[Marxism] What does this election signify?

[Fred Feldman]

I will be voting for McKinney and Clemente on the Green Party ticket this
Tuesday in New Jersey.

I also have said that I think the election of Obama is preferable not on a
"lesser evil" basis but as reflection of new setbacks to racism, and of
changing moods somewhat more in our direction in broad strata of youth and
working people. 

I feel strong solidarity with the drive among the Black people of the United
States, which is near universal and of high intensity, to get a Black
elected president this year. That fight is a legitimate one, and an
inevitable and just one.  And it is a good thing that large numbers of
Latinos, Asians, and whites, including millions of working people, have
rallied to it.

It remains important to fight any and all efforts to influence the outcome
through denial of the right to vote to Blacks and Latinos, and other
violations of voting rights. In the actual history of the class and social
struggles, in the United States, an Obama victory will be forward, not
backward, motion. 

But at the same time, it will resolve nothing.

Most fundamentally, what is being decided in this election is the same issue
decided in every election in the history of the United State -- which
representative of the class enemy will oppress working and oppressed people
for the next four years. Despite the progressive political motion that has
been reflected in support for the Obama campaign, he is the candidate of an
imperialist party to govern the United States in the interests of US
imperialism, which means against the oppressed and exploited people of the
United States, who constitute a sizable majority. 

This is indicated by such things as his support for the continued presence
of US troops in Iraq and his plan to intensify the war in Afghanistan, and
to get the US more involved in conflict in Pakistan.

It is shown by the hostility he has voiced to the regimes in Bolivia,
Venezuela and Cuba (despite his promises to ease aspects of the  economic
blockade of Cuba, a brutal act against the people of Cuba, and an act of
aggression that violates international law. 

It is also indicated by the indications he is dropping about the need for
"belt-tightening" to pay for the costs of the wars and for the enormous
gifts to the billionaires -- with more coming apparently for the auto
industry. 

There is no reason to doubt that we will be having to fight Obama, assuming
he is elected, as we have had to fight his predecessors in the office. And
this is an experience that the working people of the United States,
including the Black community, will have to go through as well.

We are undoubtedly going to have to resist powerful pressures that are going
to come down to convince us that we have to do "our share" to pay for their
"deficit." The rulers never care about the deficit when it comes to
organizing huge government expenditures on themselves, but which they choose
to get all upset about when it comes to our health care, wages, pensions,
education, environment, and so on.


We are in a sharply changing situation and firm predictions about exactly
what will happen next are on shaky ground. But one basic thing said by
Marxist list contributor Craig Bozefsky (a comrade on the Marxism List who
disagreed with my estimation of the motion around the Obama campaign) is
absolutely true: We will have to be fighting for what we have and need,
whoever is elected. And the poor and oppressed of this country will keep
nothing and gain nothing, especially in the context of economic fissures and
breakdowns in the system which are still deepening. without a struggle.
Fred Feldman