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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb.1, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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the Union address, the immediate question for the big- business press was what he would say.
Would he mainly focus on the state of the economy? Or would his speech take on more of a philosophical, moral bent as the New York Times predicted on Jan. 21?
Well, now everyone knows Clinton's Jan. 23 speech was a calculated effort to appear as the workers' friend. In reality, however, it exposed his continuing political move to the right.
But what if Clinton were to give a real, honest State of the Union address?
First he would talk about the deteriorating economic state of the working class. He would admit that industrial restructuring has caused the loss of an estimated 3 million permanent jobs in just four years--while corporate profits soar as never before.
Take for example AT&T, one of the most profitable corporations in the world. Recently the telecommunications giant laid off 40,000 workers, including middle management.
AT&T reported $4.7 billion in profits in 1994.
These layoffs and countless others have contributed greatly to the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
If he were reporting the real state of the union, Clinton would point out that the United States has more prisoners proportionate to population than any other country. An estimated 1.1 million are behind bars.
A huge, disproportionate number of them, women and men, are people of color. Their main "crime" is being poor and/or drug-addicted.
And more and more prisoners are being forced to work for slave wages as their labor is sold to private industry. This helps to drive down all workers' wages and buttress the war against the unions.
Clinton could express his outrage at the growing number of political and physical assaults on lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual people, on women, on immigrants. And what about the growing conspiracy to torch predominantly African American and interracial churches by neo-fascist elements, especially in the South?
What about the murders of innocent Black people in broad daylight by racist whites?
What of the desperate young people who feel more and more alienated in this society because they see no prospects for getting a decent job and education?
Then there is the erosion of the Environmental Protection Act. Initiated by the right wing, this is a move to give corporations a green light to pollute the waters, air and ground without having to answer to any authority.
And of course, how could he forget all the cutbacks in federally funded social programs from welfare to health care to education? It's all being carried out in the name of balancing the budget by the next millenium--yet the Pentagon budget not only remains fully intact but has been greatly increased thanks just as much to Clinton and the Democrats as to the Republicans.
Raising the problems would be only the beginning.
Anyone who wants to really demonstrate that she or he is on the side of the vast majority of people would have to take it much further. It's necessary to explore the foundation upon which all these problems and many more rest.
All these social ills are endemic to the capitalist system. Yet this is a system whose present economic state is supposedly still in recovery.
The so-called recovery has nothing to do with the state of the working class. Instead, it reflects the extent to which the capitalist class will go to maximize profits off the backs of the exploited labor of workers--via downsizing, lower wages, cutbacks and speed-ups, whatever it takes.
Here's the truth, which Clinton will never tell: Capitalism is squeezing the breath out of humanity, slowly but surely.
The Democrats and Republicans in Congress are more than up to the task of carrying out the domestic and foreign policies that are determined in secrecy within the boardrooms of the banks and corporations.
LESSER EVIL?
As the 1996 presidential election looms ever larger, the biggest question for the U.S. progressive movement is what stance to take regarding the re-election of Bill Clinton.
It's easy to understand the dilemma many workers feel. Clinton appears to be the lesser evil compared to a Robert Dole or Patrick Buchanan. For the workers, it may boil down to which politician is for laying me off today and which would wait three months.
But it is something else entirely for those who consider themselves progressive--or even revolutionary--to take a similar position, because they should possess a much higher political consciousness.
Being anti-capitalist does not mean being against a particular policy or politician. It means being against everything about capitalism--including those politicians who may want to reform the system.
The role of the progressive movement should be to use every opportunity to show that a capitalist politician's main job--especially but not only if he is white, male and rich--is to bribe and lie to the workers and oppressed about what is really going on.
These politicians--Clinton chief among them as president-- have to obscure what is really going on. And what is really going on is unbridled class struggle--which the ruling class knows much better than the working class.
What is really going on is a desperate drive to save the capitalist system at the workers' expense.
Clinton is fundamentally no different from Dole or Gingrich. He represents the interests of the capitalist class first and foremost, even if he appears to throw a few more crumbs to the workers and the poor.
Remember, this is the same Clinton who promised during his 1992 presidential campaign to "end welfare as we know it." Now he's also helping the Republicans gut Medicaid, Medicare, and every other social program that provides some meager aid to those whose lives have been ravaged by capitalism.
It is important for the left and progressive movement to remember that all these unprecedented attacks against the masses are occurring during a Democratic administration.
A major message of the Workers World Party presidential campaign is to show why the time is long overdue for the movement to completely break with the two big capitalist parties and to embrace an independent, revolutionary, pro- socialist program.
Anything short of this will hold back the resurrection of the socialist movement inside United States in the wake of the temporary collapse of the socialist camp.
Workers World Party will crash the 1996 presidential election, politically speaking. Not because the election is a valid expression of true workers' democracy, but to expose how phony-baloney it really is.
This will be a Marxist campaign. It will expose the sham democracy that exists in this country, and show how workers are denied the right to intervene in the life-and-death decisions that directly affect them.
The Workers World campaign will be educational and agitational.
The candidates will go to plant gates, campuses, prisons, progressive and community groups all over the country to call for a revolutionary, pro-socialist movement that will fight for people's democracy--which means organizing the masses to take to the streets like the workers did in France.
It means demanding that the bosses pay for all the misery, exploitation and oppression that their system has caused.
Capitalism has worn out its welcome. It cannot be reformed.
Gloria La Riva and I--two communist women from oppressed nationalities--plan to bring an exciting message to people around the country. We think there may be many who are ready to hear it.
The message is that the workers need a fighting socialist movement--a movement whose goal is to eliminate capitalism and transfer the tremendous wealth of society from the greedy few to the multinational working class in order to meet the needs of all humanity.
Nothing less will do.
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