Corporate dictatorship ruins the gulf.

Just about everybody in the US is talking or thinking about what is happening in the gulf with the oil spill catastrophe. There are lessons here for socialists. In the old days we would have tended to explain that this proved the need for nationalization under workers control and management and a democratic plan etc. and left it at that. I do not have anything against this being in our program, in fact I feel it has to be. But if this is all socialists say then I think we would be irrelevant to any discussion. We would not connect with the consciousness of the masses. We would not be implementing the transitional method in an effective way. We would simply be stating a position without any regard to where the consciousness is at and also without regard to the powerful yearning within the working class majority for a democratic system and democratic norms.

Some of us on this blog have discussed the need to give more emphasis to the idea that only socialism can bring democracy. I think this is correct and something that most of us, including myself, did not emphasize enough in the past. In relation to the present oil catastrophe what is so obvious and seen by a mass audience is that the oil companies bought the politicians, that the oil companies and the big corporations own the politicians and the political system. This includes in particular the regulatory bodies. This provides a great opportunity and also responsibility for socialists.

The New York Times castigated Obama in its Saturday May 29th edition. He had said that "Where I was wrong was in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst case scenarios." The article went on: "With all due respect to the president, who is a very smart man, how is it possible for anyone with any reasonable awareness of the non stop carnage that has accompanied the entire history of giant corporations to believe that the oil companies, which are amongst the most rapacious players on the planet, somehow had "their act together," with regard to worst case scenarios."

And the New York Times again: "The oil companies and other giant corporations have a stranglehold on American policies and behaviour.......There is an unholy alliance that includes not only the oil companies but the entire spectrum of giant corporations that have used vast wealth to turn democratically elected officials into handmaidens, thus undermining not just the day to day interests of the people but the very essence of democracy itself."

So what are the lessons if any? I feel that we have to have front and center of our program a democratic alternative to the corporate control of the system, as we put it in Facts For Working People, we have to stand against the dictatorship of capitalism.

First I think we need to have demands that direct attention to the way the corporations control the system and which suggest ways to end this. For example all lobbying of politicians should be a criminal offense. That nobody can work in regulatory bodies who has worked in private industry or vice versa. Once you have worked in a regulatory body you cannot work in the private sector and vice versa. Any money from any corporation to any politician is a criminal offense.

Along with this we need to put more emphasis on the mass media. I am not sure how to work this out. The internet helps of course but still the privately owned profit driven mass media plays a huge role. I think we should advocate taking all mass TV and radio outlets out of private hands. I think we should advocate that there can be no ads on any media. We should raise the idea of separate elections for access to the mass media that in all elections all candidates must have access to the mass media based on sample polls in advance. These are a few ideas but there will i am sure be better ones. The main issue is to move towards democratizing the mass media.

The main point I am getting at here is that I feel that once again the left in general are missing the opportunity and responsibility to give guidance and to win more of a base out of the gulf catastrophe because they are not starting where the consciousness is at and part of correcting this is to make the democratic issues more central.

Some here in the US might object that the trade unions lobby also and contribute to politicians and political campaigns and such steps would weaken the unions politicking. The answer to this is simple. The working class has hundreds of millions of people to mobilize in political struggle compared to the tiny human forces of the bourgeois. Labor presently and stupidly plays the game on bourgeois terms, that is in cash and lobbying terms. It allows the bourgeois to use its vast wealth and control of the mass media to dominate, rather than forcing the game on to labor's own turf, that is mass organizing, in the factories, in the streets, in the schools and colleges, where the masses numbers are decisive. Of course we will be democratic and allow the bourgeois to mobilize its resources in terms of people but not dominate through its money.

Sean