Obama: The Empire’s New Face

by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan
Basics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)

On January 20th, Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn-in as the 44th President of the United States, realizing the hopes of millions of people who came out in record numbers to elect and support him in November. Americans were especially desperate for a change after eight years of war abroad and economic ruin at home. But unfortunately, Obama can not live up to such hopes. His government will not represent any real change for the people of the U.S. or the world. By every decision he has made since his election, and his alignments and positions during his campaign, Obama has assured that the United States of violence, terror, occupation and white-power will continue under his presidency.

We only have to look at who he’s picked to run the country with him. Obama’s Secretary of State (the government’s representative to the world) will be Hillary Clinton, a notorious supporter of the illegal occupation and invasion of Iraq, defender of the racist state of Israel and consistent champion of brutal American foreign policy. Robert Gates, Bush’s handpicked replacement for the criminal Rumsfeld, will remain as Defense Secretary. Not only is Gates against ending the Iraq war (Obama’s major election promise), but he was responsible for past crimes, including the Iran-Contra affair (where as the deputy-director of the CIA in the 1980s Gates encouraged his boss, Bush Sr., to finance the massacre of a democratically-elected government in Nicaragua, which was financed by selling weapons to Iran and pumping crack into ghettoes in the US). This pattern continues with the up and coming Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, who allowed for the murder and torture of Mexican refugees in her home state of Arizona. These choices are not just bad decisions on Obama’s part, but they mean he made sure his new government will be led by war criminals, human rights abusers, anti-environmentalists and all-around imperialists.

Some say these corporate and military thugs would be kept in check by Obama. Yet when has the President-elect shown us that he is not a war monger and reactionary himself? During his election campaign he promised to eventually end the Iraq occupation, but only so troops could be increased in Afghanistan (a war just as brutal and illegal as in Iraq). Obama told the world racism was no longer an issue in America, at a time when more than 83,000 black people die from the black-white health gap each year, when prison concentration camps imprison black men 8 times more often than whites and just 4 years after the government let thousands of blacks in New Orleans die.

On January 20th, Obama will become the leader of the most violent and destructive empire in world history - one that has been designed for 200 years to rob, enslave and brutalize the world’s population - and that’s something that won’t “Change”!




On his trip to Israel in July 2008, Obama expressed his uncompromising support for the Israeli apartheid state.

Five Parties, One Economic Agenda: 2008 Federal Elections in Canada

by Corrie Sakaluk (Basics #11 - November 2008)

The voter turnout for the recent federal election reached an all-time historic low. While there was some confusion with new voting cards and voters being turned away due to not having proper ID, there is also a sense that election results matter little for the day-to-day lives of many.

With the current crisis of capitalism coming to a head during the last two weeks of the election, it was in no way made clear to Canadians how the parties would respond differently to the crisis.

It was widely acknowledged by mainstream media that while Liberal leader Stéphane Dion pointed the finger at Conservative leader Stephen Harper for not taking active steps to respond to the financial crisis, Harper pointed his finger back at Dion’s Liberal party for having no solutions either - and with good reason to do so. Conservative economic policy today is identical to that under Liberal federal governments of the preceding decade and a half. Economic ideology in the two parties is indistinguishable.

Since Harper has been in power approximately 176,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector alone have been lost. But under Paul Martin’s previous Liberal federal government job loss in the manufacturing sector was still a huge problem. Even before that under Jean Chretien, in nearby areas such as Oshawa, job losses have been happening and destabilizing people’s lives since 1999. Plus, Paul Martin cut transfer payments to the provinces that resulted in less money for employment insurance, health care and education.

During this federal election there was no talk by any party about repudiating the free trade agreements which have led to the impoverishment of working people in this country. In the French-language all-leaders debate during the election, the five leaders were posed a question about what their stand was on the oil industry and if it should be nationalized the benefit all Canadians. It is interesting to note how quickly all of the leaders distanced themselves from the proposal, with Layton, Duceppe, and May, all of whom have criticized the Harper government for being in the pocket of Alberta’s oil industry, flatly rejecting the idea.

So with all of the major political parties remaining completely silent on economic issues that affect all Canadians, it should be no wonder that Canadians are turning out to the polls less and less in each federal election. What’s clear is that more and more Canadians are losing faith in Canada’s political system

Canada's 2008 Federal Elections: Why People Don't Vote

September 2008

Voting rates, especially amongst working people, has been on the decline over the last 20 years. In the last three federal elections, around a third of the population did not vote, with the 2004 election ranking as the lowest voter turnout since the 1867 Confederation of Canada.

For people under the age of 30, non-voters are in the overwhelming majority – with roughly three quarters of young voters refusing to cast a ballot. Non-voting is also split along class lines. On average, the rich vote and the working class doesn't.

The government, media, and academics give various reasons for the decline in voting, from the rise of television to the decline in newspaper readership to various other cultural changes. The solutions they offer range from more civic education classes in high schools, to bringing in some form of proportional representation.

Maybe the real reason workers don't vote is more straightforward – and more fundamental. Maybe the reason so many working people don't vote is because they see that none of the political parties represent their interests. This is not “apathy” - it's a perfectly rational choice. Working people are not going to vote if none of the political parties deserve their support, no matter how many voting campaigns are carried out or what system of elections are used.

The conditions for working people in this country have been on the decline since the late 1970s – with stagnant wages and growing poverty. How have the parties responded to this? Once in power, every party, at every level of government, has not only done nothing to stop this decline – they brought in the policies that helped make it happen. The Liberals and the Conservatives have just been taking turns at shredding the social wage of the working class – cutting back on support for unemployed workers, making higher education more and more expensive, under-funding public transit, driving our healthcare system into crisis, refusing to build more affordable housing, the examples go on and on. The government – no matter which party is in control – always claims that this social wage needs to go because they don't have the money. But when the monopoly corporations ask for subsidies, or if there's a war against Third World people to fight, all of a sudden the money is found.

Little better can be expected out of the smaller parties such as the NDP or the Green Party. The NDP has shown it's true colours from it's time in provincial government – while making nice sounding promises, once in power they do little to benefit workers because to do so would upset the monopoly corporations that run the economy. Rather than fight back, they cave in. The Greens are no better. While they cloak themselves as a “progressive” party, the Greens are actually libertarians and even more right wing than the Conservatives.

So if voting doesn't matter, what can people do? Organize! Organize in your workplace, in your schools, in your communities. Mass pressure works. Every issue of Basics has examples of mass struggles from all over the world that have organized their communities, won concessions from the state, and created new forms of people's power. No matter which party wins the elections, the people will need to mobilize to defend their interests.

Will New Voting System Make a Diference?

New system on its own no fix to limited political choice.

On October 10, the Ontario government will be holding a referendum on the future of the provincial electoral system. Some groups are heavily promoting a new alternative system (Mixed-Member Proportional Representation or MMP) as the solution to popular indiference to elections and the failure of government to respond to the needs of working people.

Under the current voting system (“First Past the Post”), the province is divided geographically into ridings. Whichever candidate gets the most votes in the riding wins the seat. The party with the most seats forms the government.

The problem? If you didn’t vote for the winning candidate, you might as well have stayed home, since your vote will have no inluence over the composition of the parliament. This is why
parties that have won a minority of votes routinely form majority governments.

Under the proposed new system, people would vote twice, once for whom they wanted to represent their riding, and a second time for the party they wanted to form the government. The Legislature would have extra seats added so that each parties’ share of seats would be same as their share of the overall popular vote.

While this would be an improvement over the system we have now, MMP is hardly a cure-all.First, while the allocation of seats may be “fairer” under MMP, it doesn’t change the fact that none of the existing parliamentary parties puts the interest of working people irst. In Toronto we have an NDP Mayor, a Liberal Premier, and a Conservative Prime Minister and at every level of government, the politicians have shown that when the interests of working people and the rich clash, it’s the interests of the rich that win out. Despite their other disagreements, this is something that every politician is united around and no re-arrangement of seats in the
Legislature will change that. Second, while MMP will supposedly provide “greater choice”, a 3% cutof has been built into the new system - speciically to block the rise of new political parties that the corporate media labels “fringe”. Without millions of dollars in campaign funding, 3% is actually a huge barrier for any genuine workers party to get beyond.

However, this doesn’t mean that working people can’t change things - it just means that we can’t expect procedural changes to ix the problem. Having the kind of government that the people deserve takes popular struggle. Whether people vote yes, no, or choose to boycott the Oct. 9 referendum, that struggle must continue!

Electoral Parties Have Little to Offer to Working People

Election campaigns lack substance, track records in office unimpressive for all mainstream parties.

On October 10th, about half of eligible voters will go to elect a new provincial government and possibly a new way of electing people. While it is still unclear what the likely outcome will be, there are some conclusions that we can draw already: 1) almost half of the people in the province do not have enough conidence on the political system to take time out to go vote and 2) given that recent history shows little difference between the Conservatives (who governed in the late 1990’s), the Liberals (the current government) and the NDP (who governed in the early 1990’s) this a reasonable choice to make.

Nonetheless, BASICS wants to encourage working people to grill anyone who comes to their door with questions about what their party will do for our communities, why they didn’t do these before when they were in government, and why should we trust them now?

Afordable Housing:
The Harris government made their contempt for poor people very clear with deep cuts to desperately needed social programs. Social housing funded and run by the provincial government was then passed down to the City’s and without any funds to run them. This is how Toronto Community Housing was formed. The result – a severe decline in the maintenance and upkeep of units and a reduction of rent-geared-to-income (RGI) units available, relative to those who need it.

Once again, the Liberals ran on a platform of reversing all of this. However, they have not taken responsibility for funding social housing and hence, in Toronto alone there are some $500 million needed in order to bring units up to decent standards.

Wages and Jobs:
This spring the issue of wages momentarily gathered some attention as some unions initiated a campaign to have the minimum wage raised to $10/ per hour from $8/ per hour. The Liberals and Conservatives both oppose increasing the minimum wage right now, largely because they are ‘concerned about the impact on business’ – which means they are speaking on behalf of the sector which funds their campaigns and lines their pockets. The NDP for their part moved a Bill that would have seen the minimum wage increase to $10 / hour, a very good step but far from something that would give a living wage to the more than 1 million workers in Ontario earning a minimum wage.

Education:
Class sizes and resources for schools have been a major issue since in Ontario schools the days of the NDP Rae government. These problems were exacerbated by the Mike Harris Conservative government who instituted massive cuts leading to strikes, large class sizes and a tangible reduction in the quality of education provided to children of working class families. Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals promised to reversed these cuts but have left schools without the money they need. McGuinty and crew have also increased tuition fees for University and College education, just as Harris and Rae did.

Social Assistance:
During Mike Harris’s time as Premier, social assistance was slashed by 22%, using the rationale that poor people are lazy and need to be forced to work. Under his leadership the Conservatives also introduced a workfare program called Ontario Works, entrapping those who require social assistance into working in menial jobs that provide little to no skills or training. Parents in the workfare program are forced out of their homes and are left no afordable options to access child care for their children.

Despite their promises during the last provincial election, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals have done little to improve upon the wreckage to social assistance programs left behind by the Conservatives. McGuinty said he would make sure that welfare rates would rise at the same rate as inlation, but this promise was broken. Social assistance has only been increased by 2%. This still leaves families in need of support with 20% less funding than 12 years ago. Add
to this the Liberal’s elimination of the Special Diet program, the addition of the Ontario Health Premium, and the stagnation of minimum wage rates, and the poor have seen a massive 40%
loss in real income under the last two provincial governments.

The NDP’s platform for this election remains silent on the issue of social assistance, focusing once again on pleasing richer members of the working class and showing a lack of willingness to take the concerns of the majority of working people seriously.

City Elections means little to Workers

Working people in Toronto have been offered little this year, despite having seen at least two, and in some areas three elections this year.

This fall, 44 new Councillors and a new Mayor will be elected for City Hall.

The prospect of any change is minimal, as the main opponents to David Miller are disorganized and have little base of support other than small pockets of people who want to see even more cops on the street, homeless people in jail and privatized social housing.

The likes of Jane Pitfield, Cesar Palacio, Peter Lipreti and others have spent most of their time pushing for these things and other policies that keep pressure on working people.

However, it is becoming increasingly evident, even inside Miller’s campaign that 3 years of a Miller lead City Hall has left a lot to be desired in the minds and wallets of Toronto workers.

Miller’s City Hall has made some positive steps in addressing some environmental concerns, but it has also put more money to Police at a time when police brutality and corruption are being exposed more than ever in this City. It has also increased user fees on services such as the TTC, made little or no progress on issues of addressing affordable housing, and moved to ban homeless people from sleeping in City Hall.

City Hall for its part, like every other level of government, blames another level of government. And while other levels of government are also to blame, the sentiments of Toronto workers is undeniable – Miller’s priorities are out of whack.

Faced with no mayoral race and very little discussion of actual issues, it is likely that voter turnout will not increase beyond last elections 35%.

Nonetheless, people can still raise awareness about issues such as affordable housing and social services, and a real answer to the difficulties faced by working people and families.