The Obama catastrophe.

Left: Obama and Robert Rubin, banker, former Goldman Sachs and Citigroup bigwig.

Those of us who run this blog argued in the period of the struggle for the Democratic Party election that the bourgeois wanted Obama over Clinton. We argued that they did so because they saw that Obama would be much easier to bend to their wishes in every way. We never said that Clinton would be anti capitalist just that Obama would be much more malleable. If we go back through history we see times when capitalist politicians took action to insist the capitalists change their policies in order to save capitalism from itself. FDR was one example of this. He actually openly said he was implementing policies to save capitalism from itself. Under pressure from the rising workers militancy which built the CIO and increased the membership of the AFL and saw 100,000 US workers join the Communist Party FDR took his own class by the throat and gave it a good shaking. His own class hated him for it. 

Compare FDR with Obama. Obama kisses the boots of the big capitalist forces, the banks, Wall Street, the health industrial complex, the military industrial complex, I could go on and on. His policies are dictated by these forces. He is a puppet for the big bourgeois. 

This is causing anger in his own liberal base. The New York Times on Thursday third, ran an article on its op ed page dealing with this. Its title was "Roosevelt: the great divider." This explained how Roosevelt decided that capitalism had to be saved from itself by some reforms and he went ahead and brought in these reforms. There was no mealey mouthed efforts to work with the big capitalists and  Republicans, he stated his position, put forward his proposed laws and mobilizing large majorities in the country behind him he rode over the big capitalists and the Republicans.  Obama instead kow tows to and boot licks the big capitalists and the Republicans. He is pleading with the Republicans to help him pass health care and to support his occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Here is what the New York Times had to say about Obama and Roosevelt. In relation to Obama it says: "This fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House how to lead. This was not true of Roosevelt and the Democratic congresses that enacted the New Deal. With the exception of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 which gave the President authority to close the nation's banks which passed the house of representatives unanimously, the principal legislative innovations of the 1930's were enacted over the vigorous opposition of a deepely entrenched minority. Majority rule as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents permission. 

When Roosevelt asked Congress to establish the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide cheap electricity for the impoverished south, he did not consult with utility giants like Commonwealth and Southern. When he asked for the creation of a Securities and Exchange Commission to curb the excesses of Wall Street he did not request the permission of those about to be regulated.  When Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act divesting investment houses of their commercial banking functions, the Democrats did not need the approval of J.P.Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers." 

This article gives many other examples of where Roosevelt took action to curb the excesses of capitalism and to bring in reforms to make capitalism more bearable to the working class and did so over the opposition of the capitalist class and the Republicans. The article says: Roosevelt relished the opposition of the vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favoured the status quo. His opponents hated him - and he profited from their hatred. "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today." he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. "They are unanimous in their hatred of me - and I welcome their hatred." Compare this defiance with Obama's pathetic pleading. 

I need to be clear. Roosevelt was a politician absolutely committed to capitalism. The difference between him and so many other capitalist politicians of the time is he saw that unless capitalism made some concessions its existence would be in danger. He saw the 100,000 members joing the CP, he saw the unions go from 2.6 million in 1929 to 12 million by 1940. He saw the sit in strikes and mass movements. And he knew his class had to make concessions and even though the majority of his class did not want to make concessions he forced them to. At the same time he flattered the union leaders and took the stick to the working class. The Army was used more against workers struggles under Roosevelt than under any other President. 

No I am not saying in any way that Roosevelt was pro the working class.  He was a clear sighted capitalist politician who forced his class to make reforms to avoid a threat to its existence. With the help of the union leaders he undermined the surge of working class struggle of the 1930's. I am just using his approach to illustrate the difference with Obama. Obama is way to the right of Roosevelt. His policies are determined by the Bankers, Wall Street, the health industrial complex, the military industrial complex, and he then takes these policies and tries to sell them to the working class. The Republicans naturally exploit the situation this gives them. They also want policies that the same forces want but they pick at the edges of Obama's policies and mobilize their religious racist base. And Obama has nothing to fight back with as he cannot appeal to workers class interests as he is carrying out the policies of the big monied and military interests. Obama is a weak bourgeois politician with no sense of the period in which we live and with no sense of the depth of the crisis of capitalism and how more serious measures have to be taken. 

We stand for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of a democratic socialist society internationally. To achieve this the Obamas and Roosevelts all have to be replaced by mass working class organizations independent from the capitalist organizations and with an independent democratic socialist program. Obama's method are going to lead to increased fragmentation in US society and increased attacks on the working  class. This can only be avoided by building an independent working class movement on democratic socialist policies. Contact us and help us work for this objective. Sean.