Sarah Palin- Hands Off Professors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn

October 7, 2008

Apparently, for the third time this presidential season I have to dust off this old review of the Weather Underground and the activities of leftist Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Why? Sarah Palin, self-proclaimed "hockey mom" Republican Vice-presidential candidate, has decided that the virtue of the American Republic requires a rehashing of that old chestnut concerning the supposed organic relationship between the "terrorist" professors and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. I am reposting previous comments here because, frankly, I have nothing to add to the previous comments. Except this, Professors Ayers and Dohrn can now serve as prima facie evidence that ostensible leftists should be very careful in the choice of bourgeois capitalist candidates they "hang around with". In short, stay very far away from those types.



August 26, 2008

Apparently, the Republican presidential campaign of Arizona Senator John McCain is trying to get mileage out of some tenuous connection between Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama and very, very ex-Weatherpeople Professors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. This same issue popped up in the spring of 2008. The introductory comment used there reposted directly below and a review of what The Weather Underground really meant politically still apply. I would only add that forty years of "cultural wars" by these reactionaries, led by Karl Rove and his ilk, is enough. I only hope that when our day comes we will relegate them to some nice island somewhere so they can "reflect" on their sins and leave the rest of us alone.

*******

May 2008

There is currently a tempest in a teapot swirling around Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama concerning his relationship with former Weatherpeople Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Here are a couple of reviews from last year on the historic significance of that movement. The real question to ask though is not why Obama was hanging around with Ayers and Dohrn but why they were hanging around with this garden-variety bourgeois candidate on the make. Enough said.

YOU DO NEED A WEATHERMAN (PERSON) TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS

DVD REVIEW

THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND: REBELS WITH A CAUSE, 2003

In a time when I, among others, are questioning where the extra-parliamentary opposition to the Iraq War is going and why it has not made more of an impact on American society it was rather refreshing to view this documentary about the seemingly forgotten Weather Underground that as things got grimmer dramatically epitomized one aspect of opposition to the Vietnam War. If opposition to the Iraq war is the political fight of my old age Vietnam was the fight of my youth and in this film brought back very strong memories of why I fought tooth and nail against it. And the people portrayed in this film, the core of the Weather Underground, while not politically kindred spirits then or now, were certainly on the same page as I was- a no holds- barred fight against the American Empire. We lost that round, and there were reasons for that, but that kind of attitude is what it takes to bring down the monster. But a revolutionary strategy is needed. That is where we parted company.

One of the political highlights of the film is centered on the 1969 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Convention that was a watershed in the student anti-war protest movement. That was the genesis of the Weathermen but it was also the genesis of the Progressive Labor Party-led faction that wanted to bring the anti-war message to the working class by linking up the student movement with the fight against capitalism. In short, to get to those who were, or were to be, the rank and file soldiers in Vietnam or who worked in the factories. In either case the point that was missed, as the Old Left had argued all along and which we had previously dismissed out of hand, was that it was the masses of working people who were central to ‘bringing the war home’ and the fight against capitalism. That task still confronts us today.

One of the paradoxical things about this film is that the Weather Underground survivors interviewed had only a vague notion about what went wrong. This was clearly detailed in the remarks of Mark Rudd, a central leader, when he stated that the Weathermen were trying to create a communist cadre. He also stated, however, that after going underground he realized that he was out of the loop as far as being politically effective. And that is the point. There is no virtue in underground activity if it is not necessary, romantic as that may be. To the extent that any of us read history in those days it was certainly not about the origins of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 19th century. If we had we would have found that that movement also fought out the above-mentioned fight in 1969. Mass action vs. individual acts, heroic or otherwise, of terror. The Weather strategy of acting as the American component of the worldwide revolutionary movement in order to bring the Empire to its knees certainly had (and still does) had a very appealing quality. However, a moral gesture did not (and will not) bring this beast down. While the Weather Underground was made up a small group of very appealing subjective revolutionaries its political/moral strategy led to a dead end. The lesson to be learned; you most definitely do need weather people to know which way the winds blow. Start with Karl Marx.

Obama And The Race Question In America

Commentary


Make no mistake, Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama is another in the line of garden variety liberals who have been that party’s candidates over the past half century or so and therefore no more supportable by militant leftists that any of the others. No more and no less. That is the beginning of wisdom for us here. Nevertheless Obama's nomination does represent one significant different from past Democratic candidacies- his race. A not unimportant difference as this misbegotten presidential race heats up and the question of race will, one way or the other, raise its ugly head. Obama’s nomination, in the final analysis, is significant-for him- not so for the vast majority of blacks (and others for that matter). The reasons for that situation I have addressed in other commentaries in this space and will in the future. What I want to discuss today though is this question of whether Obama is electable today in this racially-divided society.

Part of Obama’s drawing card among some whites and others has been a deliberate strategy of arguing for a post-racial candidacy (I know, I know to even mention such a thing seems absurd on its face given the historical and current racial realities.). That appeal had a certain very real cachet among the young, well-educated urban college types, up and coming blacks and other minorities. Frankly, if wishes were reality it would be very appealing. But here is the nut. This election is about votes and, more narrowly, swing votes in a few key states if the past several presidential elections are any indication.

Frankly, as the numbers are starting to firm up things are starting to look grim for Obama’s chances. An in-depth recent poll I looked at told the tale that is the real face of American society, at least its voting segment. Obama, despite some cold water from die hard Hillary supporters, is very solid with the woman vote. He is obviously solid with the urbane young and virtually all blacks, no question there. He is also, and here is the kicker, solid with the very poor and lower white working class (family incomes under $50,000) that Hillary bashed him over the head with in the spring primaries. In short he looks good thus far for holding many of the old Democratic coalition segments together. So where is the problem?

The problem is the white suburban vote that has tended to call itself independent as it has left the cities but has swung Republican over the past several elections. Mainly, from what I can gather, this is now a second generation (at least) out in the suburbs. And that is the rub. One way of dealing with race (or better, racial fears and hatred) is to walk away from it, if you can. This segment has, generally, walked away from the cities with its teeming minorities. Thus the hard symbol of racial segregation is no longer the rope or the separate facilities but the “gated” community (I mean that metaphorically here). This is no the "white trash" of literary mention but those with some college, some money and many frustrations. These, moreover, are the people I live among. That is the deep, dark secret of American racism and ultimately why Obama is in serious trouble. More later as the campaign progresses (if that is the right term for this thing).

Obama- One Step Forward, Three Steps Back

Commentary

Break With The Republicans, Democrats, Greens and Ralph Nader- Build A Workers Party!

I have purposefully attempted to stay on the sidelines, way on the sidelines, of this misbegotten 2008 presidential campaign season after I realized early this spring that it was just a more technologically sophisticated version of previous garden variety efforts, like the Gore 2000 and Dean 2004 campaigns. Apparently I am not alone in this as a recent poll, taken after the hoopla raised by the media and the hard-core partisans of the party nominating processes was over, indicated that the bulk of the electorate felt the same way, generally. Nevertheless I do have to break my relative silence here to make a small comment on the benighted Obama campaign and what it has turned into.

Having had no illusions that Obama and his Democratic Party have anything to offer in terms of positively addressing the pressing political, social and economic issues of the day I have had nothing to cry about (although I remain appreciative of the wind that Obama himself has generated among the young which can only help radicals in the end). However, Obama's dramatic post-Hillary headlong spin toward the ‘center’ of American politics, has apparently left others feeling betrayed. Given his vote on enhanced governmental wiretapping-eavesdropping, his votes for the war budgets funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his call for stepped-up troop deployment to Afghanistan, his new stance on the timing of ending tax cuts for the rich topped off by his ‘benign neglect’ of part of his core constituency, blacks, that has even Jesse Jackson, Senior up in arms there is little wonder that there is a feeling of ‘betrayal’ in left Demo-land.

However, there has been no betrayal by Obama or the Democratic Party. Despite the chagrin of the young, who can be forgiven a little naiveté, the Democratic Party and bourgeois politics are not about serious change but about winning electoral combinations. I was tipped off that some of the idealistic elements in the Obama campaign were in uproar over his wiretapping vote. I therefore went, based on that tip, to his social networking site to see for myself the gnashing of teeth. Damn, it is all there. The sense of betrayal, the desire to get the money contributed to the campaign back, the disgust with bourgeois political maneuvering. Be still my heart.

What I did not see was any sense (as yet) that it is necessary to break out of the capitalist-inspired politics of the day and fight for a workers party (or for that matter, even an ‘independent’ party a la Ralph Nader). Well, that is our job. Earlier this year I mentioned, when I was in the heat of my bourgeois political observation period, that the swirl that Obama was producing was similar (although, I think, maybe on an even greater scale) to the effect on the young that of John F. Kennedy's campaign had in my youth. I mentioned that the earlier Kennedy swirl itself was not decisive but that in response to the press of events started then it later created the youth/socialist movement of the 1960’s. I posed the question in that commentary, jokingly, After Obama-us. I now think our turn may come sooner than I expected.

*The Real Robert Kennedy- A Sober Liberal View From PBS's American Experience Series

Click on title to link to the Public Broadcasting System's "American Experience" episode on Robert Kennedy.

DVD REVIEW

Robert Kennedy, American Experience, PBS, 2004

It is somewhat ironic that at just the time that when presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a recent addition to the Democratic Party pantheon of heroes and heir apparent to the Kennedy legacy, is claiming the nomination of the party that the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy during the presidential campaign of 1968 is being remembered in some quarters. That event holds much meaning in the political evolution of this writer. The Robert Kennedy campaign of 1968 was the last time that this writer had a serious desire to fight solely on the parliamentary road for progressive political change. So today he too has some remembrances, as well. This documentary from the Public Broadcasting System’s "American Experience" series only adds some visual flashes to those remembrances.

In a commentary in another space I have mentioned that through the tumultuous period leading to the early spring of 1968 that I had done some political somersaults as a result of Bobby Kennedy’s early refusal to take on a sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Moreover, I committed myself early (sometime in late 1967) to the reelection of Lyndon Johnson, as much as I hated his Vietnam War policy. Why? One Richard M. Nixon. I did not give Eugene McCarthy’s insurgent campaign even a sniff, although I agreed with his anti-war stance. Why? He could not beat one Richard M. Nixon. When Bobby Kennedy jumped in and Johnson announced that he was not going to run again and I was there the next day. I was a senior in college at the time but I believe I spent hundreds of hours that spring working the campaign either out of Boston, Washington, D.C. or elsewhere. Why? Well, you can guess the obvious by now. He COULD beat one Richard M. Nixon.

It was more than that though, and I will discuss that in the next paragraph. I took, as many did, Bobby's murder hard. It would be rather facile now to say that something of my youth, and that of others who I have talked to recently about this event, got left behind with his murder but there you have it. However, to show you the kind of political year that it was for me about a week after his death I was in the Hubert Humphrey campaign office in Boston. Why? You know why by now. And for those who don’t it had one name- Richard M. Nixon.

But let us get back to that other, more virtuous, political motive for supporting Bobby Kennedy. It was always, in those days, complicated coming from Massachusetts to separate out the whirlwind effect that the Kennedy family had on us, especially on ‘shanty’ Irish families. On the one hand we wished one of our own well, especially against the WASPs, on the other there was always that innate bitterness (jealousy, if you will) that it was not we who were the ones that were getting ahead. If there is any Irish in your family you know what I am talking about.

To be sure, as a fourteen year old I walked the neighborhood for John Kennedy in 1960 but as I have mentioned elsewhere that was a pro forma thing. Part of the ritual of entry into presidential politics. The Bobby thing was from the heart. Why? It is hard to explain but there was something about the deeply felt sense of Irish fatalism that he projected, especially after the death of his brother, that attracted me to him. But also the ruthless side where he was willing to cut Mayor Daly and every politician like him down or pat them on the back and more, if necessary, to get a little rough justice in the world. In those days I held those qualities, especially in tandem, in high esteem. Hell, I still do, if on a narrower basis.

Okay, that is enough for a trip down memory lane back to the old politically naïve days, or rather opportunistic days. Without detailing the events here the end of 1968 was also a watershed year for changing my belief that an individual candidate rather than ideas and political program were decisive for political organizing. That understanding, furthermore, changed my political appreciation for Bobby Kennedy (and the vices and virtues of the Democratic Party). That is the import of this well-produced (as always) portrayal of the short life and career of Robert Kennedy. If in 1968, with my 1968 political understandings, I stood shoulder to shoulder with Robert Kennedy my political evolution and his political past, as detailed here, have changed my perceptions dramatically.

This documentary highlights the close relationship between Robert and his older brother John starting with the Massachusetts United Senate campaign in 1952 (and that would continue in the 1960 campaign and during John Kennedy’s administration right up to the assassination). We are presented here, however, with the ‘bad’ Bobby who was more than willing to join Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “red scare” anti-communist campaign and the anti-labor McClellan Committee campaigns against Jimmy Hoffa in particular. There is no love lost between this writer and labor bureaucrats like Hoffa (or his son) but a bedrock position then and today is the need for labor to clean its own house. What purpose does government intervention into the labor movement do except to weaken it? Bobby was on the other side on this one, as well.

Under the John Kennedy Administration Robert, moreover, played a key role in putting a damper on the early civil rights movement in the South (as well as putting a 'tap' on Martin Luther King at the behest of one J. Edgar Hoover), the Bay of Pigs decision and aftermath , the Cuban Missile Crisis confrontation with the Soviet Union and the early escalation, under the rubric of counter-insurgency, in Vietnam. As readily observable, where I had previously downplayed my opposition to some of Bobby's positions I now put a minus next to them. That is politics.

Finally though, I will frankly admit a lingering ‘softness’ for Bobby. Why? The late political journalist Jack Newfield one of the inevitable 'talking heads' that people PBS productions, a biographer of Robert Kennedy I believe but in any case a close companion in the mid-1960’s and a prior resident of the Bedford-Stuveysant ghetto of New York City, made this comment about a Robert Kennedy response to his question during a tour of that area. Newfield asked Kennedy what he would have become if he had grown up in Bedford-Stuveysant. Bobby responded quickly- I would either be a juvenile delinquent or a revolutionary. I would like to think that he meant those alternatives seriously. Enough said.

Of Music and Movies and Politcal Doldrums

Commentary


Over the past several weeks I have been doing more commentary on music and movies than I have previously done in this space. Part of this is a conscious effort on my part to integrate those cultural phenomena into this blog as part of our common history, whether they have impact today or not. My own political evolution is bound up with, as is that of many of the Generation of ’68, the cultural phenomena associated with the times- folk and rock concerts, various communal activities, people’s art, etc. Moreover, at least for the 1960’s, one cannot separate out, at least not easily, the cultural from the political in trying to draw some lessons for today’s struggles.

Those are personal reasons to be sure but, my friends, the main reason that I am writing more of this kind of material is that there is not much doing on the political horizon today. And that fact does not have to do with the summer doldrums, although that is always part of the mix. What it has to do with is the hard fact that the bourgeois politicians, and here I mean Obama as well as McCain, have sucked the best part of the air out of politics. Surely, there are things to comment on in the world beyond that narrow, basically technical presidential campaign trip but other than our traditional on-going propaganda efforts we are not getting a hearing on those issues.

One indication of that impasse is the material posted on various Indy Media sites that I monitor. Up until a couple of years ago there were plenty of hard-hitting reports on struggles and commentary on what to do next. Today, most of the items concern various crank conspiracy theories or fervent messages that we get behind Obama in order to deprive Bush of a third term (meaning a vote for McCain). Meanwhile we have those few little problems in the Middle East and South Asia like Iraq and Afghanistan that are not being addressed by those we wish to reach. I wish I had a positive message of encouragement right this minute but more later. Given world conditions though our day will come, or at least we will get our chances at it.

A Short Note On The United States Supreme Court Decision On The Guantanamo Prisoners

Commentary

By a 5-4 vote, during the week of June 6, 2008, the United States Supreme Court has held that when the courts are open (in short, when martial law is not a factor) the bedraggled prisoners being held in the American 'prisoner of war' camp in Guantanamo are entitled to access to the federal courts to seek redress of grievance. Of course, as always this decision will have to be fleshed out in real cases but the Justice Kennedy-authored decision, he of swing vote fame, as least gives defense lawyers a chance to argue someplace other than a rigged military tribunal in the future.

Do militant leftists see this as an important decision? A victory even? Well, yes we will take our victories, large or small, anyway we can get them today. Look, the import for us is this. The details of cases fighting for democratic rights, or in this case just basic democratic decency, like the details in criminal cases do not always make for pretty reading. Islamic fundamentalists, indiscriminate suicide bombers and the like, if that is what they have down in Guantanamo (rather than some guys that they indiscriminately scooped up along the way which appears to be true in at least some of the cases), are not out friends. In the end we will be crossing our own swords with these guys. Today, however, the fight for their basic democratic rights to a hearing denied so long by the Bush Administration and this same Supreme Court in previous cases is our fight. If they can disappear these guys that nobody really likes what happens when we get ‘uppity’? That too would not be pretty reading as witnessed by the “red scare” roundups of our predecessors after World War I and World War II.

As a last point the other interesting thing about this decision is the minority position led by one Justice Antonin Scalia and his little cabal of upfront, in-your-face reactionaries. Scalia, in particular, went out of his way to demonstrate once again why as a general rule we place no faith in the courts (basically when Kennedy votes the other way with the four serious Neanderthals). Scalia and his cohorts on the bench and outside in the Federalist Society are all hard-core original intent theorists. This means that the world, and here they mean the constitutional world, stopped about 1791 (at the latest). Thus, drawing and quartering, public hangings, even the occasional governmental agent kicking down the door and such do not offend their sensibilities. Here is the really scary part though- remember we have actually had over two hundred years of human evolution and understandings about the nature of law and society. If these august justices are scandalized today by allowing access to the courts to foreigners (and that is what this is really all about) then can you image their political positions then- God Save the King, I assume. No, Antonin Scalia and his boys are no James Madisons.

Musings on Presidential Campaign 2008

Commentary

Recently I received a communication from a reader asking why, it seemed to her, that lately I have been offering less analysis of the bourgeois presidential elections and doing more book reviews, etc. on obscure subjects like the influence of Quakers, the Second Awakening and women in the rise of American capitalism. Or off the wall commentaries on such frivolous matter as the Iraq war budget, troops withdrawal and the economy.

Interestingly, that comment dovetailed with a trend that I also have observed as I have gone back and edited or reflected on some older material that I have written in this space. Starting shortly before the midterm Congressional campaigns I seriously ratcheted up my commentary in this space under the general theme of breaking with the Democrats, Republicans and Greens. That intensity, more or less, held up until a couple of months ago when I realized that spending time on what is essentially the technical aspects of presidential electoral campaigns, the reason for existence for my political opponents, was not worth the time. Moreover, it was getting repetitive and boring. The time since then has only confirmed that piece of personal wisdom on my part as the current Clinton/Obama smear campaigns against each other has clearly demonstrated.

Do not get me wrong. In my youth this kind of presidential contest would have been like catnip to me, complete with graphs and charts all over the place following the delegate curve. And as late as Hubert Humphrey’s ill-fated presidential of 1968 I would have been up to my elbows in the day-to-day whirlwind of the campaign itself as a participant. But, my friends, these technical trips, and that are what campaigns like this ultimately come down to, prevent one from seeing the forest for the trees. The fight against the Iraq War, the death penalty, saving abortion rights, the struggle against foreclosures and other economic harms are only palely, very palely reflected in these free-for-alls.

As I have repeatedly pointed out before in this space, I see the wind that Obama has stirred up among the youth of all races and others who had previously lost their political compasses as eventually a positive sign for those of us outside and to the left of the Democratic Party. That, however, is only of secondary benefit now to those of us who look through the prism of socialism. I made someone laugh one time when I said our perspective ultimately is - After Obama, Us. My friends, at that time, you will see me making commentaries on politics until the cows come home. Enough said.

FREE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR ALL!

Commentary

HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT NOT A PRIVILEGE

Over the past few weeks the leading Democratic presidential contenders, highlighted this week by Hillary Clinton’s plan, have spent time presenting their proposals for health care reform and/or creation of a national health care system. The Republicans simple program, in contrast, seems to follow my late, dearly departed grandmother’s advise- Don’t get sick. Sometimes, and health care is one of those issues, militants get dragged into current controversies where we do not like any of the proposals but we nevertheless have to make some comment to clear the political air on the subject. This seems to be such a time.

Please follow my reasoning on the question of health care. In a civilized society, and for that matter even uncivilized ones, everyone from the tiniest infant to those long of tooth deserves to be healthy. Thus it is a societal obligation to insure that condition. That will moreover still be the case, if not more so, under an advanced socialist society until we get a much better grip on how to handle the still pervasive mysteries of the human body than we have now. Once one assumes that insuring the health of our fellows is a societal task then the solution is practically a ‘no-brainer’. Our underlying slogan in this fight is not just ‘universal’ health coverage for all but free universal health care for all. In short, the real socialized health care solution so dreaded by the likes of the fully health-insured Republican presidential candidate ex-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Oddly, when he presided over ‘health care reform’ in Massachusetts he signed off on a plan that is very similar to Senator Clinton’s. Hmmm.

Alas, this society is so driven by the imperatives of the capitalist profit motive in all its social policies, even a fundamental one such as health, that such an eminently reasonable notion as free universal health care today has no pray of being advocated much less fought for in mainstream politics. Thus, others place militants in a position of evaluating any health care proposal on whether it drives us toward that above-stated goal. While recognizing that these proposals are not our program any such steps that take some of the profit motive out of the system and expand both the numbers covered and the quality of coverage are steps in the right direction. If such a system actually came into existence we would defend it against right-wing attempts to eliminate it in the same way we defend Social Security against such attempts. We would also raise propaganda around extending benefits and numbers insured. However realistically speaking, once the big business and AMA guns go after this, it looks like such proposals face the same tough sledding as the last efforts at reform in 1993.

MORNING IN AMERICA-MORNING LINE, THAT IS

COMMENTARY

EXTRA, EXTRA-GET THE MORNING LINE ON THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!


Well, I have my sporting blood up this morning. It seems to be the time of year when not much is doing on the ‘real’ political circuit so that I have time to engage in a little speculation on the odds for the 2008 presidential election. Thus I can do a little ‘think’ piece here to while away the summer doldrums. One of the virtues of this exercise is that while I can win or lose money on various electoral propositions I do not have to actually vote for any of these people. There are, indeed, some very big benefits to being a workers party propagandist theses days.

As we know there are now at least eight candidates on the Democratic side and at least nine on the Republican side so that this early trying to handicap those races would be madness. What today’s morning line is about is which party- the Democratic or Republican- will win the presidency in 2008. Now even those like me who only hold their noses at bourgeois politics would be hard pressed to deny that the Democrats -after what will be eight years of George Bush- should be in the cat bird seat. As one Republican candidate is quoted as saying the Democrats have started to take measurements for new drapes in the White House. Let me make a few points, however, that should sober up even my liberal friends about the political realities today.

We all like to use the phrase about the unacknowledged elephant in the room to highlight some obvious problem that is better left unstated. In this case the Democrats have three-the continuing disproportionality caused by the anti-democratic Electoral College; the women and/or black question; and, the way the likely major issue of the 2008 campaign Iraq and national security may cut for the Democrats.

The rank inequity of the Electoral College system of election may rank as about number 106 on a list of reasons that socialists would put together for why this bourgeois democratic system has to be replaced- but it is on the list. The aristocratically-derived Electoral College is probably the most blatantly anti-democratic aspect of the original frame of government. However, despite all the moaning and groaning in 2000 over the Bush thievery, no one to my knowledge has seriously put forth the idea of replacing it with a more democratic formula and a truer sense of proportionality in regard to the make-up of the Congress. In any case if one looks at the numbers that Republicans start with in the South and the interior West then, as has been the case in presidential politics for a while, this is already an uphill fight for the Democrats. Sure there may be some more blue in red states, etc. but the political reality is no matter how popular you are these are the real numbers. Just ask Al Gore.


Let us face it unless Al Gore makes some kind of last minute decision to entry the Democratic race this one is really about Hillary and Obama. That means the most likely Democratic candidate will either be a white woman or a black man. This is new at the presidential level. But let us face some very hard realities. In a time of perceived national security needs will a woman do? And while it is possible that hard core Democrats will find no problem with a woman as their lead candidate does that hold true for the electorate as a whole? Throw in the Hillary-haters and Clinton fatigue factor and there is a very big question about whether a woman can be elected in 2008. And whether that particular woman can get elected.

On the Obama factor let us not kid ourselves- this is a deeply racist country that is probably more segregated today that 40 or 50 years ago in the things that matter like schools and housing. Even having a white mother does not good here. Moreover, as far as politics go the questions of special black oppression like education, housing, jobs etc. that desperately need to be addressed have fallen off the political map. Watch for some very ugly general election campaigning by the Republicans if either Hillary or Obama is nominated.

You and I, dear reader, have had our fill of Iraq. We want the troops out now. However, the opinion polls that show this same desire to get out do not reflect a favored direction on the various strategies put forth for getting out. The Republicans will be hurt by the Iraq fiasco but unless Dick Cheney or Jeb Bush jumps in none of the contenders is personally responsible for the damn war. They can distance themselves adequately if they have a plan for withdrawal or some such thing. Richard Nixon was able to do so in 1968 and again in 1972 without actually having any plan at all for withdrawal from Vietnam-and won. So anything is possible. Moreover, the Democrats have been so wishy- washy of late in their responses to Bush’s strategy that people in general may not give them a break. So Iraq may not cut so favorably for the Democrats as they might think, especially in the heartland where many of the troops come from. Add the ringer of the economy upstaging the war as the central issue and all hell could break loose.

There you have it, dear reader. Today I would place the odds on a Democratic presidency at 7/5 in their favor. Any takers?

REFLECTIONS ON MEMORIAL DAY

COMMENTARY

HONOR THE FALLEN-GET THE HELL OUT OF IRAQ-AND BREAK WITH THE DEMOCRATS

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM!


This has not been a good week for the parliamentary anti-war forces, mainly Democrats. They, despite their bluster, have hoisted the white flag over any effective parliamentary opposition to the Bush Administration’s fervent desire to keep the Iraq War going until the end of time- George Bush’s time. There has been much gnashing of teeth over this by those in the anti-war movement, like MoveOn.org, whose whole strategy was based on hoodwinking the Democrats into ending the war by doing something serious on the question of the Iraq war budget. Those of us who understand that this fight, if it is to be successful, must ultimately be won in the streets and elsewhere now have a tiny opening to get our point of view across. In any case, on this Memorial Day when it is appropriate to honor the fallen even if we cannot honor the cause they fell for, we can reemphasize our demand. Immediate Withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan! Break with the Democrats! Build a Workers Party Now!

With that last slogan in mind it is also time to turn to the presidential election campaigns. As I have noted elsewhere the tempo of the campaigns has shifted dramatically now that most of the important primaries and caucuses are being pushed up to the early part of 2008. Usually on Memorial Day of the year before the elections we are treated to not much of anything but internal campaign maneuverings but this year the outlines of the campaign season are already becoming clear. Nothing that I see on the political horizon makes me think that we are in for anything but a brutal no-holds barred fight that will have even the most hardened political junkie screaming in his or her sleep before Christmas. To wit.

I have previously commented on the recent Republican debate in South Carolina that the field of ten (for now) did nothing to make me change my view that the 2008 presidential election is the Democrats to lose. Apparently the Republicans think so themselves as the field may get larger with the addition of ex-Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson. Thompson, currently an actor on the television series Law and Order,
has been hemming and hawing but will probably test the waters. By all accounts he is a viable candidate. Jesus, when you get down to actors (remember the late, unlamented Ronald Reagan) you know your party is in trouble. And we are too.

Not to be outdone the Democrats have had some tempests in teapots themselves. A couple of “unauthorized” campaign biographies have come out on one ex-First Lady and current New York Senator Hillary Clinton. I have only read reviews on the books but seemingly they are as the Clinton campaign has argued they are- old news, or no news. The only important point to note is that it is obvious that Ms. Clinton has that same “fire in the belly” to be president that commentators, including myself, have noticed about the more successful candidates in presidential contests. Hillary is still 5/2 against the field in my book and now we are getting a better understanding of why. It is not pretty. And once again, as with the Republicans, we are in trouble.

Bourgeois candidates and their staffs tend to have short memories-and justifiably so with all the blather they put out. They are not long on the memory of past campaigns-except when they have an ax to grind. Long time Democratic “strategist” Robert Schrum is set to tell all about his role in the ill-fated 2004 Kerry campaign. Of course, he will put himself in the role of misunderstood ‘political genius’ whose advice was disregarded by Kerry and staff-to their sorrow. Let us get this straight though-this is the man who has been a key advisor and loser in eight Democratic presidential campaigns. Thus the best advice anyone could get from him is DON’T HIRE ME. If he comes to your door give him the boot. Or send him to the Whigs.

Finally, something that is really interesting in this misbegotten campaign season-a little sporting proposition. Although Hillary has the inside track I note that, like the Republicans, the Democrats have a field that does not jump out at you. One of the consequences, perhaps unintended, of the recent biographies on Ms. Clinton is that she is revealed as very much an establishment figure. I have long argued that Hillary and her parliamentary sisters stand for the proposition, despite the obvious gains of the women’s liberation movement, that bourgeois women candidates can be just as venal as the men. That said, this field is weak. And that brings up my sporting proposition. There is an elephant in the Democratic field (no pun intended). That “elephant” has a name- Al Gore. In an earlier blog I made a sporting proposition on a Jeb Bush candidacy. I now introduce one for Mr. Gore. Hell, he actually won the 2000 election. He is available. He has an Oscar. And more importantly, he (several years too late) has some kind of gravitas. As I noted above Hillary is 5/2 against the field. I would put the odds on Mr. Gore at about 15-1 against. Any takers?



THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

OBAMA THE 'CHARMA' AND THE BABY-BOOMERS

COMMENTARY

CHANGING OF THE GUARD, WELL OKAY-BUT ON WHAT PROGRAM?

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT!

It has been several weeks now since Illinois Senator Barack Obama announced his candidacy to run for President of the United States on the Democratic Party ticket. Some readers might have expected that I would drop everything to comment on this development as soon as that candidacy was announced, especially as here we have a serious (and ‘clean’) black candidate who moreover has challenged the political pretensions of baby-boomers, my generation.

Let us be clear on this, I actually agree with the Senator that it is time for newer, younger leadership to assert itself and not wait until the last grave of the last boomer is covered over before new voices can be heard on the political scene. And I offer as specimens #1 and #2 the two most recent presidents, Bush and Clinton, baby-boomers both, as prime evidence for the bankruptcy of conventional bourgeois politics. Every rationale person should go screaming into the night at the thought that another Clinton (or Bush, what about Jeb?) will be taking her apparently alternating dynastic place in the White House.

I have noted, sarcastically, elsewhere that my parent’s generation, the generation that went through childhood in the Depression of the 1930’s and fought World War II, has been misnamed “the greatest generation” for basically being quiet (in the 1950’s and 1960’s when it was time to scream like hell). Unfortunately the boomer generation has also long ago given up the ghost of whatever dreams animated our youth and made the 1960’s and early 1970’s a time-‘when to be alive was very heaven’. Some got tired, some burned out, some copped out and a few, very few, of us are left to tell the tale. Well, for what it is worth we made every error in the book of social change, there were excesses to be sure and most certainly we were defeated politically not only by the likes of one Richard M. Nixon but by ‘wannabes’ from my generation like the Bushes and Clintons who offered more of the same old politics.

But, hold on a minute. If Senator Obama wants to lead a new ‘children’s crusade’ against the current boomer establishment I want to know one thing and that is what is your program? Call me jaded but his campaign is very long on dreamy talk and very short on a program that addresses the key needs for working people-education, living wages, defense of civil liberties, repairing the physical infrastructure of the country, making New Orleans and the ghettos and barrios livable, health care and I could go on but you get the point. In short, those things that are desperately needed today but go far beyond the norms of even ‘left’ Democratic Party politics and require a workers party fighting for a workers government.

Now I can tell why I did not respond to sooner to the announcement of Obama’s candidacy. As it is Black History Month I have been concentrating on writing about various historical figures and events important to the black liberation struggle. And as a natural part of that work the name and life of Malcolm X has taken prominence. Frankly, in the presence of such a real black mass leader, the voice of the rage of the ghettos in the 1960’s, to friend and foe alike, it was hard to take the time to comment on yet another ‘clean’ black Democrat. As I pointed out in a review of the Autobiography of Malcolm X today’s black leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Obama the “Charma” please take a step back, very far back. Enough said for now.


THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

IN DEFENSE OF RALPH NADER'S RIGHT TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT-IN 2000

COMMENTARY

FORGET ELEPHANTS, DONKEYS AND GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

A documentary concerning the trials and tribulation of seemingly perennial presidential candidate and bourgeois gadfly Ralph Nader has just come out, oddly titled an “Unreasonable Man”. Ordinarily I would not give a tinker’s damn about reviewing such a film event but a couple of things brought out in the film have gotten me in lather. Those who have been reading this space over the last year should be well aware that I hold not truck with the Green Party or for that matter Ralph Nader’s run as an independent candidate. An alienated leftist (maybe?) candidacy, in either form, acting as a pressure on the Democratic Party to be ‘good’ is not the strategy necessary for the times. That strategy might have at least made a little political sense in about 1912 but, dear readers, that is a very long political time ago (although my candidate then, in any case, would have been the Socialist Party's Eugene V. Debs). But, as for the defense of Nader, fair is fair and besides I have an ulterior motive here-listen up.

One of the themes that come out of the film is a free-for- all retroactive thrashing of Nader, mainly by liberal Democratic gurus, for allegedly getting George Bush elected in 2000. Apparently, Mr. Nader is thus responsible for everything that has happened since then from the invasion of Iraq to global warming to the failure of the Chicago Cubs to win a World Series. Grow up! And get over it! Part of the charm of bourgeois politics is the necessity for political amnesia. The Bush-Gore contest was a yawner. People literally could not tell them apart, at the time. If there are quantitative differences today that does not undermine the central premise of their existence, or Nader’s either for that matter. None of them challenge the central capitalist production system and its profit motive. Of course not, that would be the beginning of wisdom.

Moreover, while we are at it why blame Nader for the debacle in 2000? And here is my real point. Why not blame Bill Clinton for his scandal-ridden second term? Why not blame the flimsy anti-democratic Supreme Court ruling that stopped the count? Why not blame the Constitutional Conventioneers of 1787 who created that albatross anti- plebian Electoral College system? Lastly, why not blame Al Gore himself whose insipid campaign against a ‘light-weight’ Bush candidacy drove even supporters to distraction? The point, although this thought is wasted on the liberal gurus, is that someone outside the two-party system should have the democratic right to run for any elective office he or she chooses. And that is what workers party advocates should take from this trashing of Nader. The two parties and their agents make it tough enough for third parties to have access to the electoral political process. Letting them get away with this cheapjack retro-bashing of Nader’s right to stand for the presidency should not go unopposed. Enough said.