is life; it is not simply sticking a piece of paper in a ballot box every four years. An important and necessary step that must be taken if we are to reverse this process is the building of an independent mass party of the working class; a party in which we can be active, build and determine policy. When an American worker says they are a Democrat or Republican it means they vote this way; they are generally not active in these parties.
Politics is about working to build such a party, but a party of this type will arise as workers are forced to take action to defend our interests and this will have a dramatic effect in the US political arena. It will end big business’ monopoly of US political life through the Republican and Democratic parties and, each election cycle, instead of ensuring that one capitalist party or another will be in the position to plunder society, their strategists will have to take in to account what to do if the working class chooses to vote our own candidates.
It will change the balance of forces.
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