Democrat/Republican political charade almost over in California

In November of last year California voters passed proposition 25 which allows legislators to pass a budget with a simple majority vote as opposed to the two thirds as long as the budget is passed by the constitutional deadline which is today. If they fail to pass the budget by the deadline, legislators lose their pay----permanently.

Well whaddya know; the Democrats have come up with an alternative budget that doesn’t need Republican support and can be passed by a simple majority; it is expected to pass today, just in time. As is always the case, working people have no independent voice in the political sphere in the US so the only options on the electoral table for filling California’s remaining $9.6 billion deficit and overcoming the general crisis of capitalism are:
(a) massive cuts in wages and benefits for public sector workers and cuts in social services as well as raising taxes on workers and the middle class or,
(b) no increase in taxes and more massive cuts in social services and workers’ jobs, wages and benefits.

So we had the plan of Linda Ronstadt’s former boyfriend, organic urban farming advocate, political chameleon and candidate of organized Labor’s ruling strata, Jerry Brown. Then we had the Republican opposition’s plan which was very similar but with no tax increases and increased cuts (b) to offset that. And now the Democratic Party machine has come up with an alternative.

Don’t get too excited because all that has happened is that the final scene of this political farce is almost over. One wing of the Wall Street Party threatens massive attacks,  the governor who is in the other wing of the Wall Street Party offers the same in his role as governor but slightly milder dependent on tax increases. On the basics, there is no disagreement between these two positions----the working class must pay for the crisis of capitalism.

Under these scenarios the actors introduce a third alternative as saviors of the people. The Democrats will drop the idea of extending the taxes that were temporary and are due to expire and instead offer a plan that will delay funding to schools already savaged by budget cuts, implement further cuts above those already implemented, and raise certain fees. This is the Party of the workers apparently; the party that top Labor officials in the state endorse. This game is played in Labor disputes as well as in the political arena. One section of the capitalist class threatens catastrophe, in response, public proclamations are made about how terrible this is and what it means for the average American by other sections of the capitalist class who champion workers and the poor. Then,  and brilliant sketches are written and performed to convince us of the seriousness of the combatants. The fleeing of Wisconsin Democrats across state lines should win the Oscar next year. Best director, best sketch, best actor and best comedy.

In the end those Americans who bother to participate in the electoral process accept the least harmful of many evils. The stage has been set, the game over until next year. But the Wall Street crowd, the bankers the hedge fund managers, speculators and others that brought us this mess have been served well by their political representatives. Their interests have been protected the burden is where it belongs.

The Democratic budget that will most likely pass includes:

$3 billion due K-12 and community colleges delayed until 2012-13 fiscal year (unless things don’t get better)
$500 million promised schools delayed
$1 billion in early childhood education funds shifted to general fund
University of California and Cal State University systems cut $150 million each on top of the $1 billion cut in March and $500 million cut earlier this year by the legislature. It maintains the option to delay an additional $245 million to UC
Selling public property to private industry

These are the only choices in the electoral arena for US workers. In the struggle between Democrats and Republicans that has taken place over the last few months over which section of the class they hit hardest (usually the unorganized, the disabled, the poor, people of color) and the distribution of the cuts, the issue that unites them both is that it is workers and the middle class that will pay.

Brown’s alternative was held up by the Democrats inability to get four Republican’s to join them and support it. It shows the turmoil a mass workers' party would throw in to this mix. At the moment, the capitalist class has a monopoly; they have in fact a dictatorship over US political life. No matter what, their candidates get elected.

It stresses the importance of building a mass workers’ political party that has the ability to change the balance of class forces. A genuine, independent mass party based on workers organization, our communities and neighborhood groups as well as the youth and students would mean that the strategists of capital every election time would have to consider, “what do we do if they all vote for them.” This is the case no matter that the program of such a party would be a reformist one, would not be socialist although it might have elements of that in it. The point is that such a party gives us a political place to fight, to campaign on issues outside of the strictly economic questions of wages hours and working conditions etc.  We learn through struggle, both economic and political. A political party governs. The Unions are reformist and their leadership partners with capitalism but the bosses would still like to rid society of them because of who is in them.

An independent workers' party would undoubtedly transform consciousness and the political life of the country. Whenever we are in movements and campaigns and we have an opportunity and resources to run candidates for local bodies based on such campaigns and rooted in them, we should do so. The left have missed many opportunities to do this due to left sectarianism, putting the interests of their group ahead of the interests of the movement as a whole.  We cannot vote capitalism out of office, but elections are times when we can get the ear of many workers and explain alternatives to the status quo and raise alternative economic and political ideas. It is a tactic that can assist the building of a genuine mass movement and mass workers party that can lead to the transformation of society. The Democratic President Barack Obama is expected to raise more than $1 billion to get re-elected in 2012.  This is not a democracy.

Instead of campaigning to get Democrats elected in the aftermath of the Wisconsin events, it was the perfect time to run candidates of our own opposed to Democrats, not based on two demands that threatened Union officials’ jobs, but around demands that meet people’s needs and make the rich and corporations pay. Out of this a national mass movement and political alternative could have begun.

There will be many more opportunities like this ahead.