Despite High Hopes, Obama is Not the Change We Need

A Statement By Freedom Socialist Party

ccun.org, November 16, 2008

News of Barack Obama’s successful bid to be the first Black president of the United States brought tears of joy to many who had marched in their youth against racist segregation and denial of voting rights. Across the country and around the world, tens of thousands celebrated this milestone.

Obama won, in part, because of the groundwork laid by the heroic civil rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s. He was able to pull together multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-generational electoral support that included 97% of African American voters, 67% of newly registered young people, 66% of Latino voters, 56% of the female vote, almost 50% of seniors, and 67% of union members.

The enthusiastic response to the elevation of an African American man to the presidency expressed the historic aspiration of U.S. Blacks for equal opportunity and fair treatment. But despite Obama’s victory, these goals remain out of reach for most people of color. Though Obama has raised people’s hopes, he will not be able to fulfill their needs.

Obama: savior of the profit system, not working people

On January 20, Barack Obama will take the reins of power during the worst world financial crisis since the Great Depression. He will be sworn in at a time of intense suffering and misery. In these circumstances, the future president’s role as representative and political leader of the U.S. capitalist class is clear.

Obama’s No. 1 Job is to oversee the ongoing and outrageous raid of the U.S. treasury in order to subsidize major corporations and Wall Street—to the tune of more than $2 trillion and counting. Obama’s No. 2 Job is to give an illusion of change that can assuage people’s well-founded distrust of the U.S. government. National and transnational corporations will be calling on him to use his credibility to push through unpopular pro-business, anti-labor measures.

The claim that Obama will represent bosses and workers alike, in the midst of a war against working people raging at home and across the globe, doesn’t hold up. Obama carefully cultivated the image that he is not beholden to interest groups because he ran a grassroots campaign that relied on small donors. However, 75% of the record-breaking $622 million raised by Obama came from donations over $200. His top donors include people associated with 14 Wall Street investment banks and major corporations who gave a total of $7.6 million. CEOs of four of these businesses ended up on Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board; it has no representatives of labor, women, immigrant rights, or social service organizations.

What about Obama’s plan for tax breaks to the “middle class” (including workers with living wage jobs)? This is also disconnected from reality. More than one million workers will lose their jobs this year. Tax breaks won’t do them much good. Nor will tax cuts meet the urgent needs of poor and low-paid workers, particularly women of color, who are the ones most heavily impacted by the economic crisis and decimated human services. In August 2008, women experienced a record increase in their rate of unemployment, which spiked 33 percent over the preceding month. Black women and single moms were most affected.

Obama promises an economic recovery package, healthcare for all, clean energy, extension of unemployment benefits and better education. But he is already using the trillion dollar deficit and the bail-out of Wall Street to justify delay on many of these urgent issues. As in the past, the priority will go to financial institutions and war profiteers -- and car manufacturers who seek money to close plants and lay off thousands of workers.

Come together to turn things around

Major barriers to real change are the power-broker heads of labor, feminist and civil rights organizations who oppose militant tactics and confrontational strategies. These misleaders often won’t challenge Democrats to support legitimate demands out of fear it may jeopardize the politicians’ re-election.

It’s time to push obstructionist officials out of the way and build a new workingclass political coalition, independent of the Democratic and Republican parties. This coalition’s new leadership must come from African Americans and others who struggle for justice against multiple oppressions as workers, racial and sexual minorities, and women.

Together the coalition can fight for survival against social service cuts, layoffs, mortgage foreclosures, and corporate bailouts. An excellent way to keep more people employed and reduce unemployment would be to institute 30 hours work for 40 hours pay. The movement can also press for affirmative action, full reproductive rights, round-the-clock child care, free education, jobs for all, immigrant rights, equality for gays and lesbians, and an end to the war, just for starters. To regain lost ground, much less make new advances, will require bold leadership and tactics.

Lasting change will only come about through a fundamental reworking of the system -- with planned production for need, not profit, and nationalization of the banks, health care, transportation, and basic industry, all under workers’ control. In a word, socialism!

Following Obama and the Democrats down a road littered with sell-outs and broken promises is not the answer. Now is the time to head in an exciting new direction, towards liberation for all time from wage slavery and racial and sexual oppression.

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Freedom Socialist Party

National Office

4710 University Way NE, #100 Seattle, WA 98105 USA