Let's Consider Whose Interest is Best Served by Promoting the The Tea Party Crowd in the Media

A regular reader of this blog Gary has asked:

"When will the workers in the US rise up in mass protest?"

I think there are a number of things involved here.  Firstly, there is no doubt that the militant traditions and history of the working class in this country have been driven out of memory.  Most workers would never have heard of the Ludlow strike, the great 1877 uprising, Lawrence 1912 or historic moments like these. They would never have heard of ED Nixon, the sleeping car porter and trade Unionist who played such an important role in the early days of the civil rights movement.

Ask anyone if they are aware that the working class controlled the city of Seattle for five days or that there were three general strikes in 1934 with 40,000 on the streets of Minneapolis battling with the police, or that hundreds of thousands occupied factories that terrified the US capitalist class and you get a look of bewilderment on their faces.

People rarely consider that  the social legislation and progressive laws that are aimed at protecting our rights were enacted in response to periods of mass action like the thirties or the civil rights movement, they were rights already taken in the streets so to speak.

It is hard to say when a major movement will arise, but arise it will; the working class will fight to defend its interests. In the eighties there were a series of major strikes that attempted somewhat to drive back the employer's offensive but they were all defeated with the help of the trade Union leadership, Hormel, Greyhound, Teamsters, Eastern Airlines, then you had the Staley struggle and the Pittston strike in the nineties when the miners occupied the pits. The heads of organized Labor don't bring the young people this message as their role was so destructive.

So I would say that one of the main reasons we haven't more resistance, or more open resistance is the role that the heads of organized Labor play, they consciously hold back any movement from below as they have the same world view as the employers, as capitalists, they support the market and see no alternative to it.  Of course, as a secondary factor there are all the perks and the obscene salaries that the Union leaders get. Also, we have had no national mass workers party here which is one of the reasons we have some of the worst benefits in the industrial democracies; this is another development that will arise as a mass movement develops.

Another factor to be honest is the left, activist and radical groupings of one sort or another. There are thousands of people in this country who belong to these groupings and are simply opposed to or openly against capitalism but they are more concerned with building their own small organizations and competing with other groups for influence in order to do this, they also play a role in holding back, and in some cases derailing movements that arise. Some of them are completely in tow with the trade Union leadership and others are unable to function within the workers movement and vegetate on the edges of it; either way, many of them are isolated from the working class and incapable of connecting to the consciousness that exists.

I also think that we need to be careful about giving the Tea Party crowd more credit than they are due.  We have to consider who brings us the news.  There are a tiny handful of news outlets and control the information in the mass media and the Tea Party is useful for them. You only have to read the capitalist press of other nations to see how censored and controlled the US mass media is.  In Britain, two national daily papers, the Independent and the Mirror, came out against the Iraq war.  Could you imagine the hullaballoo had that happened here?  I have the utmost respect for the Dixie Chicks for their stand and look what happened to them.

We never hear in this country of the massive struggles that are taking place all over the world.  There was a strike against increasing the retirement age in France this week, the bosses were quite pleased that only a million or two came out which was slightly less than the last time. There have been mass strikes in South Africa, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, India (100 million there).  In Latin America we have seen left governments elected and major struggles developing there. Rather than bring us our own history and the history of worker's struggles internationally, the heads of organized Labor spend hundreds of millions of dollars supporting the Democratic Party (huge recipients of Goldman Sachs money)  and the politicians that are destroying our living standards. Given their role, I think it is likely that major movements will arise first outside these traditional organizations but they will be engulfed buy them and their role I think will be pivotal.

In the US there are groupings all over the country that are fighting back in one way or another from the Moratorium Now group in Michigan to the student movement here in California and nationally.  There have been hundreds of universities around the world occupied by students protesting cuts in public education.

Here in California there was a considerable student campaign earlier this year and it will no doubt heat up against as the cuts continue, another day of action is called for on October 7th.  And in May 2006 one million people were on the streets around the country.  The Democrats and Union leaders were involved in this in order to suck it in to the Democratic Party orbit but it was till a significant event.

In all these instances though, the leaders of the 14 million strong organized Labor movement refused to involve their members and join in the struggle.  They invariably, though not always, support such activities on paper but that's all, in action they hold the movement back. In politics, they support politicians who are anti-worker and anti-Union as well. Becasue of their role a great deal of confusion exists in minds of the working class.

So these are some of the factors I think that have helped to retard any movement from below arising in opposition to the capitalist offensive. But at some time this wall will be breached.  It's unfortunate but we don't always get to choose the battlefield on which the war is fought.

I think we have to be careful as while we cannot predict events, the mood is such in my opinion that there are potential explosions everywhere.  The anger beneath the surface of US society is considerable and will not be contained forever.  As I write, I am reminded of a recent poll that found over 30% of Americans are favorable to socialism.

This is incredible given that there is no significant force in society arguing and campaigning for it and their mass media if it mentions it at all it is always in a negative light, equating it with totalitarianism like the Stalinist regime in the old Soviet Union.

These are some of my immediate thoughts in response to Gary's question. I wanted to respond under comments but I need to figure out how to increase the limit on words.