with the economy even though there have recently been some very small signs of improvement in this area and in consumer confidence also. Another area of disappointment is Obama's bootlicking of the rich. There is also the chunk of extreme right wing evangelicals who will not vote for Obama. There is the chunk of racists who will not vote for him because he is African American. These will work against him. But in spite of these I still think he will win. However having said this there are also the logistical affects of Frankenstorm to put in the mix.
I am not sure which voters these will most keep from the polls and what polls they will close because they have been wrecked or access to them has been damaged by the storm. These are unknown and unprecedented factors in the coming election and which can affect its outcome. In a way more important than the outcome of the elections is that we are in a new era. The end of the denial of climate change has arrived. This was being kept out of the US capitalist mass media until recently. But in the last 24 to 36 hours the words climate change have actually started to be spoken of on this media. This media would be discredited if it continued its past absolute blatant censorship of climate change in light of Frankenstorm. Discussion of this is likely to have the affect of pushing more support to Obama. Denial of climate change seems now to be peaking or has already peaked. This will have political effects of historic proportions. The survival of life on earth as we know it will be forced onto the agenda, into the mass consciousness. Capitalism and life and earth as we know it will up for discussion. Capitalism will be up for discussion as never before.
To go back to the elections. Until Frankenstorm, the super rich, the 1%, with a few important exceptions did not want Obama re-elected. The Financial sector and the Energy sector especially wanted him defeated. However Frankenstorm has increased the influence of the more conscious sections of the capitalists who see that they have to try to do something about this. Colin Powell, Mayor Bloomberg of New York both Republicans, now endorsing Obama, reflect this.
But while understanding this we should not underestimate the sections of the capitalist class such as the energy and financial sectors. They stole the election for Bush and rigged the country's politics and consciousness so they could go to unpaid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are very capable of attempting to blatantly steal the election from Obama even if he wins it. We should not underestimate these thugs and criminals who still in the main control the state apparatus, the mass media, the mass political parties and in some important states like Ohio even the companies which own the voting machines. Yes there are differences and splits but there are also some powerful forces who would be tempted to try to stop Obama even if it meant fighting in the streets, a further discrediting of their political system and from this a further weakening of their status abroad. However in relation to this last point with their gigantic military, their bases in up to 200 countries they think they cannot be challenged in a serious way internationally. In this as in many other areas US capitalism is vastly over confident.
Even in the next days and weeks some serious further shocks can hit the US and not just the after shocks of Frankenstorm. In relation to Frankenstorm the repercussions of this catastrophe have not been absorbed to even a fraction of their reality. More lies ahead. The enormity of this storm has still to be recognized. And it has still to be fully accepted that there will be increasing numbers of such storms and these will begin to threaten many of the great cities of the US. Think about it, the giant coastal cities such as New York City, New Orleans, Los Angeles and many others, the cities on earthquake fault lines such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, the nuclear power plants built on earthquake fault lines and vulnerable coastal locations. US capitalism has set up US society for one catastrophe after another. The chickens will come home to roost if capitalism continues.
What is US capitalism going to do? Keep its nearly 200 military bases abroad while it moves some of its biggest cities or tries to shore them up? Impossible. Barrel ahead with its eyes shut on the path it is on. Katrina, the oil spill in the Gulf, the mid west drought, the melting of the ice caps in Northern Canada, Frankenstorm, a dramatic change in the planet is already with us. Capitalism faces a life and death challenge. And the working class which is the only class that can take society forward and preserve life on earth as we know also faces a severe challenge.
Trotsky in his time said society was faced with socialism or barbarism. In a slight variant today it is socialism or the destruction of life on earth as we know it.
There are places on earth where there are great ruins of pyramids and other large structures. There is evidence of societies which existed which understood astronomy and other more advanced ways. They were not able to find a way forward and they were reclaimed by the jungles and deserts. There is nothing inevitable about historical progress. If the working class does not take power and build a new democratic socialist society world wide then life on earth as we know it, society as we know it, will be destroyed. It will be destroyed in a cataclysm of climate change, pollution, nuclear war. Human society and life on earth as we know it can be thrown back. This is the era in which we exist. Avoiding this is the task of all of us. Contact us on this blog to work collectively to this end.
Sean.
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