A long uphill slog

The New York Times calls the Obama trip to South East Asia a "long uphill slog." The more important capitalist paper the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 19th) has a few things to say also. The headline of its article on Obama's trip is: "Obama hits a wall on his visit to China." No ambiguity there. It describes a US leader who "left the impression he was frustrated and powerless." It went on:"Obama's trip here signaled a turning point in relations between a weakened US power and a China that senses its time has come, as the president was hectored about economic policy, largely ignored on human rights and restricted in his efforts to reach out to ordinary Chinese." And: "China has emerged from the global economic crisis strengthened in its role as international banker, its economy powering ahead and its cash rich companies prowling for opportunities from Africa to Australia. In the summary way that Beijing dismissed Mr. Obama's entreaties on a range of subjects close to his presidency, China sent a strong signal that it believes the relationship has been profoundly altered. " As we have argued before on this blog this changing relationship between the weakening US Imperialism and strengthening China will affect all our lives. The last time the world's number one power, then Britain, was replaced by another, the US, the process took place accompanied by fascism, world war, revolutions and counter revolutions. US Imperialism will not give up its number one position without a struggle of the most extreme intensity. The US working class will see its standards reduced dramatically as US capitalism looses its economic power and its wealth. Nowhere more than in the US will the coming change in world power relations be felt.

We have also argued on this blog that US capitalism is in an economic, military and political crisis. We think the economic crisis is there for all to see. The military crisis is becoming more obvious by the day. They cannot decide what to do in Afghanistan but it seems clear that they cannot withdraw and they cannot win. Even Karzai defies them with his refusal to take on his own corrupt entourage as he thinks the US have no alternative. This contradiction unfolds as the US military itself weakens and becomes more crisis ridden by the day. The number of soldier suicides is rising to record heights.

Recently we have seen young US soldiers in extreme distress over the role they played in Afghanistan and Iraq, the killings they took part in. I was reminded of a mother who was interviewed during the Vietnam war about her son who had taken part in atrocities and who cam back severely damaged. In the most powerful phrase she said about the government and military of the time. "I gave them a good boy and they gave me back a murderer."

The US is stuck propping up an utterly corrupt regime in Afghanistan. It is becoming involved in a war in Pakistan. The election it sought in Iraq is in danger of being postponed again with the veto of the new election law in the last couple of days. This election law was to lead to an election and under this cover was to let US troops be reduced. This has now become more difficult.

And of course the US is in political crisis. Its two capitalist parties cannot pass a health care bill with even the most meagre reforms. The backwardness of the Republican base, the division between its two parties and within its two parties, the low level of its political representatives, all combine to leave it dealing with its economic and military crises with political instruments entirely inadequate for the task.

The assault on health care reform goes on. It is interesting to see how this stacks up against other reforms in the past. The mass capitalist media screams that health care reform will be "the beginning of socialized medicine." The Wall Street Journal editorial says it would lead to "deteriorating service," profit addicted business groups claim that reform would lead to Washington bureaucrats "invading the examination room" and patients would lose their "freedom to choose their own doctor."

These claims would be familiar to all of us. They are what we hear every day. Or are they? These quotes are from the assault of the corporate profit mad class against medicare in the 1960's. Fifty years ago.

Go even further back. Franklin D Roosevelt's call for social security was called a "socialist program that would compete with private insurers and add to Americans' tax burden so as to kill jobs." A Republican from new York, Daniel Reed, said that with social security would come the "lash of the dictator." Another Republican, John Taber, said social security would "enslave workers."

When the battle for medicare was on in the 1960's it also was denounced as "socialism, a plan for bureaucrats to make medical decisions, as a way to ration health care." The American Medical Association, terrified their obscene income from the health industry might be reduced said a "deterioration in the quality of care was inescapable." and that for doctors to cooperate would be to be "complicity in evil."

The people and forces who made this propaganda were liars. Their equivalent today are also liars. They are lying to keep their wealth and power. Look at medicare. Life expectancy for people who have reached 65 has risen significantly. Where are all these liars and their organizations today. Are they calling for medicare to be abolished. Remember they predicted it would be a catastrophe when it was brought in. Of course not. These people accept that the political cost to them to try and do away with medicare would be too great. Too many older people want to keep medicare and too many of them vote.

But should the young people not have the same universal coverage as the older people? Of course they should. A John Hopkins study shows that hospitalized children who are uninsured are 60% more likely to die than those with insurance, presumably because they are less likely to get preventative care and to be taken to the doctor immediately. The study suggested that every year some 1,000 children die because they have no health insurance.

This is almost three times as many children who died since 9/11 from having no insurance as the total number of people who died on 9/11. 9/11 gave the excuse for the so-called war on terror, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the mobilization of the country's resources for war. What a slaughter and waste. The deaths of all these children because they have no insurance, if we lived in any kind of a decent society, if the politicians represented working people and not the profit addicted corporations, would result in an all out war against poverty and for universal health care free at the point of use for all and the transformation of society to where all would have a decent living standards and control over their lives. This would be a democratic socialist society.

We need to remember as we have explained in this blog before. If we are to understand what is going on around us today, if we are to intervene in these events. Then we have to have a sense of history. We have to know our history.

Join us in learning our history. Join us in building an alternative.

Sean.