Kavanaugh, Supreme Court and US Capitalism's Growing Crisis.

They forced Flake to do what he did.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Myself and other supporters of this blog have argued that the unprecedented political developments in the United States over the past few years reflect a crisis of historical proportions. We are witnessing a period that is the beggining of the end of the two capitalist party domination of US political life. This has been taking place over time as millions of American citizens have refused to participate in the electoral process, correctly recognizing that their material well being, their standard of living, continue to decline. But we are in a new phase here.

I have written many times that one of the major factors in the rise of Trump is the cowardly role of the labor hierarchy, the heads of the AFL-CIO and the 14 million members so I will not repeat that in detail here.

Each week, or every day, there are more revelations about the corrupt, deviant and crude individual that occupies the US White House. The present occupant, a serial sexual abuser, is so odious and reviled by any decent human being that politicians that were once favorite topics for scorn and ridicule are being held up as positive figures. The imbecile George W Bush comes to mind as does the war criminal and Goldman Sachs candidate, Hillary Clinton. Obama accelerated the drone assassinations and became known as the Deporter in Chief, but he sounds so nice, so cultured. So are the English bourgeois when they need be.

The gathering at John McCain’s funeral of many of the more recent Wall Street politicians, some efficient killers themselves and Trump’s absence from it, reflect the deep divisions opening up within sections of the US ruling class. There is such desperation among ordinary folk that institutions like the FBI and the murderous CIA whose role in history has been to spy, punish, torture, and generally ensure the US working class and other oppressed sections of society know their station in life are seen a saviors from the Predator in Chief and his cronies. Who would have thought people would turn to these anti-union, anti-worker agencies as the only hope to save democracy.

As we always say on this forum, Trump and the more overconfident and less strategic sectors of the bourgeois have intensified the capitalist offensive against the US working class. Trump is laying the “Whip of the Counterrevolution” on the backs of the working class. He is driving back all the protections, the gains, the advances workers and specially oppressed sections of the working class have made over the last 100 years. Coupled with this, and perhaps the most important aspect of Trump’s rule, is that his actions are severely weakening the institutions of capitalism, the courts, the police, the judiciary and so on.

His misogyny, racism, xenophobia and crude behavior, even his idiocy, is acceptable. But by weakening the institutions of capitalism that are supposed to offer some redress from its excesses he is forcing the movement against the capitalist offensive in to the streets. The more strategic sectors of the US bourgeois are aware of this and concerned by it. Trump is going too far too fast. It is for this reason they were aghast when he said in the debates that he may not abide by the election results if he were to loose. Sacrilege! If he can violate the sanctity of bourgeois elections so can we.

The latest theater around one of the predator’s co-thinkers and his nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanagh, is threatening the highest legislative body in the nation. The Supreme Court has an almost divine mythology around it much like the old Divine Right of Kings in Feudal times or the gods that watched Jason and the Argonauts from the heavens in the epic film of the same name.  “We can’t have a liar on the Supreme Court” some said of Kavanaugh.  What! Being willing to lie is a pre-condition for getting on to the Supreme Court. It’s a Supreme capitalist court. Its job is to defend the system from the working class, to throw legal obstacles up to prevent the working class from imposing its will on society. Just think of the bias in society. I had to send some information to a government office once, it might have been a passport. I had to have it signed by a respected member of the community. The examples were doctor, lawyer, judge, managerial civil servant etc. No truck drivers, welders, cashiers of admin clerks. Workers are only respected when they need cannot fodder to defend their profits.

Those politicians who are now offering themselves as the anti-Trump represent the more strategic sectors of the US capitalist class. Trump is feeding the already existing anger in society while shutting down any acceptable outlet. The more serious of them watch that video of the two women that confronted kavanaugh at the elevator and recognize that if this continues there will be millions more doing this, they know working class history. And most of all they cannot stop the incredible rise of woman in opposition to patriarchy, inequality, lack of opportunity, physical violence/sexual violence of the Weinstein/Trump/Kavanaugh nature.

According to a USAToday survey 94% of women who work in Hollywood have experienced, “Unwanted sexual comments and groping. Propositioning women. Exposing themselves. Coercing women into having sex or doing something sexual. And, especially pertinent to showbiz, forcing women to disrobe and appear naked at an audition without prior warning.” Along with the changed situation with regards to women, we have another institution of capitalism, the Catholic Church also in a dire crisis related to sexual crimes and worse, covering them up.

Crispin Sartwell, a philosophy professor at Carlisle College Pa. Points out in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that, “The basic problem isn’t that people don’t trust institutions, but that the institutions aren’t trustworthy.” The professor is correct but does not see the dangers in the same way the more strategic thinking bourgeois do as it is not likely he sees the working class as a force for change at all. He adds, “The situation is more dire than most believe. The decline in trust suggests a widespread moral decline among the leadership class. It’s getting to the point that all powerful people are suspect.”

We must not underestimate the crisis level that exists among the ruling class in the US. Capitalism needs these institutions to give the illusion of control----election for the people by the people---and all that and if you are wronged there is an outlet. But Trump and the right wing overconfident bourgeois that support him are closing all the official means through which victims of capitalism’s wrongs can find redress forcing people to seek results by other means. It was Martin Luther King who pointed out to Mike Wallace that, “…..we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard.”

The women’s movement will not be shuttered or silenced. Do not underestimate the fear that those two women confronting Kavanaugh in the elevator drove in to the heart of the ruling class in this country. Do not give Kavanaugh credit; the credit is not his to have. As the movement is forced in to the streets, it will not be Madonna, Oprah or Scarlett Johansson, millionaires and celebrities that will be leading that movement but working class women. It will be women like those that played leading roles in the recent teachers struggles. This movement, striking in states where strikes are illegal, has also put the fear of god in the minds of the ruling class as well as the hierarchy atop organized labor.

I wrote after the so- called Supreme Court gave Janus a victory over Afscme, Don't Panic Over Janus. The Supreme Court is Not Ours The fight over Kavanaugh, no matter who wins it, is a plus for us. If he gets on it, the sanctity of this gang of capitalist judges is undermined and it is undermined if he doesn’t

Those that follow our blog, Facts For Working People, may have read this but this article below (link), with a short introduction by myself, will give the reader a glimpse of how more serious strategists of capital see the present situation, of how deeply disturbed they are by it. The author spent time in a Stalinist labor camp so has some experience other than a CEO which he is now. His experience under a Stalinist regime taught him some things and he is worried that US capitalism is heading down a road that can only lead to ruin.  He is warning them of the consequences if they do not share the wealth.  He doesn’t see that inequality in and of itself is not the problem, that poverty, war, hunger, environmental catastrophe are endemic to capitalism and that only its overthrow and the building of a democratic socialist economy, a world, federation of democratic socialist states can avert disaster. Serious Strategists of Capitalism are Beginning to Panic