Hollywood in Washington, D.C.

The way it was under President Barack Obama

By Daniel Paquet

Don’t miss the latest show!  Let’s have first a look at the scenario:  the story of a US President in quest for an agreement that will allow his administration to spend more money; well, to increase the debt ceiling.  According to the mass media, he needs the support of members of both factions of the Congress, Republicans and Democrats.  At first glance, it could give the impression that they are enemies, aren’t they?

“One of America’s strengths immediately following the war (WW2, Ed.) was a degree of domestic consensus surrounding foreign policy.  There might have been fierce differences between Republicans and Democrats, but politics usually ended at the water’s edge; professionals, whether in the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, or the CIA, were expected to make decisions based on facts and sound judgment, not ideology or electioneering.”  (Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, 2008, p. 338).

Would the plot of this piece have been different nowadays?   Mr. Obama delivered a statement on July 29, 2011 and said:  “What’s clear now is that any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. […] And today I urge Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to find common ground on a plan that can get support –that can get support from both parties in the House – a plan that I can sign by Tuesday (August 2^nd, 2011, Ed.).  Now, keep in mind, this is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart.” (BREAKING: President Obama’s Statement on Debt Negotiations, The White House, Washington).

He added for US citizens’ purpose: “… let your members of Congress know.  Make a phone call.  Send an email. Tweet.”  (Idem).  (The White House can be reached at:  infor@messages.whitehouse.gov)

What was the answer of the organized labor movement?  At the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), a 9 million strong trade-union, the leadership, without questioning the US government spending – for instance the military budget- walked in the President’s footsteps and invited its members and asked them:  “Can you write polite but firm messages on some or all of these Facebook pages (for example Sen. Scott Brown, Ed.), asking for key Republican senators to pass a clean increase in the debt ceiling so America doesn’t default on its debts?” (ref. www.aflcio.org)

The U.S. CEOs and representatives of Big Capital can just applaud to this initiative.  Let’s recall that war on Afghanistan costs $ 450 billion so far and the recent war on Libya swallows $ 1 billion, even though that the so-called “rebels” are practically in total rout.

One can understand that US workers need a new type of trade-union movement:  a movement for peace, a movement for real jobs creation.  That’s what the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is all about.  Born after WW2 in Paris (France), this 80 million members union is now based in Athens (Greece).  They just hold their last Congress in April 2011.  They want to deepen their relations with workers of USA and Canada; it won’t replace the AFL-CIO, but give a new impetus to US working people in their struggles on one hand and also reinforce the movement abroad in the fight against US monopolies and multinationals; in a nutshell, the battle against US imperialism.

A lack of leadership in the labour movement

The Communist Party USA makes a fair appreciation of some aspects of the arrangement, “the budget cuts reportedly included in the deal appear to be, thankfully, heavily weighted towards cuts in the military as wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ‘draw down’. This is a sign that the economic crisis has finally helped force a long overdue retrenchment in the U.S. global military profile”.   However, their People’s World electronic newsletter wrongly concludes:  “It is no doubt true that a Democratic president and Senate prevented a much worse outcome than the current deal.  Many have criticized the president for being too soft and weak in negotiations with the Republicans.  I had nearly 20 years’ experience in the labor movement which proved me it’s hard to judge from the outside what is really possible, and what is not, in such bargaining.  The balance of forces is hard to evaluate if you are not at the table.  Maybe the president gave too much; maybe this is the best outcome possible to avert disaster for now.” (http://peoplesworld.org/debt-ceiling-disaster-postponed-but-not-for-long/ )

The cherry over this opportunist “coating” is the political stand of the General Secretary of the CP USA, Sam Webb:  “The president boxed himself into a corner, not because he is a bad negotiator, but because he and his aides made the calculus on the heels of the 2010 elections that his appeal to independent voters, and thus his reelection, depend on his credentials as a ‘responsible fiscal manager’. […] Paul Krugman reminds us that President Roosevelt pursued this course of action in 1937 to disastrous results.  Let’s hope that president Obama fares better.” (http://www.peoplesworld.org/debt-deal-is-bad-for-america/) .

Now, what does that mean?!  It is in fact the rubber stamp of the US “communists” on capitalist policies.  And there is no question of struggling for socialism in USA, of ending ruinous and unfair wars abroad.  The Webb and Co.’s so-called communists are not ready to give people- in USA and abroad-, a “break”.  Of course, opposition is growing among the rank-and-file members and they are better and better organized; in New York City, they publish a paper bulletin, Ideological Fightback, which talks to the workers and calls for a new leadership in the US communist movement.

On the other hand, AFL-CIO’s general board and executive council members met with President Obama urging him to focus on jobs for the remainder of this first term.  “The president, on national television, shifted discussions away from the debt ceiling deal and declared that the priorities for Congress are passage of measures that will stimulate the sputtering economy, including extending the payroll tax suspensions for workers, beefing up benefits for the unemployed and investing in infrastructure projects. […]  The recession, which began during presidency of George Bush, saw the economy shrink at an annual rate of 8 percent in the last three months of 2008, just before Obama was sworn in.  It shrunk by another 7 percent during his first three months in office.” (http://www.peoplesworld.org/labor-leaders-at-white-house-press-obama-on-jobs/)

At Jobs with Justice’s national conference that took place Aug. 5-7 in Washington, D.C. “workers, students, religious leaders, community activists and many others planned strategies to build a powerful movement of working people to defeat the corporate agenda.” (http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/08/01/join-jobs-with-justices-national-conference-and-fight-back-against-corporate-agenda/).

“When Republican House leaders forced a shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week (published 20-08-05, Ed.), they not only forced the layoff of 4,000 FAA workers, they also put at risk nearly 90,000 construction jobs at airports around the country. […]  Republicans blocked temporary funding in an effort to overturn a new rule making union elections among rail and airline workers more democratic.” (http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/07/25/republican-faa-shutdown-costs-4000-jobs-threatens-90000).

Meanwhile, “the unemployment rate for young workers between ages 16 to 24 has skyrocketed as millions of young people have lost jobs and school enrollment has steadily increased over the past decade.  The jobless rate nearly doubled among young workers to a peak of 19 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 and has remained high, averaging 17.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared with 6.7 percent for older workers and 9.1 percent for all workers.” (http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/08/01/jobs-crisis-hits-young-workers-hard/print/) .

The New York City daily Metro newspaper reported on August 3^rd, 2011 a story about veterans going from deployed to unemployed.  “Abbas Malik guarded the Green Zone in Iraq, but he can’t get hired as a mall security guard in Staten Island (New York City, Ed.). […] Like Malik, 13 percent of the 17,000 New York City war veterans are now unemployed.  That’s higher than the national unemployment rate of 9 percent. […] Malik is considering returning to war just to pay the bills.”

Communists must address the issue and raise the level of political consciousness.  Founders of modern communism once said:  “We must not make too many concessions to gain popularity; we shall not underestimate the intellect and level of culture of our workers.  […] If the working class is not organized well enough to wage a campaign against the collective power, that is against the ruling classes’ political power, we must, anyway, lead it through continuous agitation against the political attitude of the ruling classes, an attitude hostile to us.” (Marx-Engels, Critique des programmes de Gotha et d’Erfurt, Éditions sociales, Paris, 1966, pp. 92-93, 119).

“American efficiency, on the other hand, is an antidote to ‘revolutionary’ Manilovism and fantastic scheme concocting (we searched the meaning in several textbooks, but we could not find the exact definition; obviously, ”manilovism” is not a compliment, Ed.).  American efficiency is that indomitable force which neither knows nor recognizes obstacles, which with its business-like perseverance brushes aside all obstacles; which continues at a task once started until it is finished, even if it is a minor task; and without which serious constructive work is inconceivable.  But American efficiency has every chance of degenerating into narrow and unprincipled practicalism if it is not combined with Russian revolutionary sweep.” (Joseph  Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1975, pp. 111-112).

Anyhow, the American workers will never remain isolated from the rest of the world.  Already, we spoke about the orientation of the WFTU.  But we cannot cast away the efforts of many communists around the world (France, Greece, Canada, and workers in USA…) who are on the road to rebuild the Communist International (Comintern), which is the association of communist parties worldwide, to support the struggle of the working class movement to replace capitalism with socialism.  Probably several US workers will nod and say:  “I’ll drink to that!”  Yes, it deserves an honest beer…

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