Happy after lunch with the billionaires in SF |
by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Afscme Local 444, retired
So President Obama was here in San Francisco this week meeting with his constituents, not the vast majority of people who vote for him, but the people who bankroll the party that represents their interests and that Obama leads.
He had two do’s Wednesday night, one at Tom Steyer’s house
where 100 people turned up to hand over cash for the party and the other at the
house of another billionaire, Gordon Getty.
Steyer is a coupon clipper worth $1.4 billion according to Forbes.com.
Getty, worth $2 billion, has his money by virtue of being the product of a
union between two folks one of them the oil magnate J Paul Getty.
Steyer is looking to get in to Democratic Party politics
more actively and has been suggested as a candidate for governor. The two events raised more than $3 million
and part of this drive is to get more Democrats in to the House and Nancy
Pelosi returned as speaker. Pelosi, from an established eastern bourgeois
family is the poor one in the crowd worth anywhere from $26 to $58
million. Like all of them though,
Pelosi’s wealth comes from investments, real estate, stuff like that.
It might have been a bit tense at the Steyer’s as Tom is a “…vociferous opponent of the Keystone
Pipeline..”, according to the media. But Steyer won’t make
too much fuss over that. With his eyes
on political prizes, making an issue of the pipeline, by pointing out Obama’s
hedging the issue, would not be useful.
Like a lot of billionaires, Steyer likes to dabble in areas that are of
concern to millions of people but not seriously; at 55 he has high hopes of
playing a major role in the Democratic Party in the period ahead. “He (Obama) is doing everything he can on
the issues that we care about.”, he is quoted in the media as saying, “He has political limitations ----so we
really have an obligation to help him.”
Obama was not shy on climate change but never mentioned the
Keystone Pipeline, he is among friends with the billionaires that finance the
Democratic Party and wants unity. He pointed out that the issue of the temperature of the planet is not the main
concern of most workers, workers main concern is “How do I feed my family” “The politics of this are tough.” Obama
said. They are indeed, and keeping people in a state of debt bondage and in everlasting
insecurity is one sure way of keeping people’s attention focused on the
immediate, necessities food, shelter, health.
His billionaire backers gave him the “most
enthusiastic applause” when he
pointed out the gains that have been made in LGBT rights.
This should come as no surprise, such advances in no way
threaten the interests of the people he is talking to, the class whose
interests the Democratic party represents.
This is not to say this is not an important issue to those who are
denied rights the rest of us have due to their sexual orientation, it is. But we have to clearly see that this and
other issues are used by the parties to avoid the most important issues for all
people regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation etc. and that is
food, shelter, education, a job (including for the immigrant population)
instead of prison, health care, homelessness.
It is comical to hear politicians and supporters of the
other party of the 1% harangue Obama for being, “On billionaire’s row” as a Republican Party ad did. The Republican
Party is funded by the same class that funds the Democrats. After the two SF
billionaires, Obama headed over to the Peninsula to meet with another coupon
clipper that loves the environment, investor Mark Heising. He topped it off
with lunch with Levi Strauss heir, John Goldman, and his wife Marcia. Goldman
is a “philanthropist” apparently. For
billionaires this means giving away other people’s money. You don’t have too look far to see on whose
backs Goldman’s wealth was made.
More often than not I have gotten in to some hot water with
friends who vote Democratic because they are forced because they vote for this
party to defend it. Actually, they shy
away from defending it because it’s impossible to defend it without admitting
it is hostile to workers’ interests and defends the interests of the 1% ; so
they simply omit the party at all when they’re voicing opposition to the
capitalist offensive. It is always the Republicans
that are blamed for the offensive, for cuts in social services, wages, benefits
etc.
This morning (I started this yesterday) I see that Obama has
opened the door to cutting social security benefits if Republicans will agree
to higher taxes. This horse trading is
done under the cloak of shared sacrifice, us and Warren Buffet joining forces
to save capitalism from the abyss. The White House assures us that, "This
isn't about political horse trading……it's about reducing the deficit in a
balanced way that economists say is best for the economy and job
creation."
How
nice of them. Their economic gurus
limited to a perspective based entirely on capitalist economics want what’s
best for the economy, for their economic interests that is. Their interest in jobs, or setting the Labor
process in motion is only if they control it and reap the benefits of it in the
form of profits.
“He who pays the piper
names the tune” as the old adage goes. The Democratic Party heavyweights
Obama spent the last few days with are not the friends of workers and the middle
class. We won’t be hearing loud protests from them on the reducing of social
security benefits which Obama is offering to do by reducing the program's
cost of living increases. They talked about that with him this week in private
and gave him the OK Our youth who are
being driven deeper in to poverty, prison or the streets will not be dragged from the morass
by these people. But it is also not
about Obama as an individual.
A political party does not exist in a vacuum, it represents
forces in society, it is financed by those same forces, inextricably linked to
them and the Democratic Party, like its counterpart across what they call “the aisle” is a party of the capitalist
class. The assault on workers and our
living standards has continued under Democratic and Republican alike, the
difference is a matter of degrees.
The 138 million or so eligible voters that opted out of the
last election are not simply apathetic as many liberals claim. They have drawn
the correct conclusion that neither party represents their interests.
Workers can only rely on our own strength, rely on it here
and by linking with workers throughout the world under attack by the same
forces. There is no way out relying on the generosity of billionaires, even the
trendy ones. Building a united mass
movement in our workplaces, streets and communities using direct action tactics
is what will bring results; is what can drive the austerity agenda back and
build an offensive of our own against capital.
An independent political alternative arising out of such a movement is
the answer to the betrayals and dead end of the Democrats.
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