Obama is riding a tiger

As the most expensive election campaign in US history draws to a close – candidates have spent over $1.5 billion since the primaries began last year – one thing is certain whoever gets to the White House: the power relations that dominate American society will not change.

Despite Barack Obama’s fine oratory in which he rails against the corporations, chief executives and Wall Street, all they are threatened with is having their feathers trimmed at worst and a rap over the knuckles at best. In fact, John McCain’s speeches as Republican candidate have sounded remarkably similar in their populist appeal to those of his Democratic Party rival. While Obama has raised $300 million in small donations, he has raised an equivalent amount from big business.

As the film-maker and activist Michael Moore, who has campaigned for Obama, has pointed out, his promise to extend health care to ordinary Americans is hedged with conditions, saying: “I don't agree with Senator Obama's health plan. It's not a single-payer universal healthcare plan. It doesn't cover everybody. It's not non-profit. It still sends billions of dollars into the hands of insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, etc.”

Moore, like many US liberals is hoping beyond hope that Obama is a) playing it cautious to get elected and/or b) control of the US Congress by the Democrats will force Obama to adopt a more radical position and go for universal health care. I heard similar arguments on the eve of the 1997 general election in Britain, when people said New Labour under Tony Blair had played it safe just to get elected and when they got in, everything would change. It sure did – for the worse!

Whoever wins the race for the White House is facing a meltdown in the American economy and a financial system that is on its last legs. General Motors, once synonymous with US manufacturing power, cannot continue without state support; many smaller firms are going to the wall. Tens of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs and homes each month. The government itself is heavily in debt, borrowing like there is no tomorrow to bail-out Wall Street. These are fairly insuperable problems.

If, as seems probable, Obama is the victor tomorrow it will, of course, be an historic event. Electing a black man to the White House will be remarkable for a country where slavery was legal less than 150 years ago and where racial discrimination meant blacks in some states had to sit at the back of the bus only a half a century ago.

Obama has mobilised a formidable grass-roots campaign (his Facebook site has 2,500,000 members!) in virtually every community across the country. Tens of thousands of volunteers have helped create a new political movement in parallel with the Democratic Party. The volunteers are treated as equals inside the Obama machine, given a relative autonomy to go out and build. There are lessons to be learned from this approach, no doubt.

America is undergoing a massive change. The demonstrations against the Wall Street bail-out were only a start in a country where hatred for the power of the corporations and bankers is only second to the contempt many people have for the games played out in Washington. The deeply reactionary Bush years have produced one telling statistic: 90% of Americans think the country is on the wrong course.

The contradiction is this: In the end Obama is a capitalist politician and leader of a capitalist party; yet if Obama triumphs, he will have been swept to power on a tide of social discontent and anger. It will be like riding a tiger – you either succeed or get eaten.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

March on Wall Street

The jailing of press baron Conrad Black for defrauding shareholders has captured the headlines this morning. Black’s $32 million theft is simply the tip of an iceberg of what may be viewed as an entirely criminal situation in the world of business and finance. Black’s six and a half years in jail will perhaps seem small to the millions of people around the world who are imprisoned by debt for their entire lives - while traders play the financial markets to notch up record profits.

The fact is that 2008 is set to be the year when debts come home to roost. And, as credit becomes harder to obtain, debt is changing from being a millstone around their necks, into a nightmare. Mortgages have helped people afford a roof over their heads, whilst at the same time locking them into repayments they can ill afford. But now comes the nightmare of repossession.

In the United States, things are now so bad that people have taken to the streets – Wall Street to be exact – to protest against the way in which black communities and ethnic minorities have been hit especially hard. Yesterday, demonstrators paraded through the centre of US big business to protest against the eviction of millions of homeowners, the first ever march to target the financial markets. US civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson, who has campaigned for economic empowerment since he joined Martin Luther King as far back as 1965, led the march. He has spoken on U-tube of a financial tsunami in the US and last Friday called for a Marshall Plan to provide relief to people who lost homes and savings in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, which organised the New York rally and a second one in Chicago, said in a statement:

“As the mortgage market continues to decline, millions of home-owners could face foreclosure in the coming year. Unfortunately, a disproportionate number of those home-owners are minorities who were targeted for sub-prime, predatory loans”.

Like his mentor, Martin Luther King, Jackson sees the issue of debt as a class question as much as an ethnic issue. In Chicago, where Jackson’s Rainbow Push coalition is based in a former synagogue, 30% of homes are in foreclosure. In Detroit’s Wayne County, a quarter of homeowners are in default, as Danny Schechter reports.

Lest anyone thinks these problems are unique to America, just look at what is coming up here. The lead story in today’s Times notes that as shoppers are set to blow a record £11.7 billion on their credit cards this Christmas, the new year will bring nothing but pain. It concludes:

“There are fears that the credit crunch will have a devastating effect on some families which are already deep in debt. Nearly 5 million people have still not paid off their store and credit card bills from a year ago, according to moneyexpert.com.”

It is time to get real. We need to work out a bold programme for a not-for-profit economy, not rely on the same politicians who have worshipped at the shrine of capitalism for all their lives.

Corinna Lotz
AWTW secretary