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.