Source: The Intercept |
By Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Here in the US, workers, those of us who sell our labor power for wages as
opposed to those who buy it-----capitalists, have no political voice. We have
no mass party of our own that is based on workers organizations, our
communities and class allies. There have been local parties of this nature but
no national mass party.
Instead, working people and other sections of society and marginalized
communities without organized political expression, have been forced to gain
some influence electorally though the former party of the US Slaveocracy, the
Democrats. I have heard it said that it is an accident of history that the
Democratic Party found itself in power during the two greatest upsurges of the
US working class in modern times, the rise and founding of the Congress of
Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930’s and the Civil Rights movement or
Black Revolt that followed.
Needless to say, the Democratic Party is the now the other capitalist party and
along with the Republican’s has played the role of good cop bad cop in US
society. The Republicans playing the bad cop, more openly anti-worker,
outwardly pro-business, with the Democrats claiming to be the friend of
workers, (of the labor hierarchy especially) and whenever the working class
goes on the offensive, sucking these movements in to its orbit where they can
be rendered harmless and prevented from developing in to an independent
political party for workers and the poor. Like the good cop bad cop scenario,
one beats you the other restrains them somewhat and gives you a smoke, but they
are both after the same results.
Support for these two parties of big business has waned dramatically over the
years to the point that in 2016, close to 100 million US voters opted out of
the process altogether. The moribund leadership atop organized labor still
clings desperately to the Democrats hoping to get some crumbs from the rich
man’s table. They need something to pacify the troops and keep themselves in
their lucrative positions ignoring the fact that a considerable percentage of
their members abandoned long ago, the party they foist upon them. The
alternative, is too frightening. Voting is not an exercise in civics; it’s like
union dues, if it doesn’t produce better material conditions why bother.
Millions of US workers are disgusted with the two political parties and it is
clear that the era in which these two parties have dominated US political life
is coming to an end.
This process has played a big part in the rise of the degenerate Trump. Trump
is such a distasteful character, a racist, a misogynist, a right wing
ideologue, that politicians in the “other” capitalist party are now
being painted as saviors of the working class despite being as complicit in the
driving down of wages and working conditions, not to mention cutting public
services and jobs and supporting a murderous US foreign policy. US workers have
suffered under both parties. This does not mean there aren’t differences but
not on the fundamentals. "...People who work on Wall Street are
good citizens who want their country to change...I want to generate a lot of
millionaires…” , Bill Clinton told Business Week in B.W. (3-23-92)
And in an interview with same magazine three years later, VP Al Gore was asked:
“Republicans want to kill five Cabinet agencies. You still seem to be tinkering at the edges. Can't you find one department to eliminate?”
Gore responds
“Cabinet departments don't get created by accident. Below that level, there are many agencies that we have eliminated. In one year, we downsized by 100,000 employees. We have locked in place plans to eliminate another 200,000 workers. That's a bold start.” (my added emphasis) *
Gore didn’t even have to courage to fight for the defeat in his campaign for
presidency against the imbecile Bush. He was no doubt pressured not to
discredit the system, not to expose its flaws and take one for the class.
In the Trump era, even the war criminal and mass murderer George W Bush has
become cuddly and is now a close friend of the Obama’s. Michelle Obama, one of
the most popular figures in the US, calls him her “friend” and “partner
in crime”. Class solidarity is strong with these folks. Could you imagine
putting yourself in the position of hugging the guy who willingly participated
in the slaughter of a million Iraqi’s? President Obama was no friend of the
working class, particular in the former colonial world. He recently used his
influence to get the striking NBA players back on the court.
I understand the desire to rid ourselves of the deviant Trump but please. Let’s
have no illusions here.
I live in California which is called at times, a “One Party State” as
the Democrats have such political power here. The Democratic Party has what we
call a supermajority in the legislature and the governor is a Democrat. It
doesn’t get any better than that. Gavin Newsom is the dashing young millionaire
at the helm. He is much more than that of course, like all of the politicians
in the two capitalist parties he’s very wealthy by any worker’s standards,
worth about $20 million. He’s an investor and businessman. This is to be
expected, we live in a capitalist democracy not a wage workers democracy. Don’t
forget, Athenian Democracy, so revered by western historians was a slave
owner’s democracy, slaves didn’t get to vote.
Despite this, with the Black Lives Matter Movement erupting in response to the
disproportionate murder of Black people by the police and the call for the
defunding of the police force and shifting monies toward social needs,
Democratic California, with this so-called supermajority in the legislature,
has so far failed to pass and in some cases even bring up, some of the popular
proposals aimed at reforming the police. The excuse is that the police
unions are too powerful and are major funders of Democratic and Republican
Party candidates.
The media points out that this is the case with all unions. But this is not
true. Police unions are not the same and anyway, despite all the talk of “big
Labor” and propaganda that organized labor has more political clout than it
does, union wages and benefits have continued to decline and even with the
$15-hour victories this is a very small gain and still poverty wages in
California. Housing and rents are exorbitant and transportation as well as
health care are still costly or out of reach for many.
This comes as no surprise, under Jimmy Carter’s four years the Democrats
controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency yet not one piece of
legislation important to organized labor was passed. Carter used the Taft
Hartley against the miners in 1978. In the first two years of the Clinton
Administration the Democrats were in the same position. Clinton pushed through
NAFTA, threw people off welfare often in to public sector jobs without
representation and union wages and benefits. Remember, Clinton bombed a factory
in Egypt producing vital medicines, the only one of its kind. I flew from
Vienna to Skopje in the late 1990’s and witnessed all the destruction along the
beautiful Blue Danube, Clinton’s war.
We all saw the recently released figures on the deficit and how by next year
the federal deficit will be greater than the value the country produces not to
mention the trade deficit that Trump’s tariffs were supposed to eliminate.
Tariffs or any nation “first” even for the powerful US, is a recipe for
disaster in an integrated world economy, Smoot Hawley is evidence of that. But
they can’t help themselves.
This pandemic and the pathogen that has caused it as well as many others, are
the product of capitalist production, of how we produce and raise food, in
short, how we organize production in general in a global capitalist society.
The US government has thrown trillions in to the economy to prop up the capitalist system. The economy must be saved at all costs, that’s how capitalism works. While there is no doubt some concessions will be made it is inconceivable that it will not be the working class and the poor that will pay for this crisis. We always do. There is money being thrown at the Black Colleges and Black capitalism in order to strengthen the Black middle class as a buffer that can temper or hold back the revolutionary potential of the Black working class that ignited and led the recent protests. Even the billionaires that run Blackhawk, the largest private equity company in the world love Black people now.
The politicians in California claiming that it is the power of the police
unions that is preventing them from clipping their wings are being disingenuous
(This is how educated people call each other liars). The police is an armed
force, a security agency whose main function is to defend capitalist property
relations and the stability of the state and for the majority of the capitalist
class, Trump’s approach is a threat to that stability. As the assault on
workers has intensified over the decades, we have seen the militarization of
the police in order to prepare for events that are unfolding now.
They may change the name, make some cosmetic changes, but the ruling class will
neither defund, nor abolish this social force. This is why a discussion
on the police in their present form is important. We need to offer an
alternative; how would public safety be maintained in our communities and what
we would replace this force with in a transitional period and in the
creation of a new social order.
We need to not lose sight of the fact that they will be coming to us for
payment in the period ahead and there will be a serious reluctance to comply
after dragging capitalism from the abyss in 2008. They will resort to racism,
xenophobia, and other divide and rule strategies, including from those who
claim to oppose them now. There will be periods of violence, steps forward and
steps back that is an integral aspect of warfare and made more likely by the
absence of any cohesive national leadership or political party. But leaders are
born in struggle, great lessons are learned, class consciousness strengthened.
The world has changed and we are in for some major class clashes ahead.
* Getting Smaller With
Al. BW 01-23-1995.
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