USA The left and democratic demands

Here in the US in Michigan and other states the US bourgeois are moving to replace elected representatives with financial dictators who can overrule all decisions and contracts in their effort to deal with deficits without hitting the rich and the corporations. As far as I can see a similar process is on the way in Europe where in Greece a fascist has been put in charge of the country's finances. He is now called a technocrat.

I have recently come to the conclusion that a serious mistake made by the left in the US is inattention to the bourgeois democratic process and to raising democratic demands. Such as raising demands for an end to money in politics whatever way we would pose this, an end to the gerrymandered electoral system which among other things gives the same number of Senators (2) to a state with 30 million voters such as California to a state with one million, and an end to the electoral college. The apartheid government in South Africa said it would settle for a system like that in the US. That is how undemocratic it is here. I am not talking here about agitating about how undemocratic the US system is but about formulating actual demands aimed at showing a way that this could be attacked.

The OWS movement is raising this issue of democracy in a general way as it highlights the 1% - 99% idea and that the 1% owns the politicians and political system. I believe that the bourgeois will push ahead with removing the elected representatives here in the US in the towns and cities and states and try and force their cuts through in this way. I believe we will have mass uprisings as they do this. They are talking about doing this in Detroit just now. Already they have done it in a number of Michigan cities, cities which include between them 50% of the African American population of the state. This country is going to blow up.

The left and activist movement should realize that democratic demands are a necessary part of their program , of course linked to the demands for an end to the dictatorship of capitalism. In the small city where I live there is a city council and every meeting is televised. There is never any protests or organized opposition or organized alternative at these events. This is changing in other parts of the country and will in my opinion become part of the political life of towns and cities and states all over the country. We have already seen this in Wisconsin and Ohio. This front should of course be linked to the mass direct action helping people stay in their homes and preventing foreclosures and firings and cuts in wages and conditions.

Sean.