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As the squabbling inside and between both parties over austerity and union busting heats up, both parties are in for a period of irresolvable internal fracturing. So far that’s taken the form of fence jumping by governors and Senators and the use of the ‘independent’ option but there exists the real likelihood of splits and large scale political realignments.
As the Democrats continue to move right, will far-left unions push for new options?
On the rabid right the Tea Party’s insistence on uncompromising opposition to GLBT and women’s rights, their more open racism and their hard line attacks on unions and working people are both isolating them and raising the level of bickering. Tea party types barely observe Republican party discipline and are pulling Republicans further and further to the right. That will make center right Republicans unelectable in center right districts and open to primarying in other districts. thei5r
On the center right Obama and the Democrat leaderships continued insistence on imposing austerity and busting unions is putting more and more pressure on the sellouts and lackwits who lead the AFL-CIO and CTW. Before last year’s election , impotent and boxed in by his own support for Obama, Trumka made noises about demanding results from Democrats but quietly slunk back under his rock when they ignored him.
Unions and working people are key to the strength, or lack of it, for Democrats. It’s unlikely that the AFL-CIO or CTW leaderships will ever break with the Democrats but the emerging union left is another story all together. Their principled opposition to austerity and union busting and their reliance on strikes as the weapon of choice will lead them further and further left and pose a huge challenge for the Trumka leadership.
These are the unions to watch as the radicalization heats up among working people. Unrepentant Bad Ass Unions and workers acting up -
ILWU and ILA International Longshore and Warehouse Union dockworkers – watch for new strikes on both coasts http://www.ilaunion.org/ and http://www.ilwu.org/
Railroad Workers United – http://railroadworkersunited.org/
LaborNotes – http://labornotes.org/magazine
Chicago Teachers Union – http://www.ctunet.com/ – successfully beat back scabs led by Obama and Emanuel
Teamsters for a Democratic Union – http://www.tdu.org/
National Nurses United – http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/ – fastest growing union in the AFL-CIO
Wal Mart Strikers http://corporateactionnetwork.org/campaigns/black-friday
[Editor's Note: Also Organization United for Respect - http://forrespect.org/ -MyFDL Editor]
KC Labor http://www.kclabor.org/
Image by DonkeyHotey released under a Creative Commons license.
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ILWU and ILA http://www.ilwu.org/ and http://www.ilaunion.org/
Railroad Workers United http://railroadworkersunited.org/
Labor Notes http://labornotes.org/
Chicago Teachers Union http://www.ctunet.com/
Teamsters for A Democratic Union http://www.tdu.org/
National Nurses United http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/
Walmart Strikers http://corporateactionnetwork.org/campaigns/black-friday
KC Labor http://www.kclabor.org/
Probable outcome ten years from now:
A. Both major parties survive: 80 percent. (In this outcome, it is almost 100 percent certain that both parties are even farther to the right as they are now).
B. GOP fragments into theocratic and libertarian wings: 10 percent.
C. Progressive wing of Democratic Party becomes a third party: 5 percent.
D. Both A and B happen: 5 percent.
Although the Republican Party has tried very hard over the past 40 years to mold itself into an ideological party much like European parliamentary parties, the US parties are still essentially brands plus campaign infrastructure. They may fragment. They may realign through party defections. But for most candidates (and both parties are candidate-centric, not member-centric) using the brand and infrastructure is a preferable way to go. Inventing a brand and creating infrastructure from scratch is difficult task.
That is, if you assume that elections can be won no other way that by having a media brand and a huge marketing infrastructure. The folks that find a different way of winning elections in a campaign process that legally protects the two parties and gerrymanders the districts to maximize the number of incumbents will be the ones who determine the answer to your question.
As I look over the list of unions displayed above, there is only one, National Nurses United, that cannot be easily eliminated or significantly undermined by emerging technology. And, distressingly, that process itself is narrowing the available avenues of employment to such things as . . . the medical field. Which means that Nurses will have ever diminishing clout in dealing with hospital administration and their toadies in goverment as more and more people crowd into the field who would otherwise become construction workers or telecomm workers or whatever. The future is bleak and I don’t think it has quite dawned on folks just HOW bleak it is and how fast it is coming.
A BIG decision has to be made soon and unfortunately it is not OUR’s to make . It is the global elite’s decision. And that is whether to open up the coffers of the great wealthy and try to manage a soft landing w/ regard to the masses of the future.
Orrrr . . . and people aren’t going to like hearing this, whether to simply eliminate all the non-essential human who are making life uneasy for the global elite.
The fact is, due to the awesome and improving power of military crowd control, fewer and fewer individuals can control/murder greater and greater numbers of people. There is not likely to be any future uprising that can challenge this situation.
All I can say is ”prepare for impact.”
How this will unfold is a question defined by the growth of the radicalization among workers, and not so much by the ruling class parties.
The next period will be determined by changes in the consciousness of workers not the strategies of our rulers.
The parties of the banksters and looters lack a program centered orientation, instead focusing on promises, which are inevitably followed by a knife in the back for workers, people of color, environmentalists and others. Their operations increasingly consist of building cults built around individuals, a prominent feature of political life in the late Roman Republic.
I agree with much of that, but it’ll become moot as working people create their own parties and then their own government.
Both major parties are firmly and forever in the back pocket of Wall Street and the Pentagon. It’s long past time to ditch them.
Your analysis is science fiction,. It’s not based on historical analysis. It’s dystopian and it’s message is one the ruling classes want to hear: “Give up, lay down and let us run you over.”
No thanks.
When is was a mere child I read London’s The Iron Heel for an English class and Orwell’s rightwing melancholics testament, <1984.
A few years later, as I and 100,000 others marched up half a dozen on ramps of the 5 freeway, using it as our march route to downtown Seattle in the aftermath of Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the murders at Jackson State and Kent State I forgot all about those silly science fiction novels.
Exactly.
Yes!! Ditching them won’t be easy, but it’s past time to get started on that work. We cannot fear, or avoid forever confronting, the police-state. The plutocrats and their enforcers will use as much violence as they think they can do without creating martyrs. That’s a scary thought, but imagining the history of our world without brave folks like Malcolm X is impossible. As Jimmy Cliff so righteously sang: “I’d rather be a free man in my grave, than living as a puppet or a slave!” No Justice, No Peace!!
My comment above is in response to GreenMan518@7… thanks!
They should both be thrown in the garbage. Both are corrupt beyond saving. We should vote for a person, not a party. Parties exist to rake in lobbyist and campaign money so they can launder it to the politicians they support. They ARE the problem.
…concur … ditch Wall St./Pentagon-CIA and R Party/D Party
How many Wall Streeters/Big Bankers have come out in defense of a strong,long term well funded and sustained USian SS/MC Public System?
How many Pentagon Generals and Admirals told POTUS Obama that getting over $$630 billion ( with real/actual funding somewhere north of $$1 trillion ) for 2013 Pentagon budget was obscene in light of post 2008 Meltdown? That tens of millions of USians are now in the middle of this 2008 Meltdown and they would rather resign/quit then abide with such obscene empire/pork driven militarism funding/spending — how many?
How many USians who work at/for CIA have come out and said the CIA is doing more harm then good and needs to pruned way back?
None of the above three sets of USians seem to be supporting common USians needs/goals very much do they? As for the Rs? The Ds? Can we agree on a No? POTUS Obama sure as hell isn’t.
Thank you BP … interesting topic/line of inquiry … recommended
I believe “now” is the time for us to form a political party that will instantly identify with FDR, and MLK. The spirit of those two men is desperately needed in these very hard times for so many people who have fallen through the safety net. Those people are no longer in any one’s conversation.
At least the Romans were up-front about the role of wealth in their politics. A minimum net worth was required to enter the Senate; and voters were put into classes based on their wealth, with the wealthiest having the most influence in the annual election of republican officials.
Power was also highly concentrated in a small number of ancient families–a problem Cicero encountered on his way up the political ladder.
I agree with the idea of a new party but I think it should reflect the goals and thinking of E.V. Debs and Malcolm X.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whWk9QbFnJs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0y4lcB7ukQ
Good question. I think both the Democrats and the Republicans are splintering and going down.
But let’s look beyond that. The Dems and Repugs went so far off to the far-far-Right that they drove one tire of our economy and our country off the road. At this point, a steady balance approach as the President advises takes our figurative car off the road completely and into the ditch. A sharp right turn now, as the President and the Republicrat majorities in both Houses of Congress insist, will flip our economy and our country: It will total us.
So, there are other Parties. There’s the Green Party, the only Left-wing Party in the United States of any consequence.
There’s the Libertarian Party, which is far to the Left of the Republicrats on Peace, Drugs, and Human Rights, but has been completely co-opted by Republicans the last two Presidential Election cycles.
So, I would argue that the Parties nominating Rocky Anderson and Roseanne Barr may be headed for the dust bin of history. The Socialist Parties are increasingly irrelevant as people learn how far Left we Greens are on economics.
The Communist Party USA has gone way off to the far Right, endorsing everything President Obama did, especially the Dream Act (which coerces immigrants into the military). CPUSA RIP.
Wikipedia reports that the Youth International Party (Yippies) is defunct. What a load of crap. I’ll correct it when I get a chance.
The Obama Administration, with its hands-off-Medical-Marijuana lies, hunted down Yippie Medical Rights activist Dana Beal – the most active Yippie of us all – and imprisoned him as a Political Prisoner twice. Now is the second time. He’s still in.
Someone here at the FDL’s Book Salon incorrectly said that the Yippies were not important. At the time, I did not want to confront our guest, who was here talking about his book. But what he said about the Yippies is not true.
They were of monumental importance and continue to be. If Obama’s Fascist Treachery has Human Rights hero Dana Beal die in prison, there will be a Left wing backlash. Lots of people will begin to identify as Yippies.
But the Yippies are not a Party to which someone registers. They will be a faction outside of established Parties. So it goes.
The Pirate Party is a Party of the future, pushing communication for all and access to information as Rights. If I were not a Green, I would join the Pirate Party.
I urge all Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists and Communists: Leave your no-good Parties of the past and join the Party of now, the Greens, or the Party of the future, the Pirate Party.
Independents, Unregistered, Anarchists: We need you too! Get out here and help us get this revolution moving. Our day is coming.
The US Greens (1) are not an anti-capitalist party. They’re a reformist party, a left centrist party and like their companion parties around the world, were born irrelevant. Putting band aids on the suppurating, gaping wounds of a system in it’s death agony just won’t cut it.
Here is a revolutionary program, one which is both reasonable and need but one which differs from the Green program in it’s absolute rejection of reforms – it’s implementation will require revolutionary changes in government.
Domestic Affairs
• Call for constitutional amendments guaranteeing socialized medicine, quality housing, nutrition and trade union levels of pay and benefits for workers, students, retirees, job trainees and the unemployed.
• Call for the expropriation of banks, financial institutions and manufacturing and transportation companies that accepted or applied for federal bailouts, to be run by councils of workers and consumers. Call for laws to criminalize hoarding large amounts of money here or overseas.
• Call for a 100% tax on personal income over $200,000.00 a year and a 100% tax on estates over that amount.
• End the horrors of unemployment by adopting a 30 hour work week, with full benefits, for 40 hours pay and by supporting demands for trillions to be invested in publically owned and democratically Manhattan Project style efforts to green industry, agriculture and the infrastructure.
• Not a penny in handouts and bailouts for the looter rich. Criminalize industrial and agricultural pollution and polluters.
Military and Foreign Affairs
• Immediate, total and permanent withdrawal of all US troops, air and naval fleets, spy agencies and mercenaries to US home bases to be demobilized and until then used to improve infrastructure, protect strikers and people being foreclosed and to provide emergency housing, food and medical care for the homeless and unemployed.
• Cut all assistance to the zionist colony in Palestine, give the military assistance to the Palestinians and demand that the zionists accept Palestinian control of Palestine.
• Convene an International War Crimes Tribunal to investigate US involvement in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Palestine, Pakistan and elsewhere.
• Convene an International Peace Conference based on a US constitutional renunciation of violence to solve international disputes. Pass a constitutional amendment renouncing aggression against other countries and making it a capital crime to lie and plot to begin wars of aggression.
Civil Rights and liberties
• Full rights for immigrant and imported workers including the right of dual citizenship.
• Declare the US a multilingual nation.
• Criminalize discrimination, violence and harassment by racists, misogynists. GLBT haters, immigrant bashers and union busters.
• Reinstate the Bill of Rights
The solution is socialism, not reformed capitalism. The road to socialism is based on the radicalization of working people, a process that’s been slowly gaining momentum and which will rapidly accelerate as austerity takes hold and the velvet glove is ripped off the iron fist of repression.
It’s not for nothing that both parties have been steadily gutting the Bill of Rights. The only social layer – class – that has the power to accomplish revolutionary goals is the working class. Our hand is on the lever of production and we can – will – shut it down when we get angry enough. I hope when that happens that Greens will break with their reformist past and join us.
(1) In a few places like Australia, Greens Are moving towards becoming a socialist and revolutionary party.
Sorry, that was meant as a reply to normanb at 17.
I think everything you mentioned there are longstanding published components of the political philosophy of the Greens/GPUSA (40-year-old forerunner of the current GPUS), except the War Crimes Tribunal and the 100% tax on higher incomes, both of which Green Presidential Candidate Jill Stein called for during her 2012 campaign.
She cited the Greens’ debt and allegiance to Socialist leaders of the past in her acceptance speech. She told me personally that Socialism does not conflict with her agenda, after both of us were named to the original steering committee of the NPA, with at two prominent Socialists (Cindy Sheehan and Cornel West).
The Greens remain dedicated to completely rebuilding the US and world economy. GPUS also fields a political Party to inject a Left perspective into Electoral politics. GPUS believe in revolution, and is carrying one out.
Do the Greens support the total and withdrawal of US forces to the continental US followed by their disarming and demobilization? I was under the impression that you wanted to cut the war budget instead. There’s a difference.
Do the Greens support socialist measures like the expropriation of banks, financial institutions and manufacturing and transportation companies that accepted or applied for federal bailouts, to be run by councils of workers and consumers. I’ve read your program and there’s nothing even comparable in it. There’s a big difference between the kind of nationalizations carried out by reformers like the English Labour Party which leave management intact until the Tories privatize them and economic democracy, placing them in the hands or workers and consumers to own and control.
Do the Greens endorse a 100% tax on personal income over $200,000.00 a year and a 100% tax on estates over that amount? I didn’t see that in your program either.
One program – a socialist program – can only be won by campaigns of mass action by working people. That produces fundamental change administered by a workers government and a workers state. Reforms like Social Security and Medicare and be easily gutted or even eliminated, as we’re witnessing today.
I’m not being sectarian here, I’m pointing out the differences between temporary change and real fundamental change. The Greens are reformists and not revolutionists. The solution will not be found in electing this or that party to administer a dying banana republic owned by the rich but by the creation of a workers state.
The answer to your question is simple: The Democrats will be history’s new Whigs because they have forsaken their base. People voted Democrat in 2012 out of fear of a Republican president. They will have no such fears in the 2014 Congressional elections. Following the likely double dip in the economy which will precede that election (actually, the first dip will never have ended), the Democrats will be annihilated at the polls. Democrats were able to come back (with difficulty) from their disastrous off-year electoral showings in 1994 and 2010. In 2014, with the economy and stock market in shambles, the damage to the Democrats will be irreparable. They will never recover.
When I was a mere child, the Beatles came to America and changed the world. Something like that is what I keep waiting for.
“Maximum Income: Build into the progressive income tax a 100% tax on all income, regardless of source, over ten times the minimum wage. With this Ten Times …” — http://www.greenparty.org/Platform.php#7
Yes, all the things you named are Green policies.
Green perspective favoring worker-owned collectives: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/28/local/la-me-richmond-20111128
“Green Gov. candidates push state banks in CA, NY, IL.” — http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/06/11/green-governor-candidates-push-state-banks-in-ca-ny-il/
“We will end taxpayer-funded bailouts for banks, insurers, and other financial companies. We’ll use the FDIC resolution process for failed banks to reopen them as public banks where possible after failed loans and underlying assets are auctioned off.” — Jill Stein, 2012: http://2012election.procon.org/view.source.election.php?sourceID=11802
Jill Stein’s program called “A Green New Deal” called for hiring millions of Americans for living-wage manufacturing jobs: That was the cornerstone of her whole campaign. She also called for withdrawal of US troops from all foreign soil.
Check out Emergency Labor Network.
A couple of guys associated with ELN were interviewed on the “Alternative Visions” program at progressive radio network, prn.fm. See this link.
The Greens are left centrists but they remain a reformist party. That will remain true until the time they advocate for socialism, not reform, and for revolution.
I read your platform and noted that it’s not binding. Anyone, candidates or local party affiliates, can establish policy without reference to decisions of the majority. That’s profoundly undemocratic.
Your party’s views on reforming Congress are still born. Every institution of the old government has to go, replaced by new institutions of a workers state. The old institutions will never be capable of implementing fundamental change. That was the reason Allende failed in Chile and why Chavez will fail in Venezuela.
Economic democracy is missing in your program. Socialists don’t want to reform capitalism, we want to abolish it by expropriating the wealth of the looter class without compensation and creating new enterprises owned and democratically run by workers.
Socialists support withdrawal of the military to US home bases followed by their disarmament and demobilization. The Greens don’t.
The fundamental difference is over reforming a rotted state owned by the rich or creating a workers state.