The left-wing view of Obama

Despite what the media tells you, Obama is not a leftist. At best I would call him “center-left”. He’s by no means a socialist or a communist. He’s not a revolutionary. He was the best chance we had to defeat the ultra-right during the last Presidential election and a hell of a lot better than McCain would have been. But he’s not going to lead us into a global communist revolution or something like that.

Everyone, except Glenn Beck maybe, realizes this. That’s not the question. The question concerns those of us who ARE socialists, leftists, or communists, and it’s this: now that we’ve got him in office, how far do we go in supporting him and criticising him? Where do we draw that line?

The Clinton years were wonderful for me, as a teen just becoming politically aware in a very conservative rural town. For the only time in my life I could talk about how lousy the President was and people agreed with me. Then came 8 years of Bush. Those were not easy times. I became more withdrawn about politics, a little more careful about who I spoke to about it. Sure, I wore a Fidel Castro tee shirt on a regular basis, but I waited for people to ask me about it and then gave them a watered-down response.

Now it’s back to a Democrat in office and for the first time in a long time I could call my dad up and bitch and moan to him, and he would bitch and moan right with me. But I don’t want to. So far I have been very quiet about my reservations regarding the Obama Administration’s policies. Because he is NOT a socialist/communist/etc. and I am, there are obviously some things I disagree with him about. Quite a few of them.

But at the same time I’m not so sure it’s time to start publicly blasting him because I’m afraid if we drag him down too far, the Pig with Lipstick will be ready to turn our country into one big JesusLand in 2012. I guess I am not entirely confident in the political education of Joe Sixpack. I think most people don’t see out of the two-party box and if they don’t like the Democrat incumbent they’ll automatically vote for the Republican (or vice versa). I seriously can’t see a lot of people saying “well, the problem with Obama is that he is not left enough.” Which is exactly what I’d like them to say, because it’s true. But our political system has been trapped in this framework where John McCain is considered centrist and Obama is the farthest left we’ve had in decades, that I don’t see a lot of people thinking outside of that box.

Then again, if we — meaning the really left left –  just sit by silently, or even cheerlead Obama, don’t we stand to lose the few people who support us? If we appear too “centrist” don’t we risk alienating our support from the left and further fragmenting the movement that way?

So there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Where is it? I don’t know. That’s not a rhetorical question. I seriously want some input on how we approach the Obama adminsitration.

Here’s what I do know. Whatever policy we take, we need to be crystal clear on our intentions and present alternatives. We cannot criticise Obama only to throw fuel on the right-wing’s fire, and whenever we support him it has to be clearly stated that it is a tactical move, and why. That’s all I’ve got.

Why EFCA Should be part of Obama’s First 100 Days

The election of Barack Obama to serve as our country’s next President has given hope to organized labor and the class-conscious section of America’s workers that the Employee Free Choice Act, which will make it easier for workers to form unions and increase penalties for union busting, will finally pass into law. But where does Obama actually stand on the issue?

Obama recently told the Washington Post that he agrees with the “basic outlines” of the Employee Free Choice Act and, while he would be willing to listen to input from employers, “…if the business community’s argument against the Employee Free Choice Act is simply that it will make it easier for people to join unions and we think that is damaging to the economy then they probably won’t get too far with me. If their arguments are we think there are more elegant ways of doing this or here are some modifications or tweaks to the general concept that we would like to see.”

I feel that these comments are progressive and welcome. However, the President-elect seems to believe that EFCA should not be a top priority: “…in terms of time table, if we are losing half a million jobs a month then there are no jobs to unionize. So my focus first is on those [other] key economic priority items that I just mentioned.”

America’s workers are waiting for the chance to unionize. Just the other night I was in a shop, where I overheard a conversation between three employees. It wasn’t hard to overhear — they were so worked up they were practically shouting. They all agreed that Unions were “the best thing to ever happen to workers,” that “every worker should be in a union” and that the time was right to organize their shop. I also overheard that the three of them were the only employees of the store, other than the manager. So what was there to stop them from organizing? “As soon as management hears the word ‘Union’, we’re all fired.”

Those are their words, not mine. I couldn’t make this stuff up!

With the Employee Free Choice Act in place, this shop could organize tomorrow. If every employee were willing to do a card check, and have it binding, they would be a union shop without a doubt. Under the current system, they would probably all get fired — that’s the only reason they don’t organize.

When EFCA passes, the working class will have a key legislation on its side, which is in some ways a little bit of socialism in itself. Then we can start working on the underlying causes of our economic crisis. When people have higher wages and better benefits, they can afford to make their house payments — not foreclose. They can afford to buy American-made goods — not sweatshop crap from overseas! We can’t just re-inflate the “bubble”. Without the Employee Free Choice Act, all of our economic stimulus efforts are like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

I applaud President-Elect Obama’s pro-labor stance, but I feel that we can’t keep pouring more money into Wall Street without shoring up the foundation of our economy — the working class. Mr. Obama, the Employee Free Choice Act should be priority #1!

Spreading the wealth around?

During the Presidential campaign, during the whole Joe the Plumber show, Barack Obama’s economic policies were summed up as “spreading the wealth around”. Of course, the right seized on this as an example of “socialism”. As I’ve pointed out previously, that’s not socialism, except maybe by the most vague idea of what socialism is. I would now go further; that Obama’s policies, or even real socialism, aren’t even really spreading the wealth around at all.

If you go to work at a factory, an oilfield, a mine, a McDonald’s restaurant, whatever, the owner of the enterprise you work for is taking the wealth you create away from you. Your labor is what creates profit for capitalists. The thing that turns materials into commodities is human labor, and that’s what gives them value. If a capitalist buys a bunch of lumber, nails, glue, paint for $100, he can’t turn around and sell them all again for $300 (unless he is very successful in market speculation). But if he hires you to turn them into a table, he can. Your human labor has created a commodity of increased value for the capitalist.

So, if you work for 8 hours making a table, and the owner writes you a paycheck for $100, pays $100 for the materials, and sells the table for $300, that leaves a $100 balance. That’s called surplus value. You created that surplus value with your labor and the capitalist has taken it away from you, having done little or no work himself, but simply by virtue of the fact that he owns the table factory and you don’t. Despite the fact that you created the wealth, you had no say in how much of it goes into the pocket of the bourgeois owner. He took the money from you without even asking.

Now, suppose the government taxes the capitalist. Then they turn around and give you health insurance, energy assistance, and education subsidies. If you’re low income, maybe they give you food stamps, housing subsidies and childcare assistance. Or, maybe they just cut your income taxes. That’s not spreading the wealth around. That’s returning the wealth to its rightful owner!

What’s wrong with that?

The Battle is Not Over.

Things have gone well. Obama won the White House with a massive electoral vote blowout and the Democratic Party has strengthened its lead in both houses of congress. Some races that were initially feared lost still have at least a glimmer of hope: in Alaska, Mark Begich is within 4,000 votes of ousting Republican Ted Stevens, the Senate’s longest serving member and it’s only convicted felon, with over 40,000 votes left to count. Al Franken’s bid to capture one of Minnesota’s Senate seats has fallen just 500-some votes short, well inside the margin for a recount. There is hope that they could pick up another seat or two. And, of course, we can take pride in knowing that — much to the chagrin of many out there — our country has elected its first African-American President. These are all good things.

For communists, though, our intention was never just to elect as many Democrats as possible. Our goal is to defeat the ultra-right. In this election, progressive and centrist forces have gained the upper hand against the ultra-right, however, the battle is far from over. We don’t want to turn the corner only to allow them to come back with a vengeance a couple years down the road.

No, the battle to defeat the ultra-right is not over. The battle is not just to relegate them to a large minority party; the battle is to utterly smash the right-wing movement as a political force and render it incapable of ever playing a major role in American politics again. This may seem like a radical thing to say. Well, I am a radical after all. But so are the ultra-rightist that have been dominating Washington. Make no mistake about it, there are plenty of very radical elements within the Republican Party, and if Americans want real qualitative change in their daily lives, we need to shift the framework of the political spectrum far enough that the Republican ideology in general is relegated to the position it belongs: the fringes. It is my hope that, in the future, voting for a Republican will sound as ridiculous as voting for a Communist sounds today.

There is bound to be plenty of celebration on the Left today after last night’s election results, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In order to accomplish our goals, we need to keep the pressure on. This election could be a turning point. Or it could be the point where we fall asleep at the wheel. The choice is yours.

Is Obama a Socialist?

Republicans and other conservatives in the media and around the nation have been labelling Presidential candidate Barack Obama as a “socialist” mainly because he wants to reverse the portion of the Bush tax cuts that let the super-rich run away with loads of cash. Is this all it takes to make someone a socialist? Could Barack Obama really be trying to lead our country down the path to a glorious proletarian revolution?

To answer this question, who would be better to ask than a member of the Communist Party? Actually, who would be better to ask than former CPUSA National Chair Gus Hall? The late Comrade Hall wrote an piece called “Socialism USA” which is an explanation of the main vision of the Communist Party as far as what socialism would look like in the United States. In order to determine whether or not Obama is a socialist, let’s see how America under Obama would compare to America under socialism.

I’m going to pull a series of quotes from the text of Socialism USA, which can be found in its entirety here. You’re more than welcome to check out the whole document. First lets see what Hall has to say about economics (emphasis added by yours truly):

Political power would be in the hands of working people. Socialism starts with nationalization of the main means of production – the plants, factories, agri-business farms and everything necessary to produce what society needs. The large monopoly corporations and banks come under public ownership, that is, under the collective ownership of the entire working class and people, who have the leading role in building socialism.

Socialism also means public ownership of the energy industry and all the natural resources. It eliminates forever the power of the capitalist class to exploit and oppress the majority.

Does Barack Obama advocate the nationalization of America’s main industries, particularly energy industries and all natural resources? If he does, it’s news to me. As far as I can tell he’s pretty un-socialist in that department. So far on his “socialism scorecard” he’s got a big goose egg. Let’s move on:

A socialist government draws up plans covering the entire economy. They are drawn up with maximum participation of the people, from the shop level on up. Such plans are achieved because they harmonize the interests of all, because there are no conflicts arising from exploitation of workers and no dog-eat-dog competition.

Production increases much faster than under capitalism, with a planned economy, advancement of science and technology, and the protection and preservation of our environment and natural resources.

Obama seems to fail the socialism test by these criteria also. I’ve never heard him advocate a national economic plan drawn up with the input of workers. However, I think that the government may invest more resources into science and technology research with Obama as President, and do significantly better than McCain and Sarah “Drill, Baby, Drill” Palin in the realm of environmental protection. So let’s give Obama a 1.5 on these three questions. That brings his socialism score up to 1.5 out of 4. On to the next issue…

Full employment will be quickly achieved as production is expanded to satisfy the needs of people. Automation at the service of the working people will lead to both reduced hours of work and higher living standards, with no layoffs.

Has Obama proposed any ways to ensure full employment and eliminate layoffs? Not that I know of. These are key goals of socialism and he hasn’t suggested any way to reach them. More zeroes.

Poverty will be ended quickly with the recovery of the vast resources now wasted in war production, corporate profits and the extravagent lifestyles of the filthy rich.

I’ll give Obama a point here. He has talked about ending the Iraq war and investing the resources elsewhere, and increasing the tax burden on the rich to “spread the wealth around.” So by may calculation, he’s up to a 2.5 out of 6. That’s less than a 50%, which is failing in any gradebook I’ve ever seen. But let’s see if old Barack can pull his act together:

All education will be tuition-free. Every person will have access to unlimited medical and health care without charge. These rights will be realized as rapidly as facilities can be built and the personnel trained.

I’ve never heard Obama say anything about eliminating tuition. Zero there. As far as unlimited health care without charge, I’ll give him half a point. His health care plan would extend coverage for those people who don’t have benefits available through their jobs; but those who stay covered through work would have to pay premiums and co-pays, and by “unlimited” I think Hall means vision and dental, which aren’t mentioned in his policies. That brings Obama’s socialism score up to a 3 out of 8. Not so hot!

The children will reap all the benefits of socialist child care, free nurseries and schools with the very best facilities and teachers.

Free child care? Uhm, haven’t heard anything like that. Zero there. That’s the last point of conention I have to bring to the table, and when we total it all up, Obama has scored three “points” out of a possible 9. That makes him about 33% socialist. I’d think that even John McCain could find a couple things in Hall’s document that he could agree with. Obviously there’s more to the text, so go ahead and read it for yourself and let me know what you think.

This is kind of a bummer for me. I would love it for Barack Obama to be a socialist. I think that would be pretty awesome actually. But, looking at things objectively, I think the Republicans are giving him a little too much credit.

Am I accusing the Republicans of hyperbole? How dare I? Well, Obama naturally agrees with me:

By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

Granted, I could be mistaken in some of my judgements and I would be more than happy if I was. That would only make me want to vote for the guy even more, so go ahead and point out any ways in which I understate his socialist-ness. However, Obama has a long way to go before he can turn that F into a passing grade in Socialism 101. Maybe I’m wrong. I’d be happy to say I am. But I doubt it.

Racism & Assassination plots

So I’m watching CNN Headline News and thinking to myself that this channel has gotten about as dumb as Fox News. Their new strategy to drum up ratings is apparently to take the inflammatory remarks and attitude of talk radio and Bill O’Reilly and apply it to moderate centrist politics. Has anyone else noticed this?

Well, anyway, on to the point: if you haven’t heard, a couple of Neo-Nazis have been picked up by the FBI for plotting to kill 88 black children, behead 14 of them, and cap their killing spree off by assassinating Barack Obama. The talking head lady on my television — who called these dudes “knuckleheads” — seemed to feel that the two would-be terrorists were the “death rattle” of racism; that these radical elements are making one last stand at the front line of a dying movement.

My view is not so optimistic. Just look at a John McCain rally. We’ve seen over the past month of his campaign that — despite his arguments to the contrary — the kind of nut bags that are hanging on to his campaign’s sinking ship are an embarrassment. People were shouting for Barack Obama to be lynched at McCain rallies before these two guys decided to plan an attempt. They are not isolated.

And while they may be radicals, that only seems to suggest to me that there must be a section of “moderate” racists. The television news will pick up a sensational story about assassination plots, but you have to tune your shortwave radio into Radio Netherlands to hear a middle-aged housewife telling you, and I quote, that “if Barack Obama wins I’m afraid that the blacks are going to take over.”

What does that even mean? Who, precisely, are “the blacks” and how are they going to take over? What’s going to happen when they take over? It’s ridiculous that people have this vague and unfounded fear. But you would be surprised how widespread this belief is. I’m sure that the editors and anchors on CNN have never been on a construction site or a shop floor or they’d know better.

What’s the answer? I don’t have the magic bullet. All I can suggest is a hard struggle against racism in every arena. But the first step is acceptance. We shouldn’t look at this recent plot as a sign that racism is about to die a natural death and we just have to tolerate it a little longer before it resigns itself to the dustbin. We should see this event as an example of just how real and significant 21st century racism is.

More talk, less….crap?

I’ve said before that I prefer Obama over Clinton as the Democratic nominee, but I have to give it to Hillary for challenging her opponent to an unmoderated Lincoln-Douglas style debate.

Why is this awesome? Because if you watched the recent ABC debate you should be pretty fed up with the stark contrast between what the corporate media feels are important issues and what you and I should be concerned with. There were literally zero questions regarding actual policy standpoints. Every question was something about the candidates foot-in-mouth moments, or ridiculous fluff like “Do you love America?”

If you didn’t see it you might think I’m kidding, but I’m not. This is the low that the American political culture has stooped to. We’re looking at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the same way we look at Paris Hilton and Barry Bonds. Drama! Scandal! It’s stupid and I’m tired of it. They’ve dumbed us down politically to the point where they only logical next step is to take the politics out of political campaigns.

So let’s just cut the dumb ass moderators with their watered-down version of what constitutes political discourse and they can go head-to-head and hopefully tackle some real issues. Let’s hear about the candidates’ viewpoint on real political issues instead of focusing on who they know or what they did 15 years ago.

Plus, who knows? Maybe there will be a brawl.

Stimulate this!

I can’t really complain about the Bush economic stimulus plan. I mean, hey, I’m not going to turn down a couple hundred extra bucks. But just how much is it going to stimulate the economy? How many working-class families are going to be able to get their mortgages caught up with a few hundred bucks? Not too many.

I rarely agree with my father on politics, but I think he said it best when he told me I had to spend my economic stimulus check on beer and hookers: they’re the only things that keep your Keynesian Dollar hanging around the USA (or at least that’s what I’ll tell my wife). But seriously, give a guy a couple hundred bucks to go to Wal Mart and buy a new DVD player (made in Japan) and that’s supposed to solve the economy’s woes? Who’s economy are we trying to stimulate here?

With that in mind, I’ve got to give a big thumbs up to the new joint effort by labor leaders and Democrats to draft a bill for a REAL economic stimulus plan:

Sen. Edward Kennedy and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney announced a new economic stimulus plan that extends jobless benefits by 13 weeks. The April 10 announcement followed a meeting between labor and congressional leaders in Washington D.C., where the package was drawn up.

The plan calls for extending unemployment benefits from their current 26 to 39 weeks, with an extension to 52 weeks in high-unemployment states. It also includes funds to repair roads, bridges and airports, funds for helping states maintain medical benefits, increases in food stamp benefits and additional tax rebates for low- and moderate-income taxpayers.

Sen. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said the package was hammered out at a meeting of labor leaders with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The measure will be brought to the Senate floor within a month, Kennedy said.

Will this pass? Probably not. Republicans threatened to filibuster the original economic stimulus plan which included similar measures. And if, by some miracle, it were to pass, I’m sure we’ve got another splendid Bush Veto to look forward to. But hey, one can hope, right?

OK, Hillary, I guess you’re off the hook.

Obama just stooped to your level. Disregard my rant from a couple days ago.

Hillary Clinton: I want to like you but you’re making it difficult.

Let there be no question about who I would vote for in an election between John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Although I am personally pulling for Obama, and I’m not especially head over heels in love with either Democratic candidate, there’s pretty much nothing that could convince me to vote old Johnnie over Hillary. The difference is like night and day. The mere act of sweeping the ultra-right out of office could put the real American left on the cusp of a serious breakthrough, not to mention the number of genuinely progressive policies that could be in law today had it not been for one single thing: the Bush veto (which McCain is sure to emulate).

That being said, every time Ms. Clinton opens her mouth, it seems like I like her less and less. That trend held true today when Clinton suggested that Bush should boycott the opening of the Olympics in Beijing because of China’s reluctance to put pressure on Sudan to end the Darfur crisis.

So here’s a brain buster for Ms. Clinton: If, in the near future, a U.S. city were to host the Olympics, would you suggest other countries boycott our opening in protest of our direct military aid to countries like Colombia? Israel? Any number of unsavory governments we directly aid and prop up, or have propped up in the past? How about all the help your husband Bill gave to Al Qaeda financed and influenced nationalists of the KLA during his little military adventure in Yugoslavia? If anyone has blood on its hands, it’s our country, but I don’t remember your old man boycotting the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

I’m not saying two wrongs make a right. But I imagine if we were hosting the Olympics, Clinton might change her tune, and suddenly the spirit of the games would go back to being international brotherhood and athletic competition instead of politics in her view.

I guess using the games as political spotlight only works when it wins you cheap buzz from the bleeding-hearts that are already so worked up about their beloved nationalist movement in Tibet. If you want to pander to a bunch of middle-aged hippies who, instead of maturing politically and channeling the rebellion of their youth into a political education and ideology, merely try to hang on to their childhood by jumping all over whatever cause-of-the-week fits most nicely on a bumper sticker, go for it Ms. Clinton. I’m just glad your opponent in the nomination race seems more genuinely interested in real politics than “playing the game”.