EDITORIAL
Out of the frying pan...
The masses of workers have little to gain
through the process of capitalist elections, no matter how
"free" and "fair" they may appear to be. The latest spectacle
in California did nothing to put a dent in that rule.
Although it is obvious, it must be stated again and again:
Money dominates bourgeois elections. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who
comes across as the champion of the underdog in his action
movies, has amassed a fortune of half a billion dollars that
lets him hobnob with the real ruling class. His ability to
afford millions of dollars of television ads and his long
history of being a fund-raiser for the Republican Party
instantly made the media treat this screen celebrity as one of
the very few "major" candidates for governor in a field of
135--even though he barely put forward a political program.
He argued that his personal wealth insulates him from
"special interests." It doesn't work that way. For example,
it's an unspoken requirement of membership in the U.S. Senate
to be at least a millionaire. And that's who passes all the
reactionary laws giving tax breaks to the rich, giveaways to
the oil, gas and timber interests, and fat contracts to the
military-industrial-banking complex, while putting leg-irons on
workers' efforts to unionize.
Capitalist politics is really not that different from the
world in which Schwarzenegger has worked. In front of the
cameras, a carefully scripted fantasy is acted out. Its almost
universal message is to rely on the superhero, whether he be a
Terminator II or a president or a governor, to rout the bad
guys and protect the people, who are presented as weak and
unable to organize in their own defense.
Gray Davis, the ousted Democratic governor, was no
superhero. He was flabby and weak when it came to fighting the
rapacious energy companies that stole billions from the state
during the manufactured electricity crisis of two years ago.
The current state budget crisis, which led to this
unprecedented recall vote, can be traced directly to that and
the many other ways in which the corporate thieves milked the
public treasury to boost their profits in a period of market
stagnation.
The energy crisis was a perfect opportunity to educate the
people on the predatory nature of monopoly capitalism. But
that's not a role the Democratic Party wanted to take on, since
it too is 150-percent committed to this profit system. Nor did
it want to arouse the people to the drastic situation facing
them and urge them to mobilize against the corporate
raiders.
That left the field open for a politically ambiguous and
ambitious figure like Schwarzenegger, with his strongman image.
He played to the whole house, Republicans and Democrats--taking
a "liberal" stance on gay rights and abortion but opposing
rights for the undocumented and having a history of support for
the "English first" forces.
The election did not represent some broad sweep to the right
among the voters, as could be seen by the strong defeat of
Proposition 54--the so-called "racial privacy" initiative
sponsored by the right wing and intended to weaken affirmative
action.
Many organizations representing women, unions,
environmentalists and other progressive forces put hard-earned
money into the campaign against the recall and for the
Democratic Party. It's down the drain now. It would have been
much better spent fighting on the issues.
The whole country is now heading into another electoral
marathon. More fantasy scripts will be acted out in front of
the public. The movements for social progress will be under
great pressure to become a tail to the kite of whoever gets the
Democratic Party nomination.
It's a pressure that should be resisted. The place for the
workers and all progressives is in the direct struggle, not in
the shadow play that passes in this country for politics.
Reprinted from the Oct. 16, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page