Lame and predictable

Looks like the union-backed drive to recall Republican politicians in Wisconsin and replace them with Democrats has failed. It was a predictable result, but even success for the Dems wouldn't have changed the fundamental issues at stake.

As soon as the energy and activism of the Wisconsin protests was diverted into harmless electoral channels, this movement stopped being about anything but the Democrats' political interests. When the workers of Wisconsin were leading the protests, there was a genuine Egypt-like quality to it, of the people getting pissed off enough to take their destiny into their own hands. The logical next step should have been a general strike.

Unfortunately, no matter how many times the Democrats piss on the interests of the rank-and-file union members (and the working class in general), the corrupt union leadership is only too willing to make recalling Republicans and electing Democrats the entire focus of the movement - as if that would make any difference whatsoever to the push for austerity and the attack on collective bargaining rights.

I've said that the American political system won't really change until progressives, the left and the working class unshackle themselves from the anchor of a corrupt, corporatized Democratic Party. But one of the biggest problems is that the leaders of the union are still perfectly cozy with the current arrangement. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter to the union bureaucrats if the Dems break all their promises and spit on unions by neglecting things like the Employee Free Choice Act; all that matters is that THEY get to retain their privileges and hefty salaries. It's the predictable outcome of bureaucracy in all its forms - bureaucrats that raise themselves above the rank-and-file forget who they represent and become consumed only with preserving their own interests and perks.

The working class needs to fight against the Democratic Party as much as against the Republican Party, but there's one massive obstacle that unions (the most organized workers) need to get past - the corrupt leadership that continues to tie them to the Democrats.

On Clarity

The worse things get, the clearer the solution becomes.

I can't remember the last time I read the news and did not become actively pissed off at what I was hearing. Regardless of whether I learn something on corporate news networks or a Marxist blog, the facts themselves are almost always enraging. Despite the brief rays of hope we saw during the Arab Spring, and the events around the world inspired by the heroic struggles of the Middle East (e.g. Wisconsin), the powers-that-be are still to strong to allow events to spiral out of their control for too long. When the Arabs finally rose up in revolt against the brutal Western-backed dictators that had held them down for decades, the corporate elite was taken totally by surprise. Yet they clawed their way back to relevance through the most blunt expression of their power: brute military force.

NATO's Libya adventure has now lasted for months and is probably the most visible expression of the increasing lawlessness of the Western bourgeoisie. Barack Obama's autocratic decision to commit the United States to another Middle Eastern war was helped along by a Congress seemingly more eager than ever to demonstrate its own irrelevance. The Obamabots - those Democratic loyalists who will cheer whatever Obama does, despite criticizing the same conduct when Bush did it - fell for the ruse of a "humanitarian war" hook, line and sinker. The accompanying propaganda has been excruciating, as another designated official enemy - in this case, Libyan strongman Col. Qaddafi - becomes the latest Hitler.

Most mornings on the way to work, I read the free newspaper Metro that they hand out at the TTC train stations. It contains recut articles from the Associated Press and so you get the most blandly uninformative, "objective" (i.e. corporate-friendly) account of the news possible. Ever since the Libya war began, Western reporters have dutifully fallen in line, accepting any and all propaganda their governments feed them while playing the part of adversarial, hardcore journalists when it comes to reporting on the Libyan side. There's plenty of reason to doubt the allegations of Qaddafi equipping his troops with Viagra and condoms and ordering them to engage in mass rapes, but our "free press" are the best stenographers around when it comes to swallowing government claims wholesale.

Oh, today Obama dramatically escalated his other undeclared illegal war in Yemen, giving the CIA carte blanche to intensify its drone strikes. During all of this, of course, the overriding concern of the crusading journalists in the U.S. media was Anthony Wiener's wiener - naturally overlooking the fact that nothing illegal happened and this was a purely personal matter between the Representative and his wife. It makes me sick to see them question a humiliated, powerless figure like Wiener (despite the fact that I'm no fan of his slavish pandering to Israel and AIPAC) and pretend that they're the heroic checks on power they apparently still think they are. As always, Glenn Greenwald said it best.

Why do I mention all these disparate subjects? I guess because they illustrate the rapid decline of our media, politics, and socio-economic system over the last few decades, but especially the American one. All the way up to a few years ago, I would read blogs like Crooks and Liars to hear the latest inanities uttered by some Republican politician and get annoyed that anybody could be stupid enough to believe their lies. Now, of course, things are so exponentially worse that I don't even notice things like that anymore. I almost have more respect for the deluded Republican base than the Obamabots, because at least they're opposed to Obama, despite it being for completely fictitious and nonsensical reasons cooked up at False News and right-wing talk radio. I certainly have more "respect" (not the right word, but the best I could think of) for Republicans than Democrats, because at least they're basically honest about screwing working people and fellating the rich, while the Democrats lie their asses off pretending to care about ordinary people.

With the total bankruptcy of the two-party system - and that includes both Democrats/Republicans in the U.S. and the Liberals/Conservatives in Canada - the necessity for a socialist alternative has never been greater. In Canada the NDP is coming off strong from the recent federal election, when it finally became the Official Opposition. Down south, the need for a Labor Party is increasingly obvious even to the reformists; witness AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka finally getting the message and beginning the process of jettisoning labour from the Democratic Party. Most people in North America are far from having any kind of socialist ideology, but I've learned so much in the past several months from Fightback and the International Marxist Tendency that I have a far better grasp of theory than ever. The class struggle is an objective reality and most workers are beginning to realize that.

That's why the struggle in the years ahead, despite its difficulties, paints a clear picture of objective class relations that will become more and more obvious to everyone the worse the global economy gets and the more they push these austerity policies on us. I started writing again today because I've been reading for so long and it's time for me to start speaking out once more using the power of the pen. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Air Canada employees have both begun strike actions recently, which will set the tone for the years of struggle to come. It's time to get down to business - meaning it's time to fight business.