Internationalism has devoted an article in each issue since the November 2010 Mid-Term elections to analyzing the political situation facing the U.S. bourgeoisie. Our analysis has centered around the increasing difficulty of the U.S. political class to overcome the effects of social decomposition on its own apparatus, expressed primarily through the progressive descent of major elements of the Republican Party into openly ideological politics—a situation that puts the GOP’s ability to act in overall interests of the national capital in jeopardy. In our last issue, we analyzed how this process has been carried the furthest at the level of state government, evidenced by the totally ham fisted attempts of certain Republican Governors to smash public employee unions, thus depriving the bourgeois state of one of its most important bulwarks against class struggle.[1] In our analysis, these policies run counter to the overall need to maintain a functioning union apparatus, faced with the threat of renewed class struggle in response to an economic crisis that shows no signs of going away.
As a result of this descent into ideology by elements of the U.S. political class, the main factions of the national bourgeoisie[2] now face a stark dilemma threatening the traditional ideological division of labor between the Democratic and Republican parties at the national level. The beginnings of a class response to the economic crisis, symbolized by the massive mobilization of workers in Wisconsin in March (before being recuperated into a defense of unions and “democracy”), should move the main factions of the national bourgeoisie to consider a policy of putting the left in opposition in order to better control working class anger. This strategy would seem to be best accomplished by the election of a Republican President in November 2012.
However, the increasingly ideological nature of many elements of the Republican Party makes implementing this strategy dangerous for the U.S. national capital. The GOP’s increasingly inflexible approach to politics calls into question its ability to serve as a credible party of government on the national level. Thus, the main factions of the U.S. national bourgeoisie seem to be faced with two choices looking forward to 2012. The first is to work for President Obama’s re-election in order to avoid the possibility of a radical Republican taking office, unable to effectively govern in the overall interests of the bourgeoisie, enacting policies more in line with libertarian, free-market, “starve-the-state ideology” than the concrete needs of the national capital as a whole. The second is to attempt to give life to a more moderate Republican candidate who is able to resist the most extreme interpretations of GOP ideology. This figure would need to be capable of governing from a more pragmatic perspective, recognizing the need to avoid unwise and untimely provocations—utilizing a more levelheaded approach to managing the social and economic crisis besetting the country.
In our view, there are major problems in implementing either of these options for the U.S. bourgeoisie. The first option would risk further upsetting the ideological division of labor between the Democratic and Republican parties, almost forcing a second term Obama administration to engage in open austerity against the working class. Moreover, an Obama re-election would likely require engineering a repeat of the massive voter turnout effort of 2008. If the President is to win re-election, the bourgeoisie will need to mobilize the younger generation behind his candidacy again in order to counteract the strong anti-Obama fervor among Republicans. Undoubtedly, this will be much more difficult to pull off a second time. Many 2008 Obama voters have grown frustrated with his vanilla Presidency that has not lived up to their “historic” expectations. Enthusiasm for the Obama administration is currently rather low; although, it is possible the nomination of an extremist Republican candidate could produce a similar motivation to turnout for the President.
The second is fraught with difficulty given the depth of the GOP’s ideological deterioration. It is not even clear at this time if a more moderate Republican candidate could survive the party’s primary process, which in today’s political climate would seem to reward those with the most ideological bent. Already early in the campaign, supposedly moderate Republican candidates, such as former Governors Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, have been required to pander to the Republican right-wing.[3]
Faced with these difficulties, the main factions of the U.S. bourgeoisie have little choice but to attempt to implement both options simultaneously, deferring the final selection of a strategy for 2012 until after the Republican primary has been sorted out. Thus, the U.S. domestic political situation has been characterized by a wild roller coaster ride over the last eight months, with dramatic swings in momentum back and forth between President Obama and the insurgent Republican right wing. In November, the mid-term elections were a clear victory for the Republican Party; Obama emerged badly wounded with the pundits openly suggesting a one-term Presidency.
However, a string of legislative victories in the lame duck Congress; followed by months of uncertainty regarding the Republicans’ Presidential field saw momentum shift back in Obama’s favor. The President’s skillful release of his long-form birth certificate at the culmination of a shameless media circus seemed to spell the demise of the most ludicrous forms of conspiracy theory surrounding the Presidents’ legitimacy. However, the seeming coup de grace came on May 2nd with the announcement of the assassination and burial at sea of America’s archenemy Osama Bin Laden. Although perhaps a bit earlier in the election cycle than the White House would have liked, in one fell swoop the President seemed to have finally established himself as a genuine American warrior who accomplished the ultimate victory over the terrorism that had frustratingly eluded his Republican predecessor.
While the post 9/11 patriotic celebrations were a genuine tragedy, this time they were pure face. Ultimately, the morbid celebration of the brutal death of an abstract enemy in a far off land proved to be no consolation for the economic and social pain gripping the American working class.
Already, barely a month after the event, whatever political boost the President thought he was getting from having “slain the beast” has largely evaporated. Obama’s approval rating has now dropped below its pre-Osama assassination level, as the economy stubbornly fails to show any signs of improving. Even bourgeois economists have been forced to admit the likelihood of a double dip recession as unemployment remains stubbornly high, the housing market heads for Hades once again and the pain of inflation begins to take hold. The political consequences of all this has been that in a hypothetical Presidential race, some polls now show Romney defeating Obama.[4]
Of course, it is not even clear that the U.S. bourgeoisie will be able to engineer an Obama-Romney (or another moderate Republican) race for 2012. Romney still has to run the gauntlet of the Republican primaries in which there will be a strong temptation to nominate a right wing ideologue. His previous support for the individual health insurance mandate, his Mormon religion and his acceptance of the reality of man-made global warming will not sit well with many Republican primary voters.[5]
With people like the bizarre, yet immensely popular, Michelle Bachman already in the race, Sarah Palin still not ruling out a run despite strong pressure from Republican insiders to stay on the sidelines, and the neo-Confederate Texas Governor Rick Perry pondering a campaign, there remains a real threat that a candidate totally unacceptable to the main factions of the national bourgeoisie will ultimately win the Republican nomination.[6]
It is for this reason that the national bourgeoisie realizes it must develop a strategy for managing a growing class response to the crisis in a situation in which a traditional left in opposition arrangement is not possible. In some ways, the increasingly belligerent and tactically clumsy approach to politics of the Republican right wing—in particular by Republican Governors at the state level—has helped in this endeavor. The bourgeoisie has taken full advantage of the movements in Wisconsin and elsewhere to attempt to energize a new “people’s movement” around the unions and the left wing of the Democratic Party (the so-called “progressives”).[7]
This movement, although still unable to match the right wing Tea Party in organization or fanaticism, can serve several functions for the main factions of the national bourgeoisie in the period ahead. First, it can serve to deflect class anger at the crisis into the dead ends of the unions and the defense of bourgeois “democracy” as Republican governors show few signs of slowing their assault on the public employee unions. Second, this movement could help President Obama’s re-election efforts against a right wing Republican candidate by channeling the populace’s disgust with the state of the nation into a “lesser of two evils” campaign. Another possibility is that votes to this left wing of the Dem. Party can attract the votes of those dissatisfied with Obama, thereby creating the terrain for a republican victory which would then put the Democrats into opposition. The Democratic Party may see this as necessary depending on the development of the crisis, and manipulate accordingly, without the electoral results expressing an agreed-upon strategy between the two parties. The larger question is really what the ruling class will be forced to do to confront the crisis, but it is not united on the ideological level.
However, perhaps most importantly, this so-called people’s movement could ultimately form the skeleton of a left in opposition to a centrist Obama who has little option but to enact open austerity in his second term. We have seen a possible preview of this strategy in the near revolt of rank and file Democrats in Congress against the President’s deal to preserve the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in the lame duck session. It is not for nothing that there has been a consistent campaign on the left attacking the Obama administration for being too close to Wall Street and the banks.
Nevertheless, all this could ultimately come to naught given the degree of ideological hardening that has taken place in U.S. society in the last two decades—a reality that is contributing greatly to the increasing difficulty the main factions of the U.S. bourgeoisie are having controlling the outcome of its electoral circus. There are not many persuadable voters anymore, so the bourgeoisie has to rely on manipulating voter turnout in order to try to achieve its electoral objectives. High turnout is generally better for Democrats, as was the case with Obama’s “historic” election in 2008, while fewer voters at the polls favors the Republicans, as witnessed by the 2010 midterms.
Given this reality, Obama will face many challenges in the 2012 campaign, whether or not he is the choice candidate of the main factions of the bourgeoisie and regardless of his opponent. Already, Obama staffers have admitted that his margin for victory in the Electoral College will be slimmer this time around, conceding several key swing states he won in 2008 to the eventual Republican nominee.[8]
The lesson in all this for the working-class is clear. The rot that eats away at capitalist society has advanced to such a stage that it now infects the very political apparatus of the ruling class itself. The unique flavor of decomposition in the United States, which is marked by a progressive ideological hardening of intellectual and political discourse, are combining with the specific features of the U.S. state (the Electoral College, a Senate weighted in favor in the most backward states, etc.) to produce a grave political crisis that poses the distinct possibility a candidate unacceptable to the main factions of the national bourgeoisie could win a Presidential election. The most “responsible” elements of the U.S. political class will work to try to prevent this outcome, even if it risks complicating the ideological division of labor in the class struggle. Whatever the outcome in 2012, it is clear that there is no electoral result that serves the proletariat’s class interest in a society marked by such profound social and intellectual decay.
Of course, the political crisis of the U.S. ruling class is not transpiring in a social or economic vacuum. On the contrary, it is taking place in the midst of the worst economic crisis of the capitalist system since at least the Great Depression. It is in this context that the ideological meltdown of certain factions of the U.S. bourgeoisie has been most keenly felt.
In the face of massive unemployment, rock bottom wages, a real estate crisis that many analysts fear will soon suffer a second downturn and an enormous national deficit, all the Republican Party can do is scream for more tax cuts, fewer regulations and the gutting of the federal government bureaucracy and the social safety net. This is not just true for the Tea Party inspired Republicans elected in 2010; on the contrary, the mantra that massive cuts, lower taxes on “job creators” and less government oversight of business are the only policies possible is proudly proclaimed by the highest tenured leaders of the Republican Party in the Capitol. The dogma that business always knows best and government is always bad has become so ingrained in the Republican Party that it now seems to be the GOP’s very raison d’être.
Moreover, although the Republican Party only controls one house of Congress at the present time, the current political realities of U.S. politics have allowed it to exert an incommensurate weight on the overall direction of U.S. state capitalism’s policies in the face of the economic crisis. Although now even many bourgeois economists recognize that the U.S. economy suffers from a grave “demand deficit” caused by the massive concentration of wealth in the hands of an increasingly small elite and the resulting inability of the working class to consume much of anything, there is no political possibility at the present time of any additional demand-stimulus emerging from Washington. All policy attention is now focused on the massive federal budget deficit; with the political debate defined only as an opposition between those who would cut a lot (Republicans) and those who would cut slightly less (Democrats).
In this vein, the Republican Party has defined the debate in Washington on economic policy over the several months, primarily through the cruel austerity budget proposal put forward by the GOP’s new wonder boy, Congressman Paul Ryan from Indiana. Chief among his proposals has been the audacious plan to replace Medicare with a system of vouchers for seniors so they can buy their health insurance on the open market. While applauded for his “bravery” and “boldness” by pundits in the bourgeois media, the Ryan budget has been met with strong hostility from the American working class, with polls showing almost universal rejection of this idea. Clearly, just the hint of an attack on the modest centerpiece of the minimum social wage offered in the United States has stoked a class instinct, with even many workers who vote Republican rejecting this proposal as a step too far. As a result, while many Republicans in Congress continue to defend the Ryan plan, the GOPs most serious Presidential contenders, including Romney, have remained non-committal.
Although the Ryan Medicare plan has been revealed, for the moment, as a bridge too far in the class war, this has not stopped the forward march of austerity on all fronts from all factions of the bourgeoisie, both Republicans and Democrats. The drama building over the looming congressional vote to extend the U.S.’ “debt ceiling” has been used as a cynical cover for negotiations between the parties on extensive cuts to the federal budget: cuts that will ultimately hurt the working class and erode its purchasing power even further. Nevertheless, in this game, the Democrats have been all too willing to let their Republican rivals take the lead allowing their own party to play the card of the “smaller bully” on the playground.
Still, among the bourgeoisie’s more serious economists the sense grows that the political dynamic in Washington has broken down to the point where the U.S. state is incapable of acting in the best interests of the national capital. Paul Krugman has written of “The Mistake of 2010,” comparing it to the years 1936-37 when the New Deal slowed and the Depression deepened. For Krugman, U.S. state capitalism’s attempts to stimulate the economy and create jobs have been meager at best. The political focus on reducing the deficit over job creation is a huge blunder that will only deepen the demand crisis in the economy and grow the federal deficit in the long run as tax receipts decline even further. Meanwhile, Robert Reich openly wonders whether the Republican Party is deliberately sabotaging the economy for political gain, as the Obama administration willingly cuts its own throat—happy to fight the economic policy debate on the GOP’s chosen rhetorical terrain.
These controversies are reflective of the overall impasse of state capitalism today faced with an economic crisis without precedent. Krugman and Reich may be right that the U.S. political class’ obsession with deficit reduction will only deepen the economic and fiscal crisis. However, while the massive Keynesian stimulus these “responsible economists” call for may alleviate the immediate pressure on the economy by providing a brief steroid-like boost, the Republican Party is not totally mistaken either when it argues that further deficit spending only serves to add more debt that in all likelihood will never be repaid. However, this debate is moot; as even Krugman admits, there is no chance of another serious stimulus in the foreseeable future.
In short, the U.S. bourgeoisie now finds itself faced with a real Kafkaesque dilemma from which there is no escape. In this world, all options are bad; all answers are ultimately wrong answers; all doors lead to nowhere. While the ideological deterioration of the Republican Party likely does pose the most acute threat to U.S. state capitalism, this does not mean that the Democrats have the “correct” approach that will solve the persistent economic crisis. On the contrary, its preferred policies—while perhaps less immediately damaging, less overtly contradictory, less immediately provocative of social chaos—are ultimately no less futile faced with a global capitalist system that is, at this juncture, utterly beyond repair. At the end of the day, however, it is still up to the working class to send this rusting wreck of a system to the historic junkyard where it belongs.
Henk, 06/09/11.
[1] See our article in Internationalism #158, “Public Employee Union Busting in Wisconsin and Elsewhere: The Ideological Decay of the U.S. Bourgeoisie Deepens”.
[2] We realize some readers would like us to expand on what me mean by “main factions of the national bourgeoisie.” Indeed, we think it is an important task in the period ahead to draw a more complete map of the U.S. bourgeoisie, in order to understand the nature and historical evolution of its factions. We intend to take up this effort in the future.
[3] Pawlenty recently gave a speech suggesting the Obama administration’s economic policy constituted “central planning,” an ominous allusion to the former Eastern Bloc (See https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pawlenty-to-propose-tax-cuts-smaller-government-role-in-economic-address/2011/06/06/AGQzqkKH_story.html [2] ). Meanwhile, Romney continues to have difficulty defending his implementation of a version of “Obamacare” as Governor, creatively attempting to argue that the question should be left up to the states.
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-loses-bin-laden-bounce-romney-on-the-move-among-gop-contenders/2011/06/06/AGT5wiKH_story.html [3] . The main factions of the national bourgeoisie can probably take some solace in the fact that the poll shows Romney as the only potential GOP candidate that outpolls the President.
[5] Rush Limbaugh recently declared that Romeny’s purchase of the global warming hoax means the effective end for his campaign. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-draws-early-fire-from-conservatives-over-views-on-climate-change/2011/06/08/AGkUTaMH_story.html [4]
[6] In a different poll than the one cited above, Palin currently leads Romney in a hypothetical GOP primary, highlighting the current dilemma facing the U.S. political class. See www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/reuters-ipsos-poll-sarah-palin-leads-mit... [5]. Above all, these differing results show the inherent dangers of over reliance on polling data!
[7] Of course this incipient movement was dealt a serious blow by the recent Twitter “sexting” scandal surrounding New York City Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, one of the leading spokesmen for “progressives” in Congress. The precise nature of the multifarious sex scandals rippling through the U.S. bourgeoisie at the moment remains unclear. Are they the result of political manoeuvring, or are they more reflective of the arrogance of a U.S. political class that seems to think it can get away with anything?
Over the past decades we have observed a multiplication of violent phenomena that ‘experts’ pay-rolled by the bourgeoisie describe as ‘natural disasters’. They encompass a wide range: from wildfires, to floods, earthquakes and tsunamis. The bourgeois media peddle the lie that there is nothing humanity can do to protect itself against nature’s whims and that we should just resign ourselves to fate. We remember how they cynically painted the Japanese population’s prostration in the face of the horrific sequence of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear devastation as a serene Zen attitude in the face of adversity. That’s how the ruling class would want us to be: prostrated. In the US, a winter with record snowfalls, wildfires, a monster flood of the Mississippi river, and, more recently, one of the deadliest tornado seasons on record have left thousands of people homeless, hundreds dead, and caused inestimable suffering. This is reason enough to feel disheartened. But revolutionaries must help the working class see through the thickness of bourgeois deceptions the truth that capitalism is at the root of these environmental abnormalities and that the working class, through its struggle to overthrow this dying system, is the sole force in society that can offer real answers to the problems posed by capitalism’s ravaging of the planet. As we behold the massive destruction and human suffering left behind, we need to pose the questions: What is happening to the environment? What really accounts for the devastation wracked by these violent weather phenomena?
An outbreak of dozens of tornadoes killed 314 people in five states on April 27 and a massive twister killed 138 in Joplin, Missouri on May 22, not to mention scores others before the two deadly dates. 2011 now ranks as the fifth deadliest year in US tornado history. And the tornado season is not even over yet. President Obama, visiting Joplin, Missouri, one week after an EF-5 tornado touched down, had barely declared the state of emergency for the area, when more tornadoes struck California and Massachusetts. These two states are far from Tornado Alley, a term used to describe a swath of land from the Deep South, through the southern plains and into the upper Midwest. The unusually destructive violence of these storms is now coupled with their widening and highly unpredictable pathway. It has to be affirmed very clearly that this east and north-ward spreading of tornado activity in recent years, the tornadoes’ abnormal size and utter violence, are explained by global warming, and that capitalism is completely implicated. La Niña, a cyclical system of trade winds that cools the waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, made a sudden exit about three months ago even though we were in the grip of one of the most powerful Las Niñas on record. It is very possible that if La Niña had maintained its strength there would not have been so many or such violent tornadoes due to La Nina’s stabilizing effect on the jet stream, a high speed air current that acts as an atmospheric ‘fence’ where cool and dry air meets up with warm, moist air –two of the main ingredients for severe storms. Without La Niña around, the jet stream, which by this time of the year should be farther north, has gone rogue. Instead of moving north, in April and May the jet stream hung around the middle of the country, where it has the chance to violently mix cool, dry northern air with warm, moist southern air. It is no longer a secret that surface water temperatures are rising as a result of global warming, and the sea surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico is between 1.8 and 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.0 to 1.5 degrees Celsius) warmer than average. If there’s more moisture and the atmosphere is warmer, it is more unstable, so, there’s more potential for severe thunderstorms to develop.
As we can see, there is nothing fatalistic about ‘natural disasters’, and these events can be traced to the anarchistic and reckless mode of production under which we live, a system that has more regard for quick profit than for man or nature. When, in the face of this shift in tornadoes’ path the weather ‘specialist’ and ‘scientists’ paid by the ruling class ask questions such as: “Is there a new Tornado Alley?” it is not to answer that capitalism has caused global warming, a manifestation of which is the changing directions and speeds of air currents such as the jet stream. This question is futile because the ruling class would not use that knowledge to plan for a different distribution of the population, one that will keep it out of harm’s way. Nor will it develop different types of dwellings which can provide greater protection against extreme weather conditions. Indeed, as at the time of hurricane Katrina, the bourgeois state and its various agencies set up with the purpose of responding to emergencies, proves once again its utter uselessness, inefficiency, and corruption. It is not these various agencies who organized rescue, provided comfort, and prepared for repairs in the immediate aftermath of the storm. It is the local population who, in many cases risking their own lives, threw their weight selflessly where they saw the urgent need to intervene. We can expect that the population who has been left homeless will remain so for an indefinite time.
The ruling class is keen on assembling weather forecasters and ‘specialists’ who can soothe the population’s anxiety over the large issues of the generalized degradation of the environment and global warming by trivializing questions such as “Is there a new Tornado Alley?” The ruling class knows that there are lingering, deeper questions about the short and long term consequences of climatic change on humanity and nature and the responsibility of capitalism. It fears that the greater the devastation wracked by what the ruling class calls ‘natural disasters,’ the more apparent its inability to offer prevention, a minimum of protection and restoration of the environment, and support for the populations affected by these ‘disasters.’ Indeed, it is clear that the louder their bleats about how sorry they feel for the deaths and losses suffered, the cheaper their ‘reconstruction’ efforts are shown to be. In order to distort the truth about global warming and thereby protect its image, the ruling class insists on attributing the multiplication of ‘natural’ disasters to improvements in observations, reporting, documentation and record keeping. These improvements are certainly true, but it is not a statistical account that can explain either the apparent shift in weather pattern or the impact this is having on human life. As to this last point, in examining tornado fatalities from 1950-2005 we see that the majority of fatal tornado events occurred mainly outside of the traditional Tornado Alley region, into the lower-Arkansas, Tennessee, and lower-Mississippi River valleys. This distribution is not to be attributed to a shift in tornado occurrences, but instead a combination of climate and non-climate related factors.
We have seen how global warming is related to the shift in tornado pathway above. Within the non-climate factors, it is noticeable that a larger percentage of mobile homes and lower-stock housing materials are used in this region than any other region in the US. From 1985 to 2005 mobile home fatalities accounted for 44% of all fatalities, when in the southeast the percentage of mobile homes averages over 20% in most counties. The overall population density in the southeast is greater than in the traditional Tornado Alley. A higher percentage of elderly and impoverished persons live in this area, which enhances this region’s vulnerability. This is further aggravated by the population shift to the area resulting from unemployment, which pushes this vulnerable sector of the population to move to areas where housing is cheaper, and poorer. Hence, the increased number of tornado fatalities in that area. It is not by changing the geographical mapping of what constitutes a Tornado Alley today that we can explain global warming or address the issues of poverty and unemployment. This is an exercise presently occupying a great number of meteorologists, a trick employed to ‘explain’ the increased number in tornado fatalities. The responsibility of the ruling class in the tornado fatalities regardless of a tornado pathway is obvious when we hear the answer to the question of why there were never building codes in the traditional Tornado Alley area.
According to Tim Reinhold, senior vice president for research and chief engineer at the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) in Tampa, Fla., it comes down to something called the “return period” -- the interval between two disaster events in a given location. Although major tornadoes happen every year, the likelihood they’ll happen twice in the same place is very low. “With tornadoes,” Mr. Reinhold says, “because they’re relatively small and don’t cover very much ground, the chances that a particular building in Tornado Alley would be hit is 1 in 5,000 per year. And within that, the chance that the tornado will be F4 or F5 is even lower. So to make everyone build houses to stand up to that level would be a huge cost increase.” This idea, besides revealing a delirious state of a mind out of touch with reality, underscores the ruling class’ attitude: human life –that of the exploited class, to be precise- is a matter of statistical calculations, and, above all cost-efficiency! This is why under decadent capitalism scientific knowledge is concealed, distorted, and prostituted: to serve profit. In order to see the flourishing of science at the service of humanity, science which can be put to use to restore nature and man’s relationship with it, the working class must destroy capital.
Ana, 4/6/11.
This article has already been published on our site here [10].
In less than a month at the time of writing, a second border clash left at least 14 dead and scores of wounded as Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd of Palestinian protesters trying to break into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria. Barely one month before, hundreds of people broke through a border fence and clashed with thousands of Israeli troops mobilized in anticipation of possible unrest as Palestinians prepared to protest the anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Mideast war. This is just a ‘skirmish’ compared to the history of violence and bloodletting that stains the region, the latest eruption of confrontations in an age-old conflict that has pitted the Israeli and Palestinian populations against each other as each sinks deeper and deeper in their ruling classes’ respective nationalist ideologies: Palestinian “liberation” and Israel Zionism. For more than 60 years since the establishment of the Israeli state, these nationalist ideologies, fueled by the dominant classes on each side and aggravated by the opposing interests in the area of all the major Western powers, have caused immeasurable suffering and destruction, with no perspective for peace.
Already back in the early 90’s the US had to adapt to the disappearance of the influence of the USSR in the Middle East as it became clear that countries which had been supported by the USSR during the Cold war, such as Syria, looked for a new ‘sponsor,’ while others, such as Iraq, threw their weight around in search of a greater imperialist position in the region. A ‘peace accord’ between Israel and the PLO became the centerpiece of US policy as it attempted to orientate the future shaping of alliances in the region and ensure a predominant role for the US. This led to the Oslo accords of 1992, where the US sponsored an agreement between Israel and the PLO in which the latter would recognize Israel’s right of existence and Israel would agree to the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West bank. The Oslo accords however floundered in the early 2000’s, as Israel, emboldened by the Bush administration’s ‘war on terrorism’ following the attacks of September 11, and its acquiescence with Israel’s policy of building Jewish settlements in the West bank, played its own card and tried to strengthen its imperialist position in the area. The US went along with Israel’s withdrawal of its compromise on the Palestinian question. In this way, it hoped to both soothe Israel’s growing attempts to play its own card, and reaffirm and strengthen the US position of dominance. The ‘war on terror’ may have given the US and Israel a sense of cockishness for a while, but it proved incapable of restoring the position of hegemony of the US. Instead, it multiplied the animosity and challenges against it, created fissures within once stable nations, and encouraged all imperialisms, big and small, to take advantage of the weakened US position to gain influence in the wake of US failure. This is what is at the root of the present intolerable and unpredictable situation of ‘each nation for themselves.’
In the face of this apparent loss of control over the inter-imperialist scenario, the US bourgeoisie became increasingly alarmed. In 2008, it succeeded for a time in gaining some control over its election campaign (see article in the present issue on the difficulties of the US bourgeoisie vis-à-vis its own political strategy) and put at the head of its state a democratic-led team who developed a foreign policy with the rhetoric of cooperation and ‘peace,’ rather than war. This was done in order to reverse eight years of disastrous foreign policies implemented by a Bush administration hell-bent in flexing US military muscle in the face of the multiplication of challenges against its hegemony even at the cost of increased isolation. But restoring the US’ position of world power, a daunting task for the Bush administration, is proving impossible for the Obama administration, which is faced today by increasingly difficult and multiplying challenges. Even the US gendarme in the Middle East, Israel, its staunchest ally in the region, repeatedly challenges US authority with acts of insubordination against it. While the US needs the cooperation of Israel to impose its control over the region—which lies at the core of the Obama administration’s attempts at bringing Israel and Palestine back to the negotiating table--, Israel constantly defies any attempt by the US to bring about a settlement between the two parts. President Obama’s speech on May 19 aimed at sending a message to Israel that it intended to be the one to ‘run the show’ as to the prospects of a new round of ‘peace negotiations’ between Israel and Palestine. This attempt however turned into a diplomatic embarrassment for the US, as Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu fired back with vehement assertions that clearly showed he was not going to follow US diktats. President Obama had to renege on his earlier statement on May 19 about the necessity for Israel to accept two states on the basis of the ’67 borders and grant Netanyahu a grand platform before a joint meeting of Congress, where he was warmly applauded. Netanyahu was rebuked again on May 26, when the US announced sanctions against an Israeli company for its role in a September 2010 transaction that provided a tanker valued at $8.65 million to…The Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines!
The US desperately needs to show that it has the ability to force Israel to toe in line so as to discourage other powers in the region, i.e. Syria and Iran from playing their own imperialist cards. The US is also very concerned that Israel’s hard stance about the Palestinian question risks fuelling even greater anti-American sentiments in the area, in which case the US would have to side with Israel and lose the little diplomatic credibility it is trying to win The US’ desperate need to maintain order in the area to prove its status as world power leads it to take increasingly contradictory steps. In the relationship with Syria and Iran, in particular, the US walks a dangerously fine line. If it cannot convince Syria of the advantage of siding with it, and with the advent of a nuclear Iran, the US will lose all diplomatic credibility. Its overtures to Syria, exemplified by the US present reluctance to take a stronger stance against President Abbas in the wake of the bloody repression he is leading against the Syrians protesting for his ousting, can only frighten and irritate Israel, who sees Syria as a dangerous prey and ally of Iran. The stakes are high, as it is clear that without progress in the Israeli-Palestinian ‘peace process’ the Europeans will take full advantage of US weakness and endorse Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September. While the US wages this as a stick in front of Israel’s nose, it has no carrots to offer. Indeed France, most notably among the European nations, has already suggested that endorsement of Palestinian statehood is what it intends to give.
The chaos and destabilization that have ravaged the planet since the collapse of the ex-Soviet bloc at the end of the 80’s, resulted in the weakening of the world’s remaining superpower—the US. The ensuing constant reshuffling of ad-hoc alliances has been the hallmark of life in the last two decades, and a mere foretaste of more and worse to come. The latest ‘historic’ speech delivered by President Barack Obama on May 19 has to be understood against this backdrop of aggravating political instability and imperialist rivalries. The quarrels with the Israeli state and the disagreements with the European counterparts–most notably France-over the future contours of a Palestinian state are a manifestation of the weakened hegemonic position of the US and a stark confirmation of the impossibility of peace under capitalism.
Ana, 6/6/11
On May 2nd, Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party won its first ever majority government, upping its margin in the House of Commons from 143 seats to 166. As a result of the election, the Liberal Party’s tally of seats (34) has been reduced to an historic low, while the Bloc Québécois (BQ) has been virtually wiped out as player in federal politics, holding on to only 4 seats. However, for the bourgeois media the real story of this “historic election” was the rise of the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), which took the most seats in its history (103) and now forms the official opposition in Ottawa for the first time ever.
As a result of the election, the Conservatives now have the power to enact whatever legislation they want—no longer threatened by possible opposition non-confidence votes. However, although they now control a majority of seats in the House of Commons, only 37 percent of voters actually voted for a Conservative MP. In large measure, the Conservative majority was built by “splits on the left,” as an insurgent NDP competed strongly with Liberals in a number of key ridings, throwing the race to the Conservatives. The Canadian bourgeoisie is now stuck with a scandal ridden Conservative government for the next four years boasting a ruling team that has shown bold contempt for the “democratic process” in the past, even though it only formed a minority government. The fear of what the Harper Conservatives will do in a majority government to further damage the democratic illusion must be a real concern for the Canadian bourgeoisie at the present time. So far, the Conservatives would appear to be taking pains not to rock the boat too far, too fast having waged a campaign around “stability.”
Clearly, this was not the optimal election result for revitalizing democratic and electoral illusions among a populace that has grown increasingly cynical and disengaged from its state over the last decade and half. Nevertheless, given the structure of the Canadian state, it became evident fairly early on in the campaign that another Conservative government would be the outcome of the election. Therefore, in order to attempt to salvage the situation—the Canadian bourgeoisie—after a period of hesitancy at the beginning of the campaign — moved to build up the candidacy of NDP leader Jack Layton, legitimating his party as a viable option to the Liberals. (See “The Canadian Bourgeois Attempts to Revive its Democratic Illusion Once Again” in Internationalism #158). Playing on the historic volatility of the electorate in Quebec, the NDP shot past the Liberals and the BQ there, winning seat after seat in a province where it had previously been virtually absent. Whether or not the Conservatives would have formed a majority government without a strong showing by the NDP is a matter of some debate, but a Conservative government was inevitable given the near total ineptitude of the Liberal campaign.
As the result of the election, the Canadian state is now characterized by a sharp polarization between a right-wing party in power and a social democratic left in opposition. Although the continued presence of the Harper Conservatives in power is not the optimal situation for the Canadian bourgeoisie; this is assuaged to some degree by the revitalization of a left opposition in the NDP. With the historic defeat of the Liberal Party and the near total destruction of the BQ, the Canadian state is moving—for the moment at least—towards a more stable two party opposition in the political system. This will allow the Canadian bourgeoisie to more effectively operate the ideological division of labor between the right in power/left in opposition in anticipation of future class confrontations in the offing, once a still buoyant Canadian economy succumbs to the shoals of the global economic crisis.
Nevertheless, the current arrangement is still fraught with difficulties for the Canadian bourgeoisie. First, the brazen, often callous, Harper Government—whom over 60 percent of voters rejected—remains in power. By the time its “mandate” is done in 2015, it will have been in power for nine years. This follows a thirteen-year period of corruption laden Liberal Party rule, which was largely built on “splits on the right,” before the unification of the Conservative Party in 2003. Despite its image as a more flexible multi-party democracy vis a vis its neighbor to the south, the Canadian state is currently unable to produce a ruling team other than the same old corrupt Liberals or Conservatives. The recent attempt to give the Liberal Party a new face by bringing in Harvard History professor Michael Ignatieff as party leader fell flat on its face, with Conservative attack ads painting him as something less than a true Canadian for having lived so long in the United States. Ignatieff himself was unable to win his own suburban Toronto riding. As it currently stands, in order to give the state a new veneer, the Canadian bourgeoisie would have to bring the NDP to power, a prospect that would risk upsetting the ideological division of labor, and a result that seems unlikely anytime in the near future given the electoral map of Canadian politics.
Moreover, in order to make the NDP the official opposition, the Canadian bourgeoisie had to so by “going the Québec route”, destroying the officially separatist federal party (BQ) in the process. Now, the NDP is indebted to its base in Québec and will be forced to adopt rhetoric more sensitive to the majority francophone province’s nationalist aspirations—complicating its relationship with the rest of Canada. Yes, the Canadian bourgeoisie was able to salvage this election to some degree with the elevation of the NDP, but the situation it finds itself in today remains fraught with danger for the legitimacy of the democratic and electoral illusion. Despite all the talk of an historic election, voter participation remained quite low at 61 percent, just slightly higher than 2008’s historic low (59 percent.)
For now, although the right/left division of labor between the Conservatives and the NDP is useful to the Canadian bourgeoisie given the threat of future class confrontations, the current arrangement seems unlikely to offer more than a modest boost to the state’s legitimacy. While it is not possible to predict the future evolution of Canadian politics with precision, it seems likely that the Canadian state will need to try to revitalize the Liberal Party as a viable party of government in the period ahead—most likely by appointing a young and appealing new face as party leader: Justin Trudeau, Liberal MP from Montreal and son of the late enigmatic Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, would seem to fit this bill to the tee. Although, the Liberal Party suffered an historic defeat in May, it was not decimated completely. As quick as the NDP was built up, it can be brought down again, most likely through the desertion of voters in Québec. In order to eventually replace the Conservatives as the ruling party should the situation call for it, the Canadian state needs a party capable of winning votes in both Québec and the rest of Canada in order to counteract strong Conservative party strength in the West. It is not clear if the NDP is capable of doing this, nor is it likely that the Canadian bourgeoisie wants to burden its social democratic party with national power at this time.
Already there are signs of discontent brewing within the Canadian working class that would be most effectively neutralized through a left opposition in close cooperation with the unions. On June 2nd, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers called a series of rotating strikes as contract negotiations with the Crown Corporation broke down. Although the current series of rotating strikes in different cities on different days remains firmly union-controlled, there is a real discontent brewing among postal workers over pay, deteriorating job conditions, safety issues and disciplinary policies. Unlike its neighbor to the south, the Canadian state will be able to respond to this growing discontent among the working class through the use of a political shell game featuring bold sounding rhetoric by the left party in opposition, which is frustrated by the right in power. Moreover, the Canadian state will be able to call on its still functioning union apparatus to control the workers’ anger. In this sense, despite the fact that Canada can perhaps claim a more consistent history of class struggle than the U.S., the Canadian bourgeoisie might now be much better placed to divert struggle when it arises than its southern neighbor currently is. Witness the difference in approach of the Canadian bourgeoisie in handling the Canada Post strike, compared with the attempts to virtually destroy public employee unions in Republican controlled states in the U.S. For the bourgeoisie, it pays to have a left party with credentials and a capable union apparatus to call on in time of need!
For the working class the lessons of this election are clear. There exists no bourgeois political party that is capable of defending our interests in the context of the global bankruptcy of the capitalist system. While Canada may have been spared the worst of this crisis up until now, the writing is on the wall that it will not be spared forever. Sky-high housing costs, spiraling consumer debt loads and tenuous employment are our future under any government of the bourgeoisie regardless of its partisan badge. Workers will have to take up the struggle on its own class terrain against parliament and all the parties of the bourgeois class.
Henk, 06/07/11.
This article has already been published on our site here [17].
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/files/en/inter159.pdf
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pawlenty-to-propose-tax-cuts-smaller-government-role-in-economic-address/2011/06/06/AGQzqkKH_story.html
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-loses-bin-laden-bounce-romney-on-the-move-among-gop-contenders/2011/06/06/AGT5wiKH_story.html
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-draws-early-fire-from-conservatives-over-views-on-climate-change/2011/06/08/AGkUTaMH_story.html
[5] http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/reuters-ipsos-poll-sarah-palin-leads-mitt-romney-barack-obama-beats-gop-field
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-has-his-work-cut-out-for-him-on-the-political-map/2011/06/08/AGXbjYMH_story.html
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/17/1185/us-presidential-elections-2012
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/262/environment
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/tornadoes
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/344/mid-east
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/56/middle-east-and-caucasus
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/50/united-states
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/57/israel
[14] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/58/palestine
[15] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/186/imperialism
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/canada
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/345/protests-in-spain
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/spain
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/class-struggle
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/spain