Click on title to link to blog entry that discusses the question of defending various democratic fora against the onslaught of right-wing harassment or threats.
Markin comment:
Hey, what are you guys, revisionists or something? We want to keep worker defense guards solely to defend our own working class institutions like union meetings and picket lines against cops and right-wing thugs. Let the bourgeoisie take care of defending their own institutions. Right?
Wrong! This was just a ‘got ya’ moment sponsored by Markin. Hell, of course we want defend town meetings and other forms of democratic debate against military, police and civilian right-wing threats and harassment. We just do it in our own way and with the proviso that we give no political support to left-wing, centrist or right wing bourgeois parliamentary cretins. Needless to say, under normal circumstances no bourgeois politician, except in extremis, would seek or accept workers defense guards to defend their meetings or other events. They will seek their cops, military etc. to guard them. That does not mean that we cannot make great propaganda for our side out of this, and be prepared to actually do some defending. Moreover, as history so graphically shows, when the deal goes down, all the pretensions and protestations of liberals aside, we leftist working class militants are the most consistent and devoted defenders of democratic rights, including our right to assemble. And that, my friends, ain’t no lie.
Showing posts with label break with the democrats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label break with the democrats. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
"I'd Rather Be The Devil Than Be That Woman's Man"-Some Random Notes On The Obama Transition
Commentary
As always when I use the headline above, courtesy of the legendary old time country blues singer Skip James (who apparently had been unhappy in love, among other personal problems), in order not to offend my feminist friends who attempted to do “great and grievous bodily harm” to me the first time I used it, in a commentary concerning former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. I have placed two versions of that thought below. Needless to say after reading some of the points listed below one will not have to guess which version is appropriate for this commentary.
“I’d Rather Be The Devil Than That Woman’s Man”- “Devil Got My Woman”, old time country blue singer Skip James’ version
“I’d Rather Be The Devil Than To Be A Woman To That Man”- “Devil Got My Woman”, modern feminist blues/folk singer-songwriter Rory Block’s version
*********
For those who regularly read the commentaries in this space, as at least one reader has informed me, there has been a glaring lack of commentary from this blogger about the bourgeois election process now that the misbegotten 2008 American presidential campaign has run its course. Well, I confess, and do so willingly, that I have suffered from Post Election Deprivation Syndrome (PEDS). Although it is a curable disease with time the symptoms are a result of too closely following political events that is then followed by “ennui” that can only be described as “don’t give a damn”. That last phrase basically sums it up, however, since I am getting back on my feet and am going to need to sharpen my claws (as we all must) after this Obamian transition period is over let me offer a few random points for your perusal.
Obama And The Question Of Political Incest
Look, I was up late on the night of Tuesday November 4, 2008 just like every other political junkie in the known universe. Why? Well, to find out about the fate of some local referendum questions on the Massachusetts ballot, for one thing. However, after two years of following this bizarre American presidential campaign, from outside the process to be sure, I always have an interest, if only a sporting one as here, in such outcomes. Long gone are the days when I would sit up until the wee hours to see whether so-and-so won the 28th Congressional District in California to insure a Democratic majority in that body. But, damn Electoral College counting, that hoary old undemocratic beast which should be abolished posthaste, is still interesting.
So what did I learn from this experience? Well, the top thing immediately is that America will have its first black imperialist commander-in chief. As a veteran of the old civil rights movement and a keen observer of the racial atmosphere in this country for half a century that fact alone is significant. I, along with a myriad of others, if asked by you whether such an event would occur in America by the political year 2008 would have dismissed you out of hand and called for your immediate medical assistance.
In the long haul, given Obama’s publicly stated positions and based on my “feel” for his personal demeanor that means that we leftists will have a little more room to maneuver and can breath a little easier after eight hard Bush years of having had these Nazi manqués try to shove every thing that they could at us and expect us to like it. Moreover, from the “feel” of the Obama campaign and what it generated among the young the expectations of positive change are palpable. I commented in some earlier blogs posted this summer that a little fresh wind, like that of my youth around the campaign of John Kennedy in 1960, seemed to be blowing. In the final analysis, that experimental atmosphere cannot do anything but help us when the hard realities of capitalist politics get hammered down on them. While history does not repeat itself exactly and we, in any case, do not need (or want) a repeat of the 1960’s (if for no other reason than we lost that battle) the capitalist system itself will force the issues.
In the short haul, though, we leftists will be isolated, especially in the foreign affairs arena as Obama will be given at least here a very long “honeymoon” period both because of the utter destructive nature of the Bush years and because, frankly, he is black. Among the black population that “honeymoon” will, as should be expected, last a very much longer time. By analogy, in the old days those of us who grew up Irish Catholics always gave the Kennedys plenty of room and plenty of support, especially when the WASPs got on their cases.
Of course, this is all by way of preface to the “real” news of the transition period- the impending announcement that one New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Democratic presidential contender, and a woman whom I believe still has plenty of “fire in her belly” to be president is to be named Secretary of State. This is only the tip of the iceberg of Obama appointments of former Clinton (Bill, that is) Administration personnel. This “team of rivals” is going to be more like a cathouse by the time this thing is over.
I will finish this section with two points on this for now. First, in several blogs in 2007, well before this election cycle was in focus I mentioned that any country that could not come up with a better political combination than alternating the Clinton/Bush quinella deserves all the trouble that it gets. I will stand on that statement here. As for the second, I refer the reader back to that comment made at the start of this commentary about my motivation for the headline of this blog. Enough said (for now)
Iraq and Afghanistan and always Iraq and Afghanistan
On noon of January 20, 2009 one Barack Obama will be swore in as the 44th President of the American imperial state. Although this may be my ham-handed way of putting the description of that event it underscores the point that I want to make in this section. On that day we will start our opposition to the start of the Obama Administration’s responsibility for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Get use to the idea now because the news out of Washington, Chicago, Baghdad and Kabul does not promise any quick ending to our now seven year opposition to this madness. Here’s why.
Obviously, the selection of the unrepentant “hawk” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the next American Secretary of State does not portent well for withdrawal from Iraq. More ominous still are the recent “shotgun” negotiations between the Bush Administration and the Al-Maliki government in Iraq. Those negotiations posit a three year extension of American (and Allied, if there really is such a thing there now) troop presence. With that safety valve in place expect that an Obama first term will move very cautiously and despite all previous avowals to the contrary keep troops there to the bitter end under one pretext or another. The joker in the deck is Sadr and his Madhi Army who have been making some noise on the “Arab street” to get the Americans out now. Some of that is grandstanding for the home crowd but, to the extent that popular opinion in Iraq is moved by that slogan, we, of course, support THEIR efforts to get the American imperial army out.
More threatening though is the situation in Afghanistan. This IS Obama’s war and he may wind up staking his presidency on the issue. Obama is publicly and unequivocally committed to “beefing” up the American troop presence in Afghanistan. He never claimed to be a pacifist or some sappy “peace at any price” monger so we best take him at his word. In this regard we best take seriously his commitment to Afghanistan escalation, as exemplified by the rumored selection of ex-Marine Commandant James Jones as his national security advisor. General Jones has commanded troops in Afghanistan. General Jones is a ‘true believer’ that the situation in Afghanistan can be pacified by increased troop levels. The best thing that we can do now is get out the old banners, get out the old posters and write this on them for January 20, 2009- OBAMA- IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF ALL AMERICAN TROOPS FROM IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN! That is the new political reality. Be ready
As always when I use the headline above, courtesy of the legendary old time country blues singer Skip James (who apparently had been unhappy in love, among other personal problems), in order not to offend my feminist friends who attempted to do “great and grievous bodily harm” to me the first time I used it, in a commentary concerning former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. I have placed two versions of that thought below. Needless to say after reading some of the points listed below one will not have to guess which version is appropriate for this commentary.
“I’d Rather Be The Devil Than That Woman’s Man”- “Devil Got My Woman”, old time country blue singer Skip James’ version
“I’d Rather Be The Devil Than To Be A Woman To That Man”- “Devil Got My Woman”, modern feminist blues/folk singer-songwriter Rory Block’s version
*********
For those who regularly read the commentaries in this space, as at least one reader has informed me, there has been a glaring lack of commentary from this blogger about the bourgeois election process now that the misbegotten 2008 American presidential campaign has run its course. Well, I confess, and do so willingly, that I have suffered from Post Election Deprivation Syndrome (PEDS). Although it is a curable disease with time the symptoms are a result of too closely following political events that is then followed by “ennui” that can only be described as “don’t give a damn”. That last phrase basically sums it up, however, since I am getting back on my feet and am going to need to sharpen my claws (as we all must) after this Obamian transition period is over let me offer a few random points for your perusal.
Obama And The Question Of Political Incest
Look, I was up late on the night of Tuesday November 4, 2008 just like every other political junkie in the known universe. Why? Well, to find out about the fate of some local referendum questions on the Massachusetts ballot, for one thing. However, after two years of following this bizarre American presidential campaign, from outside the process to be sure, I always have an interest, if only a sporting one as here, in such outcomes. Long gone are the days when I would sit up until the wee hours to see whether so-and-so won the 28th Congressional District in California to insure a Democratic majority in that body. But, damn Electoral College counting, that hoary old undemocratic beast which should be abolished posthaste, is still interesting.
So what did I learn from this experience? Well, the top thing immediately is that America will have its first black imperialist commander-in chief. As a veteran of the old civil rights movement and a keen observer of the racial atmosphere in this country for half a century that fact alone is significant. I, along with a myriad of others, if asked by you whether such an event would occur in America by the political year 2008 would have dismissed you out of hand and called for your immediate medical assistance.
In the long haul, given Obama’s publicly stated positions and based on my “feel” for his personal demeanor that means that we leftists will have a little more room to maneuver and can breath a little easier after eight hard Bush years of having had these Nazi manqués try to shove every thing that they could at us and expect us to like it. Moreover, from the “feel” of the Obama campaign and what it generated among the young the expectations of positive change are palpable. I commented in some earlier blogs posted this summer that a little fresh wind, like that of my youth around the campaign of John Kennedy in 1960, seemed to be blowing. In the final analysis, that experimental atmosphere cannot do anything but help us when the hard realities of capitalist politics get hammered down on them. While history does not repeat itself exactly and we, in any case, do not need (or want) a repeat of the 1960’s (if for no other reason than we lost that battle) the capitalist system itself will force the issues.
In the short haul, though, we leftists will be isolated, especially in the foreign affairs arena as Obama will be given at least here a very long “honeymoon” period both because of the utter destructive nature of the Bush years and because, frankly, he is black. Among the black population that “honeymoon” will, as should be expected, last a very much longer time. By analogy, in the old days those of us who grew up Irish Catholics always gave the Kennedys plenty of room and plenty of support, especially when the WASPs got on their cases.
Of course, this is all by way of preface to the “real” news of the transition period- the impending announcement that one New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Democratic presidential contender, and a woman whom I believe still has plenty of “fire in her belly” to be president is to be named Secretary of State. This is only the tip of the iceberg of Obama appointments of former Clinton (Bill, that is) Administration personnel. This “team of rivals” is going to be more like a cathouse by the time this thing is over.
I will finish this section with two points on this for now. First, in several blogs in 2007, well before this election cycle was in focus I mentioned that any country that could not come up with a better political combination than alternating the Clinton/Bush quinella deserves all the trouble that it gets. I will stand on that statement here. As for the second, I refer the reader back to that comment made at the start of this commentary about my motivation for the headline of this blog. Enough said (for now)
Iraq and Afghanistan and always Iraq and Afghanistan
On noon of January 20, 2009 one Barack Obama will be swore in as the 44th President of the American imperial state. Although this may be my ham-handed way of putting the description of that event it underscores the point that I want to make in this section. On that day we will start our opposition to the start of the Obama Administration’s responsibility for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Get use to the idea now because the news out of Washington, Chicago, Baghdad and Kabul does not promise any quick ending to our now seven year opposition to this madness. Here’s why.
Obviously, the selection of the unrepentant “hawk” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the next American Secretary of State does not portent well for withdrawal from Iraq. More ominous still are the recent “shotgun” negotiations between the Bush Administration and the Al-Maliki government in Iraq. Those negotiations posit a three year extension of American (and Allied, if there really is such a thing there now) troop presence. With that safety valve in place expect that an Obama first term will move very cautiously and despite all previous avowals to the contrary keep troops there to the bitter end under one pretext or another. The joker in the deck is Sadr and his Madhi Army who have been making some noise on the “Arab street” to get the Americans out now. Some of that is grandstanding for the home crowd but, to the extent that popular opinion in Iraq is moved by that slogan, we, of course, support THEIR efforts to get the American imperial army out.
More threatening though is the situation in Afghanistan. This IS Obama’s war and he may wind up staking his presidency on the issue. Obama is publicly and unequivocally committed to “beefing” up the American troop presence in Afghanistan. He never claimed to be a pacifist or some sappy “peace at any price” monger so we best take him at his word. In this regard we best take seriously his commitment to Afghanistan escalation, as exemplified by the rumored selection of ex-Marine Commandant James Jones as his national security advisor. General Jones has commanded troops in Afghanistan. General Jones is a ‘true believer’ that the situation in Afghanistan can be pacified by increased troop levels. The best thing that we can do now is get out the old banners, get out the old posters and write this on them for January 20, 2009- OBAMA- IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF ALL AMERICAN TROOPS FROM IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN! That is the new political reality. Be ready
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Republican National Convention- Drop The Charges Against The Protestors
Commentary
The following is a report from the Twin Cities (that's Minneapolis/St. Paul, the site of the Republican National Convention)Indy Media. Needless to say the lock down of these cities during these 'events' by the police puts a severe crimp in the democratic facade the ruling oligarchy likes to portray. As an equal opportunity commentator on the vagaries of bourgeois politics I note that in Denver, the site of the Democratic National Convention 100 or so protesters were arrested. Nice work, DNC, RNC.
300 Arrested in Protests
Two days into the Republican National Convention (RNC),more than 300 people have been arrested, including at least 120 people for felonies -- mostly the notoriously vague charge, 'conspiracy to riot.' With no provocation, police have indiscriminately used rubber bullets, concussion grenades, and chemical irritants to disperse crowds and incapacitate protesters. Police appear to be specifically targeting videographers documenting these police abuses. In response, lawyers have
filed a federal restraining order against such conduct.
By the end of the day today, only 12 people had been arraigned. Many arrestees are refusing to provide identification, in order to call attention to what they consider trumped-up charges and to collectively bargain. 'These tactics are designed to protect the most vulnerable people in jail, and take a page from the history of labor solidarity,' said Rick Kelley of Coldsnap Legal Collective, an activist-based legal collective supporting the arrestees. 'Based on the vagueness of their
charges and the program of police intimidation currently underway, these
individuals understand how they will fare if they don't stick together.'
The court has been imposing the maximum bail of $2,000 for misdemeanor
defendants.
In an unusual court decision, Ramsey County Judge Paulette K. Flynn today convicted two minors of criminal contempt for refusing to provide their identity. The two minors were then sentenced to 30 days in an adult jail facility. 'This decision undermines one of the most fundamental human rights concepts in the justice system, to protect the rights and safety of children,' said Jordan Kushner, Mass Defense
Committee Chair of the National Lawyers Guild's Minnesota chapter, and an attorney for one of the minors. 'This shows the willingness of the courts to go to any length, including sacrificing the most important due process rights, to answer to the political pressure to persecute activists.'
Many arrestees are also being denied medical attention. One arrestee with hemophilia and another with asthma are being denied their prescription medication. An arrestee with a broken finger is being refused medical care, as is a person who has been coughing up blood. An anemic woman reported to Coldsnap today that she passed out for 20 to 30 minutes due to iron deficiency and was told that she could not receive iron because it was a prescription medication, and because she refused to identify herself.
Iron is in fact an over-the-counter supplement. The same anemic woman reported seeing a Sheriff knock another woman to the ground and drag her out of the room by her hair. 'Just because people have been jailed does not mean their health should be put in jeopardy,' said Kelley. This is a matter of compassion and basic human rights.
Under Minnesota law, detainees must be released after 36 hours if the court fails to review and affirm probable cause for their charges. This 36-hour period will expire at noon on Wednesday.
The following is a report from the Twin Cities (that's Minneapolis/St. Paul, the site of the Republican National Convention)Indy Media. Needless to say the lock down of these cities during these 'events' by the police puts a severe crimp in the democratic facade the ruling oligarchy likes to portray. As an equal opportunity commentator on the vagaries of bourgeois politics I note that in Denver, the site of the Democratic National Convention 100 or so protesters were arrested. Nice work, DNC, RNC.
300 Arrested in Protests
Two days into the Republican National Convention (RNC),more than 300 people have been arrested, including at least 120 people for felonies -- mostly the notoriously vague charge, 'conspiracy to riot.' With no provocation, police have indiscriminately used rubber bullets, concussion grenades, and chemical irritants to disperse crowds and incapacitate protesters. Police appear to be specifically targeting videographers documenting these police abuses. In response, lawyers have
filed a federal restraining order against such conduct.
By the end of the day today, only 12 people had been arraigned. Many arrestees are refusing to provide identification, in order to call attention to what they consider trumped-up charges and to collectively bargain. 'These tactics are designed to protect the most vulnerable people in jail, and take a page from the history of labor solidarity,' said Rick Kelley of Coldsnap Legal Collective, an activist-based legal collective supporting the arrestees. 'Based on the vagueness of their
charges and the program of police intimidation currently underway, these
individuals understand how they will fare if they don't stick together.'
The court has been imposing the maximum bail of $2,000 for misdemeanor
defendants.
In an unusual court decision, Ramsey County Judge Paulette K. Flynn today convicted two minors of criminal contempt for refusing to provide their identity. The two minors were then sentenced to 30 days in an adult jail facility. 'This decision undermines one of the most fundamental human rights concepts in the justice system, to protect the rights and safety of children,' said Jordan Kushner, Mass Defense
Committee Chair of the National Lawyers Guild's Minnesota chapter, and an attorney for one of the minors. 'This shows the willingness of the courts to go to any length, including sacrificing the most important due process rights, to answer to the political pressure to persecute activists.'
Many arrestees are also being denied medical attention. One arrestee with hemophilia and another with asthma are being denied their prescription medication. An arrestee with a broken finger is being refused medical care, as is a person who has been coughing up blood. An anemic woman reported to Coldsnap today that she passed out for 20 to 30 minutes due to iron deficiency and was told that she could not receive iron because it was a prescription medication, and because she refused to identify herself.
Iron is in fact an over-the-counter supplement. The same anemic woman reported seeing a Sheriff knock another woman to the ground and drag her out of the room by her hair. 'Just because people have been jailed does not mean their health should be put in jeopardy,' said Kelley. This is a matter of compassion and basic human rights.
Under Minnesota law, detainees must be released after 36 hours if the court fails to review and affirm probable cause for their charges. This 36-hour period will expire at noon on Wednesday.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
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).
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).
Saturday, July 19, 2008
*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.
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.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
####Electoral Follies- Musings on "Operation Chaos"-The Presidential Campaign of 2008
Commentary
Periodically I return to edit older blogs for spelling problems, technical glitches and to correct artless prose. Yesterday I was in the throes of such a process when I came upon a blog entitled Musings on Presidential Campaign 2008, dated March 7, 2008. The gist of that commentary, a response to a reader’s question, was to answer why I had reduced the amount of time and energy I had been spending writing on the mind-boggling but essentially trivial American presidential campaign. As described then I have kept on that track pretty faithfully, except I went off the wagon once when there was a tempest in a teapot controversy over the relationship between Obama and ex-Weatherpeople Professors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. That is until I read a little article about the doings of one ex-drug addict (I assume) and drafter dodger (Vietnam) radio ‘talk jock’ Rush Limbaugh and his role in the just concluded Indiana Democratic primary.
In the real world it has not been a good spring. Fighting continues to rage in Baghdad. There are no timetables for troop withdrawals in sight, much less the necessary immediate, unconditional withdrawal that we fight for. The escalating war budgets, despite harmless Democratic parliamentary antics, keep getting funded. Fuel prices have skyrocketed. Previously ample and cheap food staples are starting to give the world economy the feel of Paris or Petrograd in their revolutionary days. Homeowners, their tenants and others are going to the wall during the relentless mortgage foreclosure crisis. And those are the good days. Into this mix comes one Rush Limbaugh who has presented a very simple idea. In order to give his beloved Republican Party at least the semblance of a fighting chance to win the presidency in November he has decided to muddy the waters of the Democratic Party nominating process by having Republicans, in states where it is permissible, vote in those primaries for Senator Hillary Clinton.
Well, nobody that I know, and that includes some very committed liberal Democrats, would have thought much of this sophomoric tactic except that in Indiana on Tuesday May 6, 2008 it is very possible that the tactic worked. At least the Obama campaign is acting like the small Clinton margin of victory was essentially based on this crossover vote. Of course, for the Obama campaign this meant something. It meant, in the coin of the realm of bourgeois politics, that they could not close the deal on the nomination.
But what about those of us outside and to the left of this process? That brings me back to my original point above from that March blog. Don’t look for relief from those quarters. This whole process now is about mudslinging and some antics that we would not accept from twelve year olds. But it also brings me back to the litany of problems that I presented above. If you want to address the real problems of this sorry old world then back away, way away from the Democratic and Republican Parties, their agents, apologists and hangers-on and come over and help us build a workers party we can call our own. Join us.
Periodically I return to edit older blogs for spelling problems, technical glitches and to correct artless prose. Yesterday I was in the throes of such a process when I came upon a blog entitled Musings on Presidential Campaign 2008, dated March 7, 2008. The gist of that commentary, a response to a reader’s question, was to answer why I had reduced the amount of time and energy I had been spending writing on the mind-boggling but essentially trivial American presidential campaign. As described then I have kept on that track pretty faithfully, except I went off the wagon once when there was a tempest in a teapot controversy over the relationship between Obama and ex-Weatherpeople Professors Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. That is until I read a little article about the doings of one ex-drug addict (I assume) and drafter dodger (Vietnam) radio ‘talk jock’ Rush Limbaugh and his role in the just concluded Indiana Democratic primary.
In the real world it has not been a good spring. Fighting continues to rage in Baghdad. There are no timetables for troop withdrawals in sight, much less the necessary immediate, unconditional withdrawal that we fight for. The escalating war budgets, despite harmless Democratic parliamentary antics, keep getting funded. Fuel prices have skyrocketed. Previously ample and cheap food staples are starting to give the world economy the feel of Paris or Petrograd in their revolutionary days. Homeowners, their tenants and others are going to the wall during the relentless mortgage foreclosure crisis. And those are the good days. Into this mix comes one Rush Limbaugh who has presented a very simple idea. In order to give his beloved Republican Party at least the semblance of a fighting chance to win the presidency in November he has decided to muddy the waters of the Democratic Party nominating process by having Republicans, in states where it is permissible, vote in those primaries for Senator Hillary Clinton.
Well, nobody that I know, and that includes some very committed liberal Democrats, would have thought much of this sophomoric tactic except that in Indiana on Tuesday May 6, 2008 it is very possible that the tactic worked. At least the Obama campaign is acting like the small Clinton margin of victory was essentially based on this crossover vote. Of course, for the Obama campaign this meant something. It meant, in the coin of the realm of bourgeois politics, that they could not close the deal on the nomination.
But what about those of us outside and to the left of this process? That brings me back to my original point above from that March blog. Don’t look for relief from those quarters. This whole process now is about mudslinging and some antics that we would not accept from twelve year olds. But it also brings me back to the litany of problems that I presented above. If you want to address the real problems of this sorry old world then back away, way away from the Democratic and Republican Parties, their agents, apologists and hangers-on and come over and help us build a workers party we can call our own. Join us.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
A Crockah Petreaus in the Morning- and the Afternoon too, Part II
Commentary
Immediate Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq!
Well, I do not know about you, fellow readers, but I definitely got a sense of being in a time warp with yesterday's, April 8, 2008, Senate Committee hearings. While it did not have the drama of those of last fall it had the same old actors from central casting, General Petreaus and Ambassador Crockah, eh, Crocker. And the story they had to tell had a very familiar ring. When all is said and done the situation will be almost exactly the same as it was in January 2007 when both the military ‘surge’ strategy took off and the Democrats took over control of Congress on a note of high expectancy about ending the war. A little over six months later and we could have just as well turned on the tapes or read the transcripts from last fall’s hearings.
That said, there is not need to say much more here except this- this writer last year screamed, shouted and got himself into a lather when he stated that the troops would not be coming home before the Bush Administration expired its last breathe. Yesterday we got out faces rubbed in that harsh fact. Moreover, from the prospective of a new administration on January 20, 2009, of whatever stripe, it does not appear that, left to their timetables, that there will be troop withdrawal before 2010. I say start talking to your young children and your grandchildren about the nature of war because it looks like they may need to know something about it before American imperialism hightails it out of Iraq. In the meantime we fight, and fight hard, around the slogan- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Their Mercenaries From Iraq! Damn.
Immediate Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq!
Well, I do not know about you, fellow readers, but I definitely got a sense of being in a time warp with yesterday's, April 8, 2008, Senate Committee hearings. While it did not have the drama of those of last fall it had the same old actors from central casting, General Petreaus and Ambassador Crockah, eh, Crocker. And the story they had to tell had a very familiar ring. When all is said and done the situation will be almost exactly the same as it was in January 2007 when both the military ‘surge’ strategy took off and the Democrats took over control of Congress on a note of high expectancy about ending the war. A little over six months later and we could have just as well turned on the tapes or read the transcripts from last fall’s hearings.
That said, there is not need to say much more here except this- this writer last year screamed, shouted and got himself into a lather when he stated that the troops would not be coming home before the Bush Administration expired its last breathe. Yesterday we got out faces rubbed in that harsh fact. Moreover, from the prospective of a new administration on January 20, 2009, of whatever stripe, it does not appear that, left to their timetables, that there will be troop withdrawal before 2010. I say start talking to your young children and your grandchildren about the nature of war because it looks like they may need to know something about it before American imperialism hightails it out of Iraq. In the meantime we fight, and fight hard, around the slogan- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Their Mercenaries From Iraq! Damn.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Once Again, A Short Note on Iraq- "Cut and Run Now"
Commentary
Well, we have just passed the commemoration of five years of war in Iraq. We have also, sadly, passed the 4000 mark of those American soldiers killed there. Now comes news that the civil war has flared up again in Baghdad and Basra. This time from a different source, the Madhi Army. My friends this is serious. If there are any serious, disciplined militia fighters in Iraq it is this group. Several months ago I warned that come spring we would see the real ‘fruits’ of the military surge of the past year that was to make everything ‘nice’. Well, the bandage seemingly has lost its adhesion. Plan as if all hell is going to break loose. It probably will.
I mentioned last week in commemorating the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq invasion that I was momentarily just a little fatigued by our failure, that is the anti-war movement's failure, to force an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. You can forget that fatigue factor now. All out into the streets under this slogan- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American/Allied Troops And Their Mercenaries From Iraq!! - “Cut and Run Now”
Well, we have just passed the commemoration of five years of war in Iraq. We have also, sadly, passed the 4000 mark of those American soldiers killed there. Now comes news that the civil war has flared up again in Baghdad and Basra. This time from a different source, the Madhi Army. My friends this is serious. If there are any serious, disciplined militia fighters in Iraq it is this group. Several months ago I warned that come spring we would see the real ‘fruits’ of the military surge of the past year that was to make everything ‘nice’. Well, the bandage seemingly has lost its adhesion. Plan as if all hell is going to break loose. It probably will.
I mentioned last week in commemorating the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq invasion that I was momentarily just a little fatigued by our failure, that is the anti-war movement's failure, to force an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. You can forget that fatigue factor now. All out into the streets under this slogan- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American/Allied Troops And Their Mercenaries From Iraq!! - “Cut and Run Now”
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Jack and Abby-America's First Politcal Power Couple
Click on title to link to a "The Boston Sunday Globe" book review of a biography of Abigail Adams by Woody Holton.
DVD REVIEW
March is Women’s History Month
John and Abigail Adams: An American Experience, PBS, 2006
Over the past twenty years or so there have been various attempts by historians of the period to reshuffle and expand the pantheon of the American Revolution. These efforts have included highlighting lesser male personalities like financier Robert Morris, paying attention to the role of the Founding Mothers and a deeper look into the plebeian base of that revolution. Those efforts have also, most prominently of late, included reordering the place that John Adams, an acknowledged early revolutionary leader and second President of the United States, in that pantheon. Leading this charge has been David McCullough’s (one of the inevitable ‘talking heads’ in this docudrama) best-selling book and now this PBS film. Brother Adams (and Sister Abigail) have arrived.
I will confess here, as I have previously in this space, that I am something of a ‘homer’ on the Adams family. I was born in their hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts and so imbibed the spirit of the place and their effect on it from early youth with visits to their homes and tombs. Some of my first political readings in elementary school were biographies of various members of the family (Which may explain quite a bit, right?).
I never, however, at that time, or later, saw them as central to the revolutionary experience. Washington, Samuel Adams (a cousin), the Sons of Liberty and, above all, Tom Paine fired my imagination. To be kind, as I have also mentioned before in this space, I had characterized John Adams as a ‘conservative revolutionary’ (an oxymoron, to be sure) and nothing in this documentary has changed my opinion on that matter. John Adams represented (except in his early firebrand pre-revolutionary period) individually and later through his ‘party’, the Federalists, the closest approximation to what Lafayette represented in the French revolution- the idea of rule by a small-entrenched elite over the ‘mob’-the so-called Republic of Virtue.
This documentary, although something of a valentine to John and Abigail, does not hide this fact but rather downplays it by highlighting other aspects of a rather long political career. The chronology presents Adams as the pre-revolutionary firebrand, the supreme political operative of the Continental Congresses, the diplomatic emissary to various European countries during the war including invaluable service in getting funds from the Dutch, the gentleman farmer chafing at the bit in political slow times, the formative role as first Vice President, the stormy one term as a beleaguered president, the love- hate relationship with his arch political opponent Jefferson and threaded throughout this career his strong dependence on Abigail as wife, mother, political confidante and ‘soul mate’. For those who thought that political power couples only started with Bill and Hillary this will be a surprise. Frankly, what this documentary has done for me is to reinforce my elementary school-derived high opinion of Abigail. As for the closet (and at times not so closet) Tory John I will let David McCullough argue his case.
DVD REVIEW
March is Women’s History Month
John and Abigail Adams: An American Experience, PBS, 2006
Over the past twenty years or so there have been various attempts by historians of the period to reshuffle and expand the pantheon of the American Revolution. These efforts have included highlighting lesser male personalities like financier Robert Morris, paying attention to the role of the Founding Mothers and a deeper look into the plebeian base of that revolution. Those efforts have also, most prominently of late, included reordering the place that John Adams, an acknowledged early revolutionary leader and second President of the United States, in that pantheon. Leading this charge has been David McCullough’s (one of the inevitable ‘talking heads’ in this docudrama) best-selling book and now this PBS film. Brother Adams (and Sister Abigail) have arrived.
I will confess here, as I have previously in this space, that I am something of a ‘homer’ on the Adams family. I was born in their hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts and so imbibed the spirit of the place and their effect on it from early youth with visits to their homes and tombs. Some of my first political readings in elementary school were biographies of various members of the family (Which may explain quite a bit, right?).
I never, however, at that time, or later, saw them as central to the revolutionary experience. Washington, Samuel Adams (a cousin), the Sons of Liberty and, above all, Tom Paine fired my imagination. To be kind, as I have also mentioned before in this space, I had characterized John Adams as a ‘conservative revolutionary’ (an oxymoron, to be sure) and nothing in this documentary has changed my opinion on that matter. John Adams represented (except in his early firebrand pre-revolutionary period) individually and later through his ‘party’, the Federalists, the closest approximation to what Lafayette represented in the French revolution- the idea of rule by a small-entrenched elite over the ‘mob’-the so-called Republic of Virtue.
This documentary, although something of a valentine to John and Abigail, does not hide this fact but rather downplays it by highlighting other aspects of a rather long political career. The chronology presents Adams as the pre-revolutionary firebrand, the supreme political operative of the Continental Congresses, the diplomatic emissary to various European countries during the war including invaluable service in getting funds from the Dutch, the gentleman farmer chafing at the bit in political slow times, the formative role as first Vice President, the stormy one term as a beleaguered president, the love- hate relationship with his arch political opponent Jefferson and threaded throughout this career his strong dependence on Abigail as wife, mother, political confidante and ‘soul mate’. For those who thought that political power couples only started with Bill and Hillary this will be a surprise. Frankly, what this documentary has done for me is to reinforce my elementary school-derived high opinion of Abigail. As for the closet (and at times not so closet) Tory John I will let David McCullough argue his case.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
*Obama the "Charma" - A View From The Left
Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Commiteee.
February Is Black History Month
The following is an article that may be of general interest to the radical public concerning the dramatic rise of Barack Obama this political season. I have detailed my own opinion of Obama elsewhere in this space. Moreover, the mass media in its 'feeding frenzy' will before this phenomena runs its course have driven us to madness with coverage on the man.
Workers Vanguard No. 906 18 January 2008
Break with the Democrats! For a Class-Struggle Workers Party!
The Obama Campaign and the "End of Racism" Myth
For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!
The candidates of the capitalist Democratic Party say their 2008 campaigns are all about "change." After seven years of rule by the demented Bush gang (or what's left of its inner circle), much of the American populace does indeed want change. The widely unpopular, bloody imperialist occupation of Iraq drags on, the economy teeters on recession, the wages and living conditions of those with jobs have taken a pounding, home foreclosures are soaring, civil liberties have been increasingly shredded. The racist atrocity in the face of Hurricane Katrina is the domestic signature of the Bush administration; millions watched angrily as the poor and black residents of New Orleans were left to die or suffer intolerable conditions. From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay, the lexicon of torture has become a matter of "civilized debate" in bourgeois circles.
The trade-union bureaucrats and the black bourgeois politicians, tailed by the reformist left, seize on social discontent to peddle the lie that support to the "lesser evil" Democratic Party will serve the interests of working people and the oppressed. But the policies pursued by the Bush regime are not simply the product of a particularly vicious administration. Imperialist war, racism and repression are endemic to the capitalist system. As Marxists, we fight to break workers and the oppressed from illusions in the Democrats, the other party of war and racism, and to forge a workers party that fights to overturn the capitalist system through workers revolution.
In the 2008 presidential race, the Democrats offer two front-runners who would have been unthinkable even a few years ago: a black man, U.S. Senator Barack Obama, and a woman, former first lady Hillary Clinton. Obama took the Iowa caucuses; Clinton the New Hampshire primary. The third top candidate in the Democratic Party race, former vice presidential candidate Senator John Edwards, poses as a populist out to fight the "special interests" and "corporate greed." In stump speeches, they're all for "healing," "hope" and "unity." They're "fired up and ready to go," not least to restore the battered image of U.S. imperialism in the world, including with some belated nods to the popular demand to withdraw sooner rather than later from Iraq.
The Democrats' rhetoric is meant to refurbish illusions that the shell game of bourgeois electoral politics can work in the interests of the working masses. The Republicans revel in inflicting suffering on working people and the oppressed. Just look at the Republican debates where the candidates were competing over who could be the most racist and anti-immigrant bigot. For their part, the Democrats put on a more kindly face, the better to deceive the working people and give a more popular facade to the racist capitalist status quo. As Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin captured it in his 1917 work, The State and Revolution, "To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament—this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism."
We revolutionary Marxists do not extend any support to any capitalist politician. Nor would we run for executive office—such as mayor, governor or president—ourselves, although Marxists have and can run for parliamentary office as a tactic to propagate our revolutionary program. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels taught long ago, the capitalist government is the executive committee that manages the affairs of the capitalist class as a whole. In the U.S., the president is the chief executive responsible for the most massive military power in history and for the domestic machinery of repression that maintains social oppression and exploitation. To run for executive office means to aspire to be the next Commander-in-Chief who decides who gets tortured, who gets bombed, who gets invaded (see Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 60, Autumn 2007).
At the time of the 2006 midterm elections, we wrote in "For a Class-Struggle Workers Party!" (WV No. 881, 24 November 2006):
"Our task in analyzing social discontents, including as revealed through the distorted prism of the elections, is to lay bare the irreconcilable class antagonisms at the base of this society. It is the working class, with its strategic black component, that produces the wealth of society. This is the only social force with the objective interest and potential social power to smash the capitalist system and lay the basis for the construction of an egalitarian socialist society. We stand for the complete political independence of the proletariat from all capitalist parties—Democrat,Republican and Green."
Democratic Party vs. Black Liberation
Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother, is perceived as a charismatic, honest politician, above the mudslinging and corruption that define American politics. He is particularly popular among college youth. And in the face of the history of black oppression in this country, the possibility of the election of the first black president, whatever his actual policies, will likely propel many even previously skeptical black people to support him. If this deeply racist country, where religious obscurantism and anti-woman bigotry are pervasive, ever sees a black or female president, it would certainly be a significant development. But it would do nothing to change the oppression of women, which is rooted in the institution of the family in class society, or of black people, which forms the cornerstone of American capitalism. Simply put, the liberation of black people and women will not happen short of the destruction of the capitalist system through socialist revolution.
In the eyes of the capitalist rulers, Obama is potentially acceptable as chief executive because his entire campaign is based on the "end of racism" lie, the claim that black oppression has been overcome. Columnist Gary Younge commented in the Nation (31 December 2007) that the value of black leadership "is, it seems, directly proportional to its distance from the black community and its experiences. Its cheerleaders desire not so much to refashion black politics as to eliminate it altogether, not so much to eliminate racism as to eradicate discussion of it." The article quotes black radical-liberal writer and former Communist Party spokesman Angela Davis aptly noting that Obama "is being consumed as the embodiment of color blindness."
In his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama declared: "There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America—there's the United States of America." This message was recently echoed by no less a capitalist mouthpiece than the Wall Street Journal (10 November 2007) which headlined: "Whites' Great Hope? Barack Obama and the Dream of a Color-Blind America."
Dream on. A year after Obama's speech to the DNC, the horror of Katrina would expose (again) this present-day liberal lie for what it is. In response to this glaring racist atrocity, Obama declared that "the incompetence was color-blind." What's "color blind" about the ongoing purge of black people from New Orleans? Then when some 50,000 overwhelmingly black people converged upon Jena, Louisiana, in September to protest Jim Crow justice against six black youth, Obama said he just wanted "fairness" and claimed it "isn't a matter of black and white." Tell that to the black people outraged over the proliferation of hangman's nooses around the country after the Jena protest. Those who came out to Jena were mobilized by black Democrats Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson with the aim of tunneling anger into the Democratic Party and appeals for "justice" to the federal government. Obama did not even bother to show up.
The daily reality of racist oppression can be measured in astronomical unemployment rates for blacks and decrepit ghetto housing; rampant police terror and the consignment of nearly one million black men and women to America's hellhole prisons, mainly due to the "war on drugs"; prison-like inner-city schools and the purge of black youth from higher education. Obama looks upon all this and claims, as he did in his speech in Selma last year, that the civil rights movement brought America "90 percent of the way" toward racial equality!
Certainly such a position serves Obama's career. It means blaming the oppressed for their oppression. In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, he declares that "minorities, individually and collectively, have responsibilities as well" for their own condition. They suffer from "too much television," "lack of emphasis on educational achievement" and "the collapse of the two-parent black household." Obama lectures that black people should acknowledge that "perhaps the single biggest thing we could do to reduce such poverty is to encourage teenage girls to finish high school and avoid having children out of wedlock." And "we should also acknowledge that conservatives—and Bill Clinton—were right about welfare," a reference to Clinton's ending of welfare "as we know it," which consigned millions of poor and black people, especially women, to the scrap heap. Such is Obama's program for "change."
Contrary to the myth promoted by Obama and other liberals, black oppression continues to be the central defining feature of U.S. society. It is materially rooted in and central to American capitalism. As against both liberal integrationists and black nationalists, our struggle for black liberation is based on the program of revolutionary integrationism. While opposing every manifestation of racist oppression, fighting in particular to mobilize the social power of the multiracial labor movement, we underline that full equality for the black masses
requires that the working class rip the economy out of the hands of the capitalist rulers and reorganize it on a socialist basis. Only then will it be possible to eliminate the material roots of black oppression through the integration of black people into an egalitarian socialist society based on a collectivized economy with jobs and quality housing, health care and education for all.
As we elaborated in "Black and Red," a key document adopted at the founding conference of the Spartacist League in 1966:
"The struggle of the black people of this country for freedom, while part of the struggle of the working class as a whole, is more than that struggle. The Negro people are an oppressed race-color caste, in the main comprising the most exploited layer of the American working class.... Because of their position as both the most oppressed and also the most conscious and experienced section, revolutionary black workers are slated to play an exceptional role in the coming American revolution."
Black Oppression and American Capitalism
The roots of black oppression lie in chattel slavery, smashed only by blood and iron in the Civil War, the Second American Revolution. In this "conflict between the system of slavery and the system of free labor," as Karl Marx described it, some 200,000 black troops entered the fight and helped turn the tide for the Northern
Union Army.
Despite the victory over the slavocracy and installation of the most democratic period for black people in American history under Radical Reconstruction, the promise of black freedom was betrayed as Northern capitalists looked at the devastated South and saw an opportunity not for building a radical democracy but for exploiting Southern resources, and the freedmen. The Compromise of 1877 sealed this betrayal and, with the withdrawal of the remaining troops of the Union Army from the South, a new system of racist exploitation was established through the systematic repression of black people's fight for land, education and civil rights. The former slaves became tenants and sharecroppers toiling on land owned by the white propertied class, consisting of elements of the old slavocracy and a new Southern bourgeoisie with strong ties to Northern capital. Jim Crow segregation became entrenched, enforced and maintained by Klan terror and police-state repression. Black people were effectively completely disenfranchised.
The Southern Jim Crow system made an imprint on the entire country. The capitalist rulers have long fomented ethnic and religious hatred. Well into the 20th century, the central dividing line was one which pitted "native" Protestants against mainly Catholic German, Irish, Italian and other immigrant workers. With the mass migration of blacks from the South to the industrial cities of the North, particularly during World Wars I and II, the bourgeoisie promoted anti-black racism, making the color bar a fundamental dividing line that has served to obscure the irreconcilable class divide. All this has served to retard the political consciousness of the American proletariat. The U.S. is the only industrial country where the workers have not historically had their own independent political party, even a reformist one, reflecting the interests of labor, which are counterposed to the interests of capital.
The courageous struggles of the black and white foot soldiers of the civil rights movement in the 1950s-'60s played an instrumental role in overturning Jim Crow. The creation of a Southern black proletariat fundamentally eroded the Jim Crow system of segregation. The bourgeoisie eventually acquiesced to legal equality in the South, in part because Jim Crow had become an embarrassment to U.S. imperialism's posture as the defender of "democracy" and "human rights" in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, the industrial and military powerhouse of the non-capitalist world.
The struggle for black equality intersected growing discontent and opposition to U.S. imperialism's losing counterrevolutionary war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. The potential for an explosive and revolutionary transformation of American society was evident. But from its onset, the civil rights movement was dominated by a black middle-class leadership allied to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. The aim of liberal-pacifist leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. was to pressure the Democratic administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to grant formal, legal equality. In the context of the current spat between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over her claim that Johnson did more than King for black rights, it is worth recalling that King supported the suppression of the 1965 Watts ghetto revolt while Johnson dispatched federal troops to crush the 1967 Detroit upheaval.
In the 1960s, the Spartacist League, despite our small forces, put forward the perspective of a class-struggle fight for black freedom. As we stated in our Programmatic Statement, "For Socialist Revolution in the Bastion of World Imperialism":
"In our intervention into the civil rights movement, the Spartacist League raised the call for a South-wide Freedom Labor Party as an expression of working-class political independence and the need to mobilize the labor movement to fight for black emancipation. This was linked to a series of other transitional demands aimed at uniting black and white workers in struggle against the capitalist class enemy, like organizing the unorganized and a sliding scale of wages and hours to combat inflation and unemployment. We called for armed self-defense against racist terror and for a workers united front against government intervention, both in the labor movement and in the use of federal troops to suppress black plebeian struggles. This program is no less urgent today."
The bankruptcy of the liberal program of the civil rights movement's leadership was quickly revealed when the movement swept out of the South and into the North, where black people already had formal legal equality. The struggle for a fundamental change in conditions of life in the ghettos—for real equality, for jobs, decent housing and adequate schools—collided head-on with the realities of American capitalism. Many black militants, frustrated with and opposed to liberal conciliationism, turned to black nationalism, which rejects the multiracial working class as the motor force for revolutionary struggle against this racist capitalist system.
The bourgeoisie responded to growing black militancy—represented by Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party and others—with vicious repression, killing 38 Panthers and imprisoning hundreds more through COINTELPRO. Police repression along with cop riots in major U.S. cities resulted in the spontaneous eruption of ghetto rebellions across the country. At the same time, the bourgeoisie sought to and did co-opt a layer of the liberal black misleaders into the Democratic Party, reflected in the election of a number of black mayors in major American cities over the next couple of decades.
By the late 1960s, a racist backlash was already beginning, and in succeeding decades many of the gains of the civil rights period were reversed or eroded. A key turning point was the defeat of busing in Boston in 1974-75 on the streets by racist mobs and in government halls by liberal politicians. Last year's Supreme Court decision overturning school desegregation plans in Seattle and Louisville eviscerates the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that banned school segregation. The racist backlash was soon followed by an onslaught against the labor movement, exemplified by the 1981 smashing of the PATCO air traffic controllers union by the Reagan administration using plans drawn up by the Democratic Carter administration.
Barack Obama is a beneficiary of the civil rights movement. He also embodies the utter failure of bourgeois liberalism to address the needs of the black masses. A graduate of Harvard Law School, and the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama's rise to political prominence was meteoric, an effort helped in no small part by elements within the Chicago Democratic Party Daley machine. Twenty years earlier, during Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign, in which he won 13 primaries and caucuses and got over seven million votes, we pointed out in "Jesse Jackson, Racism and the Democratic Party" (WVNo. 451, 22 April 1988): "Class divisions are sharpening within the black population, marked by the gulf between a thin layer of black professionals, who poured through the gates forced open by the civil rights movement, and the massive 'black underclass' of the permanently unemployed, swollen through the devastation of American industry in the '70s and '80s."
When Jesse Jackson ran for the Democratic nomination in 1984 as part of forming his Rainbow Coalition and again in 1988, he was attempting to exert pressure on the party, including through bringing in more voters, but had no chance of nomination. Obama's campaign today, however, poses the possibility of the election of the first black president. And he may well face attack from racist vigilantes and terrorists; threats along those lines have led to the early assignment of Secret Service protection. As a black worker in North Carolina bluntly put it: "I think he will certainly need to beef up his security, because I think there's these wackos that will go to any extent to make sure he doesn't win" (Washington Post, 5 January).
When black Democrat Harold Washington was elected mayor of Chicago in 1983 and faced a vicious racist backlash, we underlined that "Washington has the right to take office with all the normal prerogatives. Blacks have a right to elect whoever they want to office" (WV No. 326, 25 March 1983). But as opposed to many on the reformist left, we refused to give one ounce of political support to this longtime machine Democrat and warned, "Harold Washington Will Betray Black Chicago" (WV No. 328, 22 April 1983). And, indeed, he did, slashing jobs, services and overseeing Chicago's murderous police department.
It is the role of black elected officials to keep a lid on social struggle and administer racist capitalist rule. As former New York City Democratic mayor David Dinkins quipped when he was running for office in 1989, "They'll take it from me." A grotesque example was the 1985 bombing of the MOVE commune in Philadelphia, which slaughtered eleven black men, women and children and destroyed an entire black neighborhood. This was carried out by black Democratic mayor Wilson Goode in collusion with the Feds.
Obama and the Fake Left
The way forward in the struggle against this deeply racist capitalist system is to break the political chains that bind workers, blacks, immigrants and the oppressed to their class enemy, particularly through support to the Democratic Party. This means waging a political struggle not only against the labor tops, many of whom are leading lights within the Democratic Party, but also against the reformist left. Today, as Obama's popularity mounts especially among blacks and youth, the reformist International Socialist Organization (ISO) paints him as a symbol for "those who want a break with the stale right-wing orthodoxy that has dominated mainstream politics for a generation" (Socialist Worker, 11 January).
Despite various criticisms of Obama, the ISO made clear its stand when at an 11 February 2007 rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago campus ISO-led protesters unfurled a banner pleading: "Obama: Stand Up! Cut the funding!" (for the Iraq war). This is part of their fight to give the Democrats "a backbone," which is supposed to be provided by "a grassroots antiwar movement that can pressure politicians from outside the established party system" (Socialist Worker, 2 March 2007). Of course, no less an establishment Democrat than John Kerry has endorsed Obama, who has also received significant support from Wall Street financiers.
The Workers World Party (WWP) is more blatant; the conclusion of its editorial "Behind the Votes for Obama & Rodham Clinton" (Workers World, 9 January) unmistakably leaves open the possibility of support to this capitalist politician:
"With an Obama candidacy, working-class and revolutionary organizations will have to stay sensitive to the impact of racism on the electoral campaign, even as the left differentiates itself from Obama as well as the Republican [sic]. The left will also have to adjust its approach should there be an active intervention of the population in the electoral process, especially if an economic or war crisis arises during the election."
Indeed, WWP supported Jackson in 1988 and other black Democrats such as Congressional candidate Cynthia McKinney in 2004 and New York City Council member Charles Barron in 2006. For his part, Barren raised the slogan: "Let's get back to Black and vote for Barack" (Amsterdam News, 15 November 2007).
Obama is, in fact, to the right of both Clinton and Edwards on many domestic issues. He is at one with the Clintonian "center" in support of the racist, barbaric death penalty. In the context of vicious attacks on immigrants, he wrote in The Audacity of Hope: "I'm not entirely immune to such nativist sentiments. When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment." Along with Clinton, Obama's "patriotism" led him to support the "Secure Fence Act," mandating the construction of a 700-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
As for his international policy, in addition to a cautious and uneven opposition to the Iraq war and occupation, Obama's article on "Renewing American Leadership" in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2007) is instructive. He makes clear that he wants to bring the occupation of Iraq to a "responsible end" in order to redeploy and significantly escalate American military forces and operations around the world. Like the other Democrats, Obama is foursquare behind the murderous occupation of Afghanistan. He is bellicose against Pakistan, as well as Iran and the North Korean deformed workers state, writing: "We must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program.... In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table."
He goes on to proclaim: "To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar." It is no accident that Obama's foreign policy consigliere is one Zbigniew Brzezinski, the veteran of Cold War II who, as part of Jimmy Carter's Democratic administration, worked to militarily and ideologically rearm U.S. imperialism after its humiliating defeat at the hands of the heroic Vietnamese workers and peasants. The Carter administration launched an anti-Communist "human rights" campaign against the Soviet Union, including massive support to Islamic reactionaries in Afghanistan against the Soviet Red Army's intervention on the side of elementary human progress.
For the most part, the reformists marched in lockstep with the imperialists during Cold War II. Today, in the wake of the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union, they have given up even lip service to the struggle for proletarian revolution. As revolutionary Trotskyists, we stood for the unconditional military defense of the Soviet degenerated workers state and the deformed workers states of East and Central Europe while fighting for political revolution to oust the ruling Stalinist bureaucracies and install regimes based on workers democracy and revolutionary internationalism. Today, we apply this same program to the remaining deformed workers states of China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba.
The restoration of capitalism in the USSR was a world-historic defeat for the international proletariat. Today, rapacious U.S. imperialism declares itself the superpower of a "one superpower" world, and the capitalists internationally are intensifying their class war against working people, immigrants and the oppressed. Retrograde "death of communism" consciousness has led to a number of backward offspring, from the mythology of the "end of racism" to widespread despair among working people over their ability to fundamentally ameliorate their conditions. It is a telling statement of the decomposition of the left that radical-liberal writer Alexander Cockburn is now promoting right-wing libertarian Republican Ron Paul—a fanatical proponent of "free market" capitalism—as a "principled fellow" and "a candidate leftists can and should support" (Nation, 21 January).
There will be no effective resistance to the immiseration of American working people without the unity in struggle between the trade unions and the black and Latino poor. It is necessary to fight for a new, class-struggle leadership in the labor movement that fights to mobilize and extend union power not only in defense of workers' livelihoods but also to combat racist discrimination and anti-immigrant attacks. Such a class-struggle leadership would fight against deportations and to organize immigrant workers, demanding full citizenship rights for all immigrants. As we wrote in our Programmatic Statement:
"Despite the destruction of industrial jobs and erosion of union strength, black workers, who have a significantly higher rate of trade-union membership than do white workers, continue to be integrated into strategic sectors of the industrial proletariat, which alone has the power to shatter this racist, capitalist system. Won to a revolutionary program, black workers will be the living link fusing the anger of the dispossessed ghetto masses with the social power of the multiracial proletariat under the leadership of a Leninist vanguard party."
February Is Black History Month
The following is an article that may be of general interest to the radical public concerning the dramatic rise of Barack Obama this political season. I have detailed my own opinion of Obama elsewhere in this space. Moreover, the mass media in its 'feeding frenzy' will before this phenomena runs its course have driven us to madness with coverage on the man.
Workers Vanguard No. 906 18 January 2008
Break with the Democrats! For a Class-Struggle Workers Party!
The Obama Campaign and the "End of Racism" Myth
For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!
The candidates of the capitalist Democratic Party say their 2008 campaigns are all about "change." After seven years of rule by the demented Bush gang (or what's left of its inner circle), much of the American populace does indeed want change. The widely unpopular, bloody imperialist occupation of Iraq drags on, the economy teeters on recession, the wages and living conditions of those with jobs have taken a pounding, home foreclosures are soaring, civil liberties have been increasingly shredded. The racist atrocity in the face of Hurricane Katrina is the domestic signature of the Bush administration; millions watched angrily as the poor and black residents of New Orleans were left to die or suffer intolerable conditions. From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay, the lexicon of torture has become a matter of "civilized debate" in bourgeois circles.
The trade-union bureaucrats and the black bourgeois politicians, tailed by the reformist left, seize on social discontent to peddle the lie that support to the "lesser evil" Democratic Party will serve the interests of working people and the oppressed. But the policies pursued by the Bush regime are not simply the product of a particularly vicious administration. Imperialist war, racism and repression are endemic to the capitalist system. As Marxists, we fight to break workers and the oppressed from illusions in the Democrats, the other party of war and racism, and to forge a workers party that fights to overturn the capitalist system through workers revolution.
In the 2008 presidential race, the Democrats offer two front-runners who would have been unthinkable even a few years ago: a black man, U.S. Senator Barack Obama, and a woman, former first lady Hillary Clinton. Obama took the Iowa caucuses; Clinton the New Hampshire primary. The third top candidate in the Democratic Party race, former vice presidential candidate Senator John Edwards, poses as a populist out to fight the "special interests" and "corporate greed." In stump speeches, they're all for "healing," "hope" and "unity." They're "fired up and ready to go," not least to restore the battered image of U.S. imperialism in the world, including with some belated nods to the popular demand to withdraw sooner rather than later from Iraq.
The Democrats' rhetoric is meant to refurbish illusions that the shell game of bourgeois electoral politics can work in the interests of the working masses. The Republicans revel in inflicting suffering on working people and the oppressed. Just look at the Republican debates where the candidates were competing over who could be the most racist and anti-immigrant bigot. For their part, the Democrats put on a more kindly face, the better to deceive the working people and give a more popular facade to the racist capitalist status quo. As Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin captured it in his 1917 work, The State and Revolution, "To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament—this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism."
We revolutionary Marxists do not extend any support to any capitalist politician. Nor would we run for executive office—such as mayor, governor or president—ourselves, although Marxists have and can run for parliamentary office as a tactic to propagate our revolutionary program. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels taught long ago, the capitalist government is the executive committee that manages the affairs of the capitalist class as a whole. In the U.S., the president is the chief executive responsible for the most massive military power in history and for the domestic machinery of repression that maintains social oppression and exploitation. To run for executive office means to aspire to be the next Commander-in-Chief who decides who gets tortured, who gets bombed, who gets invaded (see Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 60, Autumn 2007).
At the time of the 2006 midterm elections, we wrote in "For a Class-Struggle Workers Party!" (WV No. 881, 24 November 2006):
"Our task in analyzing social discontents, including as revealed through the distorted prism of the elections, is to lay bare the irreconcilable class antagonisms at the base of this society. It is the working class, with its strategic black component, that produces the wealth of society. This is the only social force with the objective interest and potential social power to smash the capitalist system and lay the basis for the construction of an egalitarian socialist society. We stand for the complete political independence of the proletariat from all capitalist parties—Democrat,Republican and Green."
Democratic Party vs. Black Liberation
Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother, is perceived as a charismatic, honest politician, above the mudslinging and corruption that define American politics. He is particularly popular among college youth. And in the face of the history of black oppression in this country, the possibility of the election of the first black president, whatever his actual policies, will likely propel many even previously skeptical black people to support him. If this deeply racist country, where religious obscurantism and anti-woman bigotry are pervasive, ever sees a black or female president, it would certainly be a significant development. But it would do nothing to change the oppression of women, which is rooted in the institution of the family in class society, or of black people, which forms the cornerstone of American capitalism. Simply put, the liberation of black people and women will not happen short of the destruction of the capitalist system through socialist revolution.
In the eyes of the capitalist rulers, Obama is potentially acceptable as chief executive because his entire campaign is based on the "end of racism" lie, the claim that black oppression has been overcome. Columnist Gary Younge commented in the Nation (31 December 2007) that the value of black leadership "is, it seems, directly proportional to its distance from the black community and its experiences. Its cheerleaders desire not so much to refashion black politics as to eliminate it altogether, not so much to eliminate racism as to eradicate discussion of it." The article quotes black radical-liberal writer and former Communist Party spokesman Angela Davis aptly noting that Obama "is being consumed as the embodiment of color blindness."
In his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama declared: "There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America—there's the United States of America." This message was recently echoed by no less a capitalist mouthpiece than the Wall Street Journal (10 November 2007) which headlined: "Whites' Great Hope? Barack Obama and the Dream of a Color-Blind America."
Dream on. A year after Obama's speech to the DNC, the horror of Katrina would expose (again) this present-day liberal lie for what it is. In response to this glaring racist atrocity, Obama declared that "the incompetence was color-blind." What's "color blind" about the ongoing purge of black people from New Orleans? Then when some 50,000 overwhelmingly black people converged upon Jena, Louisiana, in September to protest Jim Crow justice against six black youth, Obama said he just wanted "fairness" and claimed it "isn't a matter of black and white." Tell that to the black people outraged over the proliferation of hangman's nooses around the country after the Jena protest. Those who came out to Jena were mobilized by black Democrats Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson with the aim of tunneling anger into the Democratic Party and appeals for "justice" to the federal government. Obama did not even bother to show up.
The daily reality of racist oppression can be measured in astronomical unemployment rates for blacks and decrepit ghetto housing; rampant police terror and the consignment of nearly one million black men and women to America's hellhole prisons, mainly due to the "war on drugs"; prison-like inner-city schools and the purge of black youth from higher education. Obama looks upon all this and claims, as he did in his speech in Selma last year, that the civil rights movement brought America "90 percent of the way" toward racial equality!
Certainly such a position serves Obama's career. It means blaming the oppressed for their oppression. In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, he declares that "minorities, individually and collectively, have responsibilities as well" for their own condition. They suffer from "too much television," "lack of emphasis on educational achievement" and "the collapse of the two-parent black household." Obama lectures that black people should acknowledge that "perhaps the single biggest thing we could do to reduce such poverty is to encourage teenage girls to finish high school and avoid having children out of wedlock." And "we should also acknowledge that conservatives—and Bill Clinton—were right about welfare," a reference to Clinton's ending of welfare "as we know it," which consigned millions of poor and black people, especially women, to the scrap heap. Such is Obama's program for "change."
Contrary to the myth promoted by Obama and other liberals, black oppression continues to be the central defining feature of U.S. society. It is materially rooted in and central to American capitalism. As against both liberal integrationists and black nationalists, our struggle for black liberation is based on the program of revolutionary integrationism. While opposing every manifestation of racist oppression, fighting in particular to mobilize the social power of the multiracial labor movement, we underline that full equality for the black masses
requires that the working class rip the economy out of the hands of the capitalist rulers and reorganize it on a socialist basis. Only then will it be possible to eliminate the material roots of black oppression through the integration of black people into an egalitarian socialist society based on a collectivized economy with jobs and quality housing, health care and education for all.
As we elaborated in "Black and Red," a key document adopted at the founding conference of the Spartacist League in 1966:
"The struggle of the black people of this country for freedom, while part of the struggle of the working class as a whole, is more than that struggle. The Negro people are an oppressed race-color caste, in the main comprising the most exploited layer of the American working class.... Because of their position as both the most oppressed and also the most conscious and experienced section, revolutionary black workers are slated to play an exceptional role in the coming American revolution."
Black Oppression and American Capitalism
The roots of black oppression lie in chattel slavery, smashed only by blood and iron in the Civil War, the Second American Revolution. In this "conflict between the system of slavery and the system of free labor," as Karl Marx described it, some 200,000 black troops entered the fight and helped turn the tide for the Northern
Union Army.
Despite the victory over the slavocracy and installation of the most democratic period for black people in American history under Radical Reconstruction, the promise of black freedom was betrayed as Northern capitalists looked at the devastated South and saw an opportunity not for building a radical democracy but for exploiting Southern resources, and the freedmen. The Compromise of 1877 sealed this betrayal and, with the withdrawal of the remaining troops of the Union Army from the South, a new system of racist exploitation was established through the systematic repression of black people's fight for land, education and civil rights. The former slaves became tenants and sharecroppers toiling on land owned by the white propertied class, consisting of elements of the old slavocracy and a new Southern bourgeoisie with strong ties to Northern capital. Jim Crow segregation became entrenched, enforced and maintained by Klan terror and police-state repression. Black people were effectively completely disenfranchised.
The Southern Jim Crow system made an imprint on the entire country. The capitalist rulers have long fomented ethnic and religious hatred. Well into the 20th century, the central dividing line was one which pitted "native" Protestants against mainly Catholic German, Irish, Italian and other immigrant workers. With the mass migration of blacks from the South to the industrial cities of the North, particularly during World Wars I and II, the bourgeoisie promoted anti-black racism, making the color bar a fundamental dividing line that has served to obscure the irreconcilable class divide. All this has served to retard the political consciousness of the American proletariat. The U.S. is the only industrial country where the workers have not historically had their own independent political party, even a reformist one, reflecting the interests of labor, which are counterposed to the interests of capital.
The courageous struggles of the black and white foot soldiers of the civil rights movement in the 1950s-'60s played an instrumental role in overturning Jim Crow. The creation of a Southern black proletariat fundamentally eroded the Jim Crow system of segregation. The bourgeoisie eventually acquiesced to legal equality in the South, in part because Jim Crow had become an embarrassment to U.S. imperialism's posture as the defender of "democracy" and "human rights" in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, the industrial and military powerhouse of the non-capitalist world.
The struggle for black equality intersected growing discontent and opposition to U.S. imperialism's losing counterrevolutionary war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. The potential for an explosive and revolutionary transformation of American society was evident. But from its onset, the civil rights movement was dominated by a black middle-class leadership allied to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. The aim of liberal-pacifist leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. was to pressure the Democratic administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to grant formal, legal equality. In the context of the current spat between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over her claim that Johnson did more than King for black rights, it is worth recalling that King supported the suppression of the 1965 Watts ghetto revolt while Johnson dispatched federal troops to crush the 1967 Detroit upheaval.
In the 1960s, the Spartacist League, despite our small forces, put forward the perspective of a class-struggle fight for black freedom. As we stated in our Programmatic Statement, "For Socialist Revolution in the Bastion of World Imperialism":
"In our intervention into the civil rights movement, the Spartacist League raised the call for a South-wide Freedom Labor Party as an expression of working-class political independence and the need to mobilize the labor movement to fight for black emancipation. This was linked to a series of other transitional demands aimed at uniting black and white workers in struggle against the capitalist class enemy, like organizing the unorganized and a sliding scale of wages and hours to combat inflation and unemployment. We called for armed self-defense against racist terror and for a workers united front against government intervention, both in the labor movement and in the use of federal troops to suppress black plebeian struggles. This program is no less urgent today."
The bankruptcy of the liberal program of the civil rights movement's leadership was quickly revealed when the movement swept out of the South and into the North, where black people already had formal legal equality. The struggle for a fundamental change in conditions of life in the ghettos—for real equality, for jobs, decent housing and adequate schools—collided head-on with the realities of American capitalism. Many black militants, frustrated with and opposed to liberal conciliationism, turned to black nationalism, which rejects the multiracial working class as the motor force for revolutionary struggle against this racist capitalist system.
The bourgeoisie responded to growing black militancy—represented by Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party and others—with vicious repression, killing 38 Panthers and imprisoning hundreds more through COINTELPRO. Police repression along with cop riots in major U.S. cities resulted in the spontaneous eruption of ghetto rebellions across the country. At the same time, the bourgeoisie sought to and did co-opt a layer of the liberal black misleaders into the Democratic Party, reflected in the election of a number of black mayors in major American cities over the next couple of decades.
By the late 1960s, a racist backlash was already beginning, and in succeeding decades many of the gains of the civil rights period were reversed or eroded. A key turning point was the defeat of busing in Boston in 1974-75 on the streets by racist mobs and in government halls by liberal politicians. Last year's Supreme Court decision overturning school desegregation plans in Seattle and Louisville eviscerates the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that banned school segregation. The racist backlash was soon followed by an onslaught against the labor movement, exemplified by the 1981 smashing of the PATCO air traffic controllers union by the Reagan administration using plans drawn up by the Democratic Carter administration.
Barack Obama is a beneficiary of the civil rights movement. He also embodies the utter failure of bourgeois liberalism to address the needs of the black masses. A graduate of Harvard Law School, and the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama's rise to political prominence was meteoric, an effort helped in no small part by elements within the Chicago Democratic Party Daley machine. Twenty years earlier, during Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign, in which he won 13 primaries and caucuses and got over seven million votes, we pointed out in "Jesse Jackson, Racism and the Democratic Party" (WVNo. 451, 22 April 1988): "Class divisions are sharpening within the black population, marked by the gulf between a thin layer of black professionals, who poured through the gates forced open by the civil rights movement, and the massive 'black underclass' of the permanently unemployed, swollen through the devastation of American industry in the '70s and '80s."
When Jesse Jackson ran for the Democratic nomination in 1984 as part of forming his Rainbow Coalition and again in 1988, he was attempting to exert pressure on the party, including through bringing in more voters, but had no chance of nomination. Obama's campaign today, however, poses the possibility of the election of the first black president. And he may well face attack from racist vigilantes and terrorists; threats along those lines have led to the early assignment of Secret Service protection. As a black worker in North Carolina bluntly put it: "I think he will certainly need to beef up his security, because I think there's these wackos that will go to any extent to make sure he doesn't win" (Washington Post, 5 January).
When black Democrat Harold Washington was elected mayor of Chicago in 1983 and faced a vicious racist backlash, we underlined that "Washington has the right to take office with all the normal prerogatives. Blacks have a right to elect whoever they want to office" (WV No. 326, 25 March 1983). But as opposed to many on the reformist left, we refused to give one ounce of political support to this longtime machine Democrat and warned, "Harold Washington Will Betray Black Chicago" (WV No. 328, 22 April 1983). And, indeed, he did, slashing jobs, services and overseeing Chicago's murderous police department.
It is the role of black elected officials to keep a lid on social struggle and administer racist capitalist rule. As former New York City Democratic mayor David Dinkins quipped when he was running for office in 1989, "They'll take it from me." A grotesque example was the 1985 bombing of the MOVE commune in Philadelphia, which slaughtered eleven black men, women and children and destroyed an entire black neighborhood. This was carried out by black Democratic mayor Wilson Goode in collusion with the Feds.
Obama and the Fake Left
The way forward in the struggle against this deeply racist capitalist system is to break the political chains that bind workers, blacks, immigrants and the oppressed to their class enemy, particularly through support to the Democratic Party. This means waging a political struggle not only against the labor tops, many of whom are leading lights within the Democratic Party, but also against the reformist left. Today, as Obama's popularity mounts especially among blacks and youth, the reformist International Socialist Organization (ISO) paints him as a symbol for "those who want a break with the stale right-wing orthodoxy that has dominated mainstream politics for a generation" (Socialist Worker, 11 January).
Despite various criticisms of Obama, the ISO made clear its stand when at an 11 February 2007 rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago campus ISO-led protesters unfurled a banner pleading: "Obama: Stand Up! Cut the funding!" (for the Iraq war). This is part of their fight to give the Democrats "a backbone," which is supposed to be provided by "a grassroots antiwar movement that can pressure politicians from outside the established party system" (Socialist Worker, 2 March 2007). Of course, no less an establishment Democrat than John Kerry has endorsed Obama, who has also received significant support from Wall Street financiers.
The Workers World Party (WWP) is more blatant; the conclusion of its editorial "Behind the Votes for Obama & Rodham Clinton" (Workers World, 9 January) unmistakably leaves open the possibility of support to this capitalist politician:
"With an Obama candidacy, working-class and revolutionary organizations will have to stay sensitive to the impact of racism on the electoral campaign, even as the left differentiates itself from Obama as well as the Republican [sic]. The left will also have to adjust its approach should there be an active intervention of the population in the electoral process, especially if an economic or war crisis arises during the election."
Indeed, WWP supported Jackson in 1988 and other black Democrats such as Congressional candidate Cynthia McKinney in 2004 and New York City Council member Charles Barron in 2006. For his part, Barren raised the slogan: "Let's get back to Black and vote for Barack" (Amsterdam News, 15 November 2007).
Obama is, in fact, to the right of both Clinton and Edwards on many domestic issues. He is at one with the Clintonian "center" in support of the racist, barbaric death penalty. In the context of vicious attacks on immigrants, he wrote in The Audacity of Hope: "I'm not entirely immune to such nativist sentiments. When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment." Along with Clinton, Obama's "patriotism" led him to support the "Secure Fence Act," mandating the construction of a 700-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
As for his international policy, in addition to a cautious and uneven opposition to the Iraq war and occupation, Obama's article on "Renewing American Leadership" in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2007) is instructive. He makes clear that he wants to bring the occupation of Iraq to a "responsible end" in order to redeploy and significantly escalate American military forces and operations around the world. Like the other Democrats, Obama is foursquare behind the murderous occupation of Afghanistan. He is bellicose against Pakistan, as well as Iran and the North Korean deformed workers state, writing: "We must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program.... In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table."
He goes on to proclaim: "To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar." It is no accident that Obama's foreign policy consigliere is one Zbigniew Brzezinski, the veteran of Cold War II who, as part of Jimmy Carter's Democratic administration, worked to militarily and ideologically rearm U.S. imperialism after its humiliating defeat at the hands of the heroic Vietnamese workers and peasants. The Carter administration launched an anti-Communist "human rights" campaign against the Soviet Union, including massive support to Islamic reactionaries in Afghanistan against the Soviet Red Army's intervention on the side of elementary human progress.
For the most part, the reformists marched in lockstep with the imperialists during Cold War II. Today, in the wake of the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union, they have given up even lip service to the struggle for proletarian revolution. As revolutionary Trotskyists, we stood for the unconditional military defense of the Soviet degenerated workers state and the deformed workers states of East and Central Europe while fighting for political revolution to oust the ruling Stalinist bureaucracies and install regimes based on workers democracy and revolutionary internationalism. Today, we apply this same program to the remaining deformed workers states of China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba.
The restoration of capitalism in the USSR was a world-historic defeat for the international proletariat. Today, rapacious U.S. imperialism declares itself the superpower of a "one superpower" world, and the capitalists internationally are intensifying their class war against working people, immigrants and the oppressed. Retrograde "death of communism" consciousness has led to a number of backward offspring, from the mythology of the "end of racism" to widespread despair among working people over their ability to fundamentally ameliorate their conditions. It is a telling statement of the decomposition of the left that radical-liberal writer Alexander Cockburn is now promoting right-wing libertarian Republican Ron Paul—a fanatical proponent of "free market" capitalism—as a "principled fellow" and "a candidate leftists can and should support" (Nation, 21 January).
There will be no effective resistance to the immiseration of American working people without the unity in struggle between the trade unions and the black and Latino poor. It is necessary to fight for a new, class-struggle leadership in the labor movement that fights to mobilize and extend union power not only in defense of workers' livelihoods but also to combat racist discrimination and anti-immigrant attacks. Such a class-struggle leadership would fight against deportations and to organize immigrant workers, demanding full citizenship rights for all immigrants. As we wrote in our Programmatic Statement:
"Despite the destruction of industrial jobs and erosion of union strength, black workers, who have a significantly higher rate of trade-union membership than do white workers, continue to be integrated into strategic sectors of the industrial proletariat, which alone has the power to shatter this racist, capitalist system. Won to a revolutionary program, black workers will be the living link fusing the anger of the dispossessed ghetto masses with the social power of the multiracial proletariat under the leadership of a Leninist vanguard party."
Sunday, June 10, 2007
"I'D RATHER BE THE DEVIL THAN BE THAT WOMAN'S MAN"
COMMENTARY
BREAK WITH THE DEMOCRATS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
Leave it to legendary blues man Skip James to come up with just the right phrase to capture my feelings after having just read part of an ‘unauthorized’ biography of Senator Hillary Clinton. Believe me even that much was tough going and I refuse to go further. No, not because of the nasty details of the Clintons’ lives ‘exposed’ but because I knew all of this before as did almost any political neophyte. These people, the Clintons, have been part of the political landscape so long it seems really improbably that there is much we haven't had our noses rub in already. Between, snoops, special prosecutors and impeachment interrogators what is left?
The ‘highlight’ of the current expose is thus suppose to be the ‘pact with the devil’ that Bill and Hillary made that they would support eight year presidencies for each other. First for Bill, and then (now) for Hillary. I do not know what they call it in bourgeois circles but in the workers movement we call it a united front- that is a temporary agreement over a certain issue or goal. What is the big deal? That such a non-starter is seen as some kind of conspiracy to take over the republic tells more about the authors than about the Clintons. I repost a comment that I made in an earlier post dealing with the presidential campaign. I think it rather sums up the real point that eludes of all these biographies and exercises in conspiracy theory.
"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 a pretty sight. And once again, as with the Republicans, we are in trouble."
BREAK WITH THE DEMOCRATS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
Leave it to legendary blues man Skip James to come up with just the right phrase to capture my feelings after having just read part of an ‘unauthorized’ biography of Senator Hillary Clinton. Believe me even that much was tough going and I refuse to go further. No, not because of the nasty details of the Clintons’ lives ‘exposed’ but because I knew all of this before as did almost any political neophyte. These people, the Clintons, have been part of the political landscape so long it seems really improbably that there is much we haven't had our noses rub in already. Between, snoops, special prosecutors and impeachment interrogators what is left?
The ‘highlight’ of the current expose is thus suppose to be the ‘pact with the devil’ that Bill and Hillary made that they would support eight year presidencies for each other. First for Bill, and then (now) for Hillary. I do not know what they call it in bourgeois circles but in the workers movement we call it a united front- that is a temporary agreement over a certain issue or goal. What is the big deal? That such a non-starter is seen as some kind of conspiracy to take over the republic tells more about the authors than about the Clintons. I repost a comment that I made in an earlier post dealing with the presidential campaign. I think it rather sums up the real point that eludes of all these biographies and exercises in conspiracy theory.
"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 a pretty sight. And once again, as with the Republicans, we are in trouble."
Saturday, June 09, 2007
IN THE TIME OF THE BEAST?
COMMENTARY
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO INTO THE WATER-
NOW, MORE THAN EVER, BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
Seemingly every year about this time just as I am about to go into hibernation from political strife for the summer some crazy thing happens to disrupt my cozy get away. This year I have been waylaid by of all things political debates. What? Political debates in June 2007? Apparently the presidential campaign process has truly gone into warp speed with all the manipulations around the primary and caucus schedules by the various states. Not only that but both Democrats and Republicans felt that it was necessary to unburden their souls before July 4th so here I am stuck in commentary land. And for what? The Democratic debate on Sunday June 3rd, running out of New Hampshire, ran head to head with a New York Yankees/Boston Red Sox game so I was probably one of about seven people watching it here. The Republican debate, also running out of New Hampshire, on Tuesday June 5th proved to me that I am not the only political junkie that needs to get to a rehab clinic very quickly. But here is my first piece of wisdom for the summer doldrums. Any party that schedules or allows itself to be scheduled for a debate in June a year and a half before the elections deserves all the problems it gets.
Oh yes, and the debates? From an advocate of a workers party one would expect an obligatory ‘there is not a dime’s worth of different between the Democrats and Republicans’. I will not disappoint you in that regard except to say with inflation there is not a quarter’s worth of difference. There is however, noticeably, a very sharp difference in styles and the audiences that the various candidates are pitching their arguments to. The Democrats, after six years of the Bush follies, are clearly in the cat bird’s seat and pitch to the centrist majority so that they need not go to extremes on immigration, Iraq, jobs, education, abortion and other social issues and, most decidedly, on religion. The Republicans on the other hand not only have to distance themselves from the Bush fiascos but must pay lip service to the prejudices of the right-wing religious fundamentalist base that provides the voting cattle in key primary and caucus states. Thus we are treated to the spectacle of presidential candidates in a secular republic in 2007, not 1927 or 1877, raising their hands in the negative when asked whether they believed in evolution. Damn, I am embarrassed to even watch such a spectacle. Save that action for the revival tents, please.
But back to that quarter’s worth of difference question. What working people and their allies desperately need now and need politicians to focus in on are the following:On Iraq and Afghanistan-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal. On religion-Complete separation of church and state. On immigration-Full citizenship rights for all who make it here. On abortion- Free abortion on demand. On health care- Free quality healthcare for all. On education- Free quality education for all who want it. On marriage and other individual personal issues- Government out of the bedrooms. On working conditions- Organize Wal-Mart and the South. On wages- A living wage for all. This list is hardly exhaustive, merely an outline of a fighting program of pressing needs, but you get the drift. Did any candidate of either party come close to even understanding such needs? To pose the question is to give the answer. The long and short of it is this-build a workers party.
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO INTO THE WATER-
NOW, MORE THAN EVER, BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
Seemingly every year about this time just as I am about to go into hibernation from political strife for the summer some crazy thing happens to disrupt my cozy get away. This year I have been waylaid by of all things political debates. What? Political debates in June 2007? Apparently the presidential campaign process has truly gone into warp speed with all the manipulations around the primary and caucus schedules by the various states. Not only that but both Democrats and Republicans felt that it was necessary to unburden their souls before July 4th so here I am stuck in commentary land. And for what? The Democratic debate on Sunday June 3rd, running out of New Hampshire, ran head to head with a New York Yankees/Boston Red Sox game so I was probably one of about seven people watching it here. The Republican debate, also running out of New Hampshire, on Tuesday June 5th proved to me that I am not the only political junkie that needs to get to a rehab clinic very quickly. But here is my first piece of wisdom for the summer doldrums. Any party that schedules or allows itself to be scheduled for a debate in June a year and a half before the elections deserves all the problems it gets.
Oh yes, and the debates? From an advocate of a workers party one would expect an obligatory ‘there is not a dime’s worth of different between the Democrats and Republicans’. I will not disappoint you in that regard except to say with inflation there is not a quarter’s worth of difference. There is however, noticeably, a very sharp difference in styles and the audiences that the various candidates are pitching their arguments to. The Democrats, after six years of the Bush follies, are clearly in the cat bird’s seat and pitch to the centrist majority so that they need not go to extremes on immigration, Iraq, jobs, education, abortion and other social issues and, most decidedly, on religion. The Republicans on the other hand not only have to distance themselves from the Bush fiascos but must pay lip service to the prejudices of the right-wing religious fundamentalist base that provides the voting cattle in key primary and caucus states. Thus we are treated to the spectacle of presidential candidates in a secular republic in 2007, not 1927 or 1877, raising their hands in the negative when asked whether they believed in evolution. Damn, I am embarrassed to even watch such a spectacle. Save that action for the revival tents, please.
But back to that quarter’s worth of difference question. What working people and their allies desperately need now and need politicians to focus in on are the following:On Iraq and Afghanistan-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal. On religion-Complete separation of church and state. On immigration-Full citizenship rights for all who make it here. On abortion- Free abortion on demand. On health care- Free quality healthcare for all. On education- Free quality education for all who want it. On marriage and other individual personal issues- Government out of the bedrooms. On working conditions- Organize Wal-Mart and the South. On wages- A living wage for all. This list is hardly exhaustive, merely an outline of a fighting program of pressing needs, but you get the drift. Did any candidate of either party come close to even understanding such needs? To pose the question is to give the answer. The long and short of it is this-build a workers party.
Monday, April 30, 2007
THE FIRST SPORTING PROPOSITION OF THE 2008 ELECTION SEASON
COMMENTARY
CHOICES- DEMOCRATS- SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS-REPUBLICANS- JUST THE DWARFS- SO HERE'S A BETTING PROPOSITION INSTEAD
FORGET REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS AND GREENS! BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM!
One of the few pleasures that someone like myself gets out of covering this ultimately dreary and meaningless 2008 presidential election cycle is the chance to make a few friendly wagers on various propositions. In the wake of last week’s political activities here is some background for my first betting proposition of the season.
Last week, the week of April 23, 2007, all of the announced Democratic Party presidential candidates met for what today passes as debate at South Carolina
State College. Make no mistake-the 2008 presidential election is strictly the Democrats to lose after the debacle of the Bush years. Under those terms the Democratic Party nomination very much means something this time. So what happened in South Carolina? Everyone made ‘nice’ (with the exception of anti-warrior/relic former Senator Mike Gravel). If President Bush and the Congressional leadership are doing a minuet over the Iraq War budget the Democratic candidates were doing a waltz. Nobody apparently stumbled but no one took any lead on anything, especially on Iraq. The leading candidates are all waiting to take over the war from Bush in 2009. That, my friends, is almost two years way. So much for the courage of the parliamentary opposition. These are not good times for anyone with a bold vision in American politics, except those who favor more jails, more bombs and more debt. Off the performances down South it looks to me like Hillary at 5/2 against the field. That is not for betting purposes. Yet.
And the Republicans? Rudy Guiliani apparently has too many wives. Mitt Romney has too few. (I would definitely have given the founder of Mormonism Joseph Smith, Mitt’s co-religionist, a careful look based on his politics in the 1840’s as a Free-Soiler. Even Mitt’s great-grandfather seems interesting with his five wives- now that is displaying executive ability. Poor Mitt is, however, just a poor cookie-cutter copy of what passes today for a standard brand Republican). And the latest official entry into the race, John McCain, is a toothless old hag. Anyone who in 2007 makes defense of the Iraq quagmire a central theme of his or her campaign truly suffers from a “ Manchurian Candidate” complex (meaning the original film version, not the more recent one starring Denzel Washington). Even the lackluster Democratic field looks like the Founding Fathers (oophs, Founders) compared to these guys. So what are the Republicans to do against the seeming Democratic lock on 2008? Well, how about Jeb Bush? Madness, you say. Hear me out, please.
After the mid-term 2006 elections I wrote, rather off-handedly I thought at the time, that the idea of a Hillary Clinton run at the presidency was too depressing to contemplate. I stated that any bourgeois republic that could do no better than to come up with a perennial Bush/Clinton dynastic quinella deserved all the trouble it got. And it does. However, since we are going to get Hillary anyway we might as well take Jeb Bush in the bargain. What the hell, the Republican strategy in 2008 has got to be to win the Southern states as usual, try to hold their own in the non- coastal West and fight it out in the Midwest. Old Jeb fits that strategy to a tee. He is suppose to be brighter than his brother (not a particularly hard thing to do) and ran Florida no worst than any previous governor. If the Republicans are going to have to run off of the decrepit Bush legacy anyway they might as well get the real thing. I think a Hillary/Jeb confrontation in 2008 is about 20-1 against now. Any takers?
CHOICES- DEMOCRATS- SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS-REPUBLICANS- JUST THE DWARFS- SO HERE'S A BETTING PROPOSITION INSTEAD
FORGET REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS AND GREENS! BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM!
One of the few pleasures that someone like myself gets out of covering this ultimately dreary and meaningless 2008 presidential election cycle is the chance to make a few friendly wagers on various propositions. In the wake of last week’s political activities here is some background for my first betting proposition of the season.
Last week, the week of April 23, 2007, all of the announced Democratic Party presidential candidates met for what today passes as debate at South Carolina
State College. Make no mistake-the 2008 presidential election is strictly the Democrats to lose after the debacle of the Bush years. Under those terms the Democratic Party nomination very much means something this time. So what happened in South Carolina? Everyone made ‘nice’ (with the exception of anti-warrior/relic former Senator Mike Gravel). If President Bush and the Congressional leadership are doing a minuet over the Iraq War budget the Democratic candidates were doing a waltz. Nobody apparently stumbled but no one took any lead on anything, especially on Iraq. The leading candidates are all waiting to take over the war from Bush in 2009. That, my friends, is almost two years way. So much for the courage of the parliamentary opposition. These are not good times for anyone with a bold vision in American politics, except those who favor more jails, more bombs and more debt. Off the performances down South it looks to me like Hillary at 5/2 against the field. That is not for betting purposes. Yet.
And the Republicans? Rudy Guiliani apparently has too many wives. Mitt Romney has too few. (I would definitely have given the founder of Mormonism Joseph Smith, Mitt’s co-religionist, a careful look based on his politics in the 1840’s as a Free-Soiler. Even Mitt’s great-grandfather seems interesting with his five wives- now that is displaying executive ability. Poor Mitt is, however, just a poor cookie-cutter copy of what passes today for a standard brand Republican). And the latest official entry into the race, John McCain, is a toothless old hag. Anyone who in 2007 makes defense of the Iraq quagmire a central theme of his or her campaign truly suffers from a “ Manchurian Candidate” complex (meaning the original film version, not the more recent one starring Denzel Washington). Even the lackluster Democratic field looks like the Founding Fathers (oophs, Founders) compared to these guys. So what are the Republicans to do against the seeming Democratic lock on 2008? Well, how about Jeb Bush? Madness, you say. Hear me out, please.
After the mid-term 2006 elections I wrote, rather off-handedly I thought at the time, that the idea of a Hillary Clinton run at the presidency was too depressing to contemplate. I stated that any bourgeois republic that could do no better than to come up with a perennial Bush/Clinton dynastic quinella deserved all the trouble it got. And it does. However, since we are going to get Hillary anyway we might as well take Jeb Bush in the bargain. What the hell, the Republican strategy in 2008 has got to be to win the Southern states as usual, try to hold their own in the non- coastal West and fight it out in the Midwest. Old Jeb fits that strategy to a tee. He is suppose to be brighter than his brother (not a particularly hard thing to do) and ran Florida no worst than any previous governor. If the Republicans are going to have to run off of the decrepit Bush legacy anyway they might as well get the real thing. I think a Hillary/Jeb confrontation in 2008 is about 20-1 against now. Any takers?
Friday, January 12, 2007
STILL HO HUM-THE HOUSE DEMOCRATS PASS A VERY MINIMUM WAGE BILL
COMMENTARY
This week, the week of January 8, 2007, the Democratically-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, passed a new federal minimum wage bill making the new minimum wage standard $7.25/hr.. This bill was hailed as the beginning of the golden age of working people by the organized labor tops and Democratic politicians. Be still my heart-we have reached the promise land! Of course for most Democratic politicans a $7 an hour wage is very far removed from their daily reality. No, that is not exactly true. When they are at home and notice the people, mainly immigrants, who maintain their lawns and clean and repair their houses-that is where they connect with the minimum wage. For a very different take on this question I repost a blog from the summer of 2006 when this issue first surfaced. I stand by the political points made there.
HO-HUM- THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO FIGHT FOR A $7 FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE
WHAT PLANET ARE THESE PEOPLE ON? FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE!
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
Is there no end to this madness of bourgeois parliamentary politics? This writer has just recently learned that the leader of the House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, wants to reintroduce legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage standard from $5 to $7 (rounded off)/hour. This is legislation that earlier in the session the Republican-dominated Congress brushed aside without a murmur as an outrage against humankind. This project is supposedly the lynch pin of the Democratic program, and incidentally the road to heaven for working people, for the 2006 election cycle in the fall.
Let’s do the math-rounding off a little. National median household income is about $50,000/yr. $5*40hours*52 weeks= $10,000 /yr. That is very, very, very poor, indeed. Now, let us try $7*40 hours*52 weeks=$15,000/yr. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would agree that still is very, very, very poor, indeed. These numbers speak to “Third World” economic conditions. And it’s no accident that a significant proportion of people at the bottom are blacks, Hispanics and immigrants from “third world” countries. Jesus, with this program this writer has to seriously reconsider his longtime fundamental opposition to capitalist parties and to capitalism. $7/hour minimum wages means we have entered paradise. Forget socialist equality. Forget the classless society. Just vote Democratic in 2006.
Seriously though, this issue brings up what militants must do. Our program is not small, incremental increases of minimum wage levels but a living wage for all. That is the program that a workers party representative in Congress would fight for. However, that is not the end all or be all of our program. Karl Marx long ago argued against the bourgeois and socialist theorists of the Iron Law of Wages (those who thought the struggle for increased wages was Utopian or counterproductive because the capitalists’ wage bills were fixed). He also argued against the trade union reformists that the remedy was not a “fair day’s pay for a far day’s work” but the ultimate abolition of the wage system through societal redistribution of the social surplus generated by labor. That is our ultimate goal.
Nevertheless, the capitalists will argue that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs here or send jobs to other countries. No, it will reduce their profits-maybe (they always seem to be able to generate those non-existent funds when pressed to the wall by successful strikes). That is the bottom line. To be honest, it is not the concern of militants if individual capitalists go under. Our immediate fight is for jobs, and jobs with a living wage and some dignity. To stop runaway shops labor has to organize internationally. To stop the 'race to the bottom' here labor has to organize Wal-Mart and the South, of openers. That is the beginning. The end? Remember Karl Marx’s point-ABOLISH THE WAGE SYSTEM.
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!
This week, the week of January 8, 2007, the Democratically-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, passed a new federal minimum wage bill making the new minimum wage standard $7.25/hr.. This bill was hailed as the beginning of the golden age of working people by the organized labor tops and Democratic politicians. Be still my heart-we have reached the promise land! Of course for most Democratic politicans a $7 an hour wage is very far removed from their daily reality. No, that is not exactly true. When they are at home and notice the people, mainly immigrants, who maintain their lawns and clean and repair their houses-that is where they connect with the minimum wage. For a very different take on this question I repost a blog from the summer of 2006 when this issue first surfaced. I stand by the political points made there.
HO-HUM- THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO FIGHT FOR A $7 FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE
WHAT PLANET ARE THESE PEOPLE ON? FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE!
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
Is there no end to this madness of bourgeois parliamentary politics? This writer has just recently learned that the leader of the House Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, wants to reintroduce legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage standard from $5 to $7 (rounded off)/hour. This is legislation that earlier in the session the Republican-dominated Congress brushed aside without a murmur as an outrage against humankind. This project is supposedly the lynch pin of the Democratic program, and incidentally the road to heaven for working people, for the 2006 election cycle in the fall.
Let’s do the math-rounding off a little. National median household income is about $50,000/yr. $5*40hours*52 weeks= $10,000 /yr. That is very, very, very poor, indeed. Now, let us try $7*40 hours*52 weeks=$15,000/yr. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would agree that still is very, very, very poor, indeed. These numbers speak to “Third World” economic conditions. And it’s no accident that a significant proportion of people at the bottom are blacks, Hispanics and immigrants from “third world” countries. Jesus, with this program this writer has to seriously reconsider his longtime fundamental opposition to capitalist parties and to capitalism. $7/hour minimum wages means we have entered paradise. Forget socialist equality. Forget the classless society. Just vote Democratic in 2006.
Seriously though, this issue brings up what militants must do. Our program is not small, incremental increases of minimum wage levels but a living wage for all. That is the program that a workers party representative in Congress would fight for. However, that is not the end all or be all of our program. Karl Marx long ago argued against the bourgeois and socialist theorists of the Iron Law of Wages (those who thought the struggle for increased wages was Utopian or counterproductive because the capitalists’ wage bills were fixed). He also argued against the trade union reformists that the remedy was not a “fair day’s pay for a far day’s work” but the ultimate abolition of the wage system through societal redistribution of the social surplus generated by labor. That is our ultimate goal.
Nevertheless, the capitalists will argue that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs here or send jobs to other countries. No, it will reduce their profits-maybe (they always seem to be able to generate those non-existent funds when pressed to the wall by successful strikes). That is the bottom line. To be honest, it is not the concern of militants if individual capitalists go under. Our immediate fight is for jobs, and jobs with a living wage and some dignity. To stop runaway shops labor has to organize internationally. To stop the 'race to the bottom' here labor has to organize Wal-Mart and the South, of openers. That is the beginning. The end? Remember Karl Marx’s point-ABOLISH THE WAGE SYSTEM.
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!
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
EQUAL CYBERSPACE FOR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTAIL CONTENDERS?
COMMENTARY
IN THE CASE OF ONE GOVERNOR MITT “FLIP-FLOP” ROMNEY
OF MASSACHUSETTS
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
This writer has recently taken some flack for going mainly after Democratic Party politicians. Well, what of it. This writer has not hidden his belief that the Democratic Party is not progressive and therefore is an obstacle to the formation of a workers party. However many people still do not believe that proposition. Thus, the struggle is mainly against those illusions.
Moreover, does anyone seriously want to argue that there is anything progressive about the Bush Republican party? Oh, yes, I forgot about those two “log cabin “ Republicans- but they do not count because they never read the history of the Republican Party after the Civil War and Lincoln’s time. Furthermore, I thought I covered the Republican Party in recent blog when I argued that Anne Coulter should be the unopposed Republican standard bearer- she is the soul of the Republican Party. Now I can announce that Senator Lieberman should run as her Vice-President in a National Disunity Party. In any case, to placate any disgruntled readers here’s my take on one punitive Republican presidential candidate- Massachusetts Governor Mitt (Does anyone have a real name like that?) Romney. This promises to be short and sweet.
Governor Romney stands for the proposition that in Massachusetts, at least, Democratic Senator John Kerry is not the only “flip-flop” presidential candidate as Romney has scampered to turn all his previously supported positions around, for example on abortion, in order to go after the main chance. And the main chance is to placate the right wing (the only wing) of the Republican Party. Yes, indeed this boy has the “fire in the belly”. However, it must be something in the water about this flip-flop thing among the bourgeois politicians of Massachusetts.
Governor Romney also stands for the proposition that competence (or the appearance of it) should get one far in politics. This is based most recently on his leadership around the Boston “Big Dig” tragedy and fiasco. In short, the ability to tell people that Elmer’s Glue is not a good way to keep a tunnel together is suppose to add fuel to his bid for the presidency. Please.
Actually the most interesting thing about Governor Romney is not about him. As most readers probably are aware Massachusetts, through its judiciary, has declared that gay marriage is a state constitutional right. Governor Romney and other Neanderthals oppose this right and have supported efforts recently to put through a vote for constitutional change. In opposition, gay rights activists staged a protest demonstration. At that demonstration I noticed one interesting sign. The gist of the slogan was that Governor Romney’s Mormon great-grandfather has five wives and the gay sign holder only wanted one. Now Great-Grandpa Romney is a man I would want to meet. Talk about executive ability. The great-grandson is a punk in that league. Step aside, sonny.
I told you this was going to be short and sweet- Enough said.
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 THE CASE OF ONE GOVERNOR MITT “FLIP-FLOP” ROMNEY
OF MASSACHUSETTS
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
This writer has recently taken some flack for going mainly after Democratic Party politicians. Well, what of it. This writer has not hidden his belief that the Democratic Party is not progressive and therefore is an obstacle to the formation of a workers party. However many people still do not believe that proposition. Thus, the struggle is mainly against those illusions.
Moreover, does anyone seriously want to argue that there is anything progressive about the Bush Republican party? Oh, yes, I forgot about those two “log cabin “ Republicans- but they do not count because they never read the history of the Republican Party after the Civil War and Lincoln’s time. Furthermore, I thought I covered the Republican Party in recent blog when I argued that Anne Coulter should be the unopposed Republican standard bearer- she is the soul of the Republican Party. Now I can announce that Senator Lieberman should run as her Vice-President in a National Disunity Party. In any case, to placate any disgruntled readers here’s my take on one punitive Republican presidential candidate- Massachusetts Governor Mitt (Does anyone have a real name like that?) Romney. This promises to be short and sweet.
Governor Romney stands for the proposition that in Massachusetts, at least, Democratic Senator John Kerry is not the only “flip-flop” presidential candidate as Romney has scampered to turn all his previously supported positions around, for example on abortion, in order to go after the main chance. And the main chance is to placate the right wing (the only wing) of the Republican Party. Yes, indeed this boy has the “fire in the belly”. However, it must be something in the water about this flip-flop thing among the bourgeois politicians of Massachusetts.
Governor Romney also stands for the proposition that competence (or the appearance of it) should get one far in politics. This is based most recently on his leadership around the Boston “Big Dig” tragedy and fiasco. In short, the ability to tell people that Elmer’s Glue is not a good way to keep a tunnel together is suppose to add fuel to his bid for the presidency. Please.
Actually the most interesting thing about Governor Romney is not about him. As most readers probably are aware Massachusetts, through its judiciary, has declared that gay marriage is a state constitutional right. Governor Romney and other Neanderthals oppose this right and have supported efforts recently to put through a vote for constitutional change. In opposition, gay rights activists staged a protest demonstration. At that demonstration I noticed one interesting sign. The gist of the slogan was that Governor Romney’s Mormon great-grandfather has five wives and the gay sign holder only wanted one. Now Great-Grandpa Romney is a man I would want to meet. Talk about executive ability. The great-grandson is a punk in that league. Step aside, sonny.
I told you this was going to be short and sweet- Enough said.
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!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
THE BOY ORATOR OF THE PLATTE
BOOK REVIEW
A GODLY HERO: THE LIFE OF WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, MICHAEL KAZIN, Knopf, New York, 2006
William Jennings Bryan is a rather interesting and paradoxical figure in American political history. While America has produced its share of political chameleons Bryan is a different breed- a true believer. Although famous, or infamous, for the fight for cheap silver and later the fight against the teaching of evolution in the public schools, which militants then as now oppose, he stood for more than that. In Bryan one can observe an apparently sincere political fighter who supported many progressive issues vital to the rural and urban working classes of the day, including legalizing the right to strike, reigning in the trusts and the fight against the bankers. A proud forthright fighter, a vanishing type of politician, then as now.
Although Bryan was the Democratic Party candidate for President in 1896, the only one of his three presidential campaigns for militants today to seriously investigate, I do not believe that party would be his home today, nor would the progressive part of his politics resonant with the substance of Democratic policy today. It is ironic that over a century later Bryan’s politics would be far to the left of what passes for the Democratic center today. Nevertheless, on the dark side, his alliance with the Old South Democratic Party and its Jim Crow policies concerning blacks in the South and dependence of the urban political machines in the North precluded any support for the Bryan ticket by militants at that time.
Moreover, there are limits that even a sincerely religious man can bring to political discourse. His Christian fundamentalism never let him really fight to the end for the program of agrarian relief and industrial reform that he articulated so well.
Mr. Kazin’s mainly admiring biography does much to reintroduce the events surrounding the rising and declining fortunes of Mr. Bryan who today, if remembered at all, is mainly known for being on the wrong side of evolution question in the Scopes trial. However, that later issue does not define what Bryan represented in American history. Rather, one must look at the populist, agrarian forces in revolt and the program Bryan tried to implement in his bid for power.
Bryan political career represented the last dying gasp of the agrarian revolt that flared up in the America Midwest and West in the last third of the 19th century. That such a revolt, left to its own devices, was doomed in the face of the rise of industrial production; the increased mechanization of agriculture and with it the decline of the family farm, and the dominance of finance capital do not make that revolt any less poignant. The question faced by Bryan and any other potential leader was the manner in which the revolt would be harnessed to win power and what allies would be sought to fight against the ravages of capitalist expansion.
Mr. Bryan took an essentially parliamentary, traditional road by trying to use the Democratic Party as a vehicle for social change. Many later politicians have also broken their teeth trying that same strategy of using the Democratic Party for progressive social change. In 1896, and perhaps earlier, such a road was futile. In short, Mr. Bryan could have led an independent third party revolt, based on the already existing People’s Party (which in his early career Bryan had been closely linked to) allied with the industrial working classes of the Northeast and Midwest. Interestingly, many of the radical leaders of the early 20th socialist and communist movements who would form third parties, were influenced, directly or indirectly by the 1896 campaign.
This third party strategy was left to other forces that later formed the Socialist party in 1901. Mr. Bryan’s political trajectory, however, was not to join that fight for working class independent political expression. Over time he moved dramatically to the right culminating in support for the suppression of radicals in World War I. We have that seen that political phenomena before, as well. That said, this is an important book that details one type of parliamentary strategy still followed today by many progressives about the way to bring social change. That today the strategy has produced meager returns and is bankrupt does not lessen its interest. In Bryan's time it at least made some rational political sense. Forward.
A GODLY HERO: THE LIFE OF WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, MICHAEL KAZIN, Knopf, New York, 2006
William Jennings Bryan is a rather interesting and paradoxical figure in American political history. While America has produced its share of political chameleons Bryan is a different breed- a true believer. Although famous, or infamous, for the fight for cheap silver and later the fight against the teaching of evolution in the public schools, which militants then as now oppose, he stood for more than that. In Bryan one can observe an apparently sincere political fighter who supported many progressive issues vital to the rural and urban working classes of the day, including legalizing the right to strike, reigning in the trusts and the fight against the bankers. A proud forthright fighter, a vanishing type of politician, then as now.
Although Bryan was the Democratic Party candidate for President in 1896, the only one of his three presidential campaigns for militants today to seriously investigate, I do not believe that party would be his home today, nor would the progressive part of his politics resonant with the substance of Democratic policy today. It is ironic that over a century later Bryan’s politics would be far to the left of what passes for the Democratic center today. Nevertheless, on the dark side, his alliance with the Old South Democratic Party and its Jim Crow policies concerning blacks in the South and dependence of the urban political machines in the North precluded any support for the Bryan ticket by militants at that time.
Moreover, there are limits that even a sincerely religious man can bring to political discourse. His Christian fundamentalism never let him really fight to the end for the program of agrarian relief and industrial reform that he articulated so well.
Mr. Kazin’s mainly admiring biography does much to reintroduce the events surrounding the rising and declining fortunes of Mr. Bryan who today, if remembered at all, is mainly known for being on the wrong side of evolution question in the Scopes trial. However, that later issue does not define what Bryan represented in American history. Rather, one must look at the populist, agrarian forces in revolt and the program Bryan tried to implement in his bid for power.
Bryan political career represented the last dying gasp of the agrarian revolt that flared up in the America Midwest and West in the last third of the 19th century. That such a revolt, left to its own devices, was doomed in the face of the rise of industrial production; the increased mechanization of agriculture and with it the decline of the family farm, and the dominance of finance capital do not make that revolt any less poignant. The question faced by Bryan and any other potential leader was the manner in which the revolt would be harnessed to win power and what allies would be sought to fight against the ravages of capitalist expansion.
Mr. Bryan took an essentially parliamentary, traditional road by trying to use the Democratic Party as a vehicle for social change. Many later politicians have also broken their teeth trying that same strategy of using the Democratic Party for progressive social change. In 1896, and perhaps earlier, such a road was futile. In short, Mr. Bryan could have led an independent third party revolt, based on the already existing People’s Party (which in his early career Bryan had been closely linked to) allied with the industrial working classes of the Northeast and Midwest. Interestingly, many of the radical leaders of the early 20th socialist and communist movements who would form third parties, were influenced, directly or indirectly by the 1896 campaign.
This third party strategy was left to other forces that later formed the Socialist party in 1901. Mr. Bryan’s political trajectory, however, was not to join that fight for working class independent political expression. Over time he moved dramatically to the right culminating in support for the suppression of radicals in World War I. We have that seen that political phenomena before, as well. That said, this is an important book that details one type of parliamentary strategy still followed today by many progressives about the way to bring social change. That today the strategy has produced meager returns and is bankrupt does not lessen its interest. In Bryan's time it at least made some rational political sense. Forward.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
COMMENTARY
THE ELECTIONS ARE COMING! THE ELECTIONS ARE COMING! THAT THOUGHT SHOULD HAVE EVERY HARDENED MILITANT AND THOSE NEW MILITANTS WHO ARE CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT TO DO RUNNING FOR COVER. IT WILL NOT BE PRETTY AND DEFINITELY NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED. THIS SPACE UNDER THIS HEADLINE WILL COMMENT ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE. HOLD ON TO YOUR WALLETS.
IN THE CASE OF ONE DONALD RUMSFELD-RESIGNATION IS NOT ENOUGH!
In the normal course of events leftists, including this writer, have no particular need to comment on much less advocate or support a call for the resignation of one of the ministers of a capitalist government. In this case, we are talking about the controversy over the possible resignation of one Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, Minister of War in the Bush Cabinet. Let the capitalist politicians sort it out among themselves is this writer’s usual stance on such matters. Let the beady-eyed “talking head” liberal and conservative media pundits spout forth on behalf of the best interests of “their” system. After all this is not exactly like the summer of 1917 in Russia where the Bolsheviks were agitating for –“Down with the Ten Capitalist Ministers”- as a stopgap slogan against the Popular Front Provisional Government on the way to overthrowing that government. This controversy, however, has my interest.
The case of Mr. Rumsfeld is special. Every once in a while a politician comes along in American public life whom leftists can use to personalize everything that is wrong with the capitalist system. And epitomize what the rest of the world has come to fear and loathe as the dark side of the American spirit. One Richard M. Nixon, once President of the United and now residing in one of Dante’s circles of hell, comes to mind from an earlier generation. In that sense we need our Donalds. Hell, I have enjoyed politically kicking Mr. Rumsfeld around when he was riding high. And, excuse my manners; I enjoy kicking him around when he is down. (To give credit where credit is due, the late two lines were inspired by the late Dr. Hunter Thompson.) Nevertheless this specimen must go as, unfortunately, there are many candidates to replace him.
Many liberals , and some not so liberal, in Congress looking to rehabilitate their sorry records on Iraq, including the key question of voting for the war budget, are having a cheap field day on this one. However, in any moderately effective European parliamentary system guys like Rumsfeld and Bush would have been long gone. Although I should qualify that statement since the august members of the British Labor Party could not muster enough votes to vote no confidence in Mr. Rumsfeld’s fellow hawkish crony, Mr. Anthony Blair.
I must admit that I am a little uncomfortable when all manner of retired general are coming out of the woodwork aiming at Mr. Rumsfeld’s head. We are respectable people and THESE are certainly not our kind of people. Except under normal circumstances these types, despite an occasional candidate for the role of American Napoleon Bonaparte like General Douglas MacArthur, keep quiet and take their consultant fees. Things must be far, far worst than we suspect in Iraq if the chiefs are abandoning ship already. Moreover, the thrust of the former generals’ criticism is that Mr. Rumsfeld did not adequately provision them with enough troops to get the job done. This is a veiled, and maybe not so veiled, call for escalation. There are differences between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War which we need to appreciate but escalation in Iraq would dramatically close the gap between those differences. We could go from the Big Muddy of Vietnam to the Big Sandy of Iraq. Watch out.
Finally, and to get back on the left on this issue, if there is any justice in this world Mr. Rumsfeld, despite his probable cabinet immunity defense, clearly should be tried as a war criminal. He exceeds by orders of magnitude the standards necessary for such an indictment. However, my vision is not to have him tried before some bogus Court of International Criminal Justice. My suggestion is that he be sent, alone (or with a few of his neo-con conspirators), to Baghdad, without armor. There he should be tried by a tribunal of the victims of his war crimes. Resignation is not enough- Indeed!!
THIS IS THE FIRST ARTICLE OF OCCASIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
THE ELECTIONS ARE COMING! THE ELECTIONS ARE COMING! THAT THOUGHT SHOULD HAVE EVERY HARDENED MILITANT AND THOSE NEW MILITANTS WHO ARE CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT TO DO RUNNING FOR COVER. IT WILL NOT BE PRETTY AND DEFINITELY NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED. THIS SPACE UNDER THIS HEADLINE WILL COMMENT ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE. HOLD ON TO YOUR WALLETS.
IN THE CASE OF ONE DONALD RUMSFELD-RESIGNATION IS NOT ENOUGH!
In the normal course of events leftists, including this writer, have no particular need to comment on much less advocate or support a call for the resignation of one of the ministers of a capitalist government. In this case, we are talking about the controversy over the possible resignation of one Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, Minister of War in the Bush Cabinet. Let the capitalist politicians sort it out among themselves is this writer’s usual stance on such matters. Let the beady-eyed “talking head” liberal and conservative media pundits spout forth on behalf of the best interests of “their” system. After all this is not exactly like the summer of 1917 in Russia where the Bolsheviks were agitating for –“Down with the Ten Capitalist Ministers”- as a stopgap slogan against the Popular Front Provisional Government on the way to overthrowing that government. This controversy, however, has my interest.
The case of Mr. Rumsfeld is special. Every once in a while a politician comes along in American public life whom leftists can use to personalize everything that is wrong with the capitalist system. And epitomize what the rest of the world has come to fear and loathe as the dark side of the American spirit. One Richard M. Nixon, once President of the United and now residing in one of Dante’s circles of hell, comes to mind from an earlier generation. In that sense we need our Donalds. Hell, I have enjoyed politically kicking Mr. Rumsfeld around when he was riding high. And, excuse my manners; I enjoy kicking him around when he is down. (To give credit where credit is due, the late two lines were inspired by the late Dr. Hunter Thompson.) Nevertheless this specimen must go as, unfortunately, there are many candidates to replace him.
Many liberals , and some not so liberal, in Congress looking to rehabilitate their sorry records on Iraq, including the key question of voting for the war budget, are having a cheap field day on this one. However, in any moderately effective European parliamentary system guys like Rumsfeld and Bush would have been long gone. Although I should qualify that statement since the august members of the British Labor Party could not muster enough votes to vote no confidence in Mr. Rumsfeld’s fellow hawkish crony, Mr. Anthony Blair.
I must admit that I am a little uncomfortable when all manner of retired general are coming out of the woodwork aiming at Mr. Rumsfeld’s head. We are respectable people and THESE are certainly not our kind of people. Except under normal circumstances these types, despite an occasional candidate for the role of American Napoleon Bonaparte like General Douglas MacArthur, keep quiet and take their consultant fees. Things must be far, far worst than we suspect in Iraq if the chiefs are abandoning ship already. Moreover, the thrust of the former generals’ criticism is that Mr. Rumsfeld did not adequately provision them with enough troops to get the job done. This is a veiled, and maybe not so veiled, call for escalation. There are differences between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War which we need to appreciate but escalation in Iraq would dramatically close the gap between those differences. We could go from the Big Muddy of Vietnam to the Big Sandy of Iraq. Watch out.
Finally, and to get back on the left on this issue, if there is any justice in this world Mr. Rumsfeld, despite his probable cabinet immunity defense, clearly should be tried as a war criminal. He exceeds by orders of magnitude the standards necessary for such an indictment. However, my vision is not to have him tried before some bogus Court of International Criminal Justice. My suggestion is that he be sent, alone (or with a few of his neo-con conspirators), to Baghdad, without armor. There he should be tried by a tribunal of the victims of his war crimes. Resignation is not enough- Indeed!!
THIS IS THE FIRST ARTICLE OF OCCASIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY
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