Blog from Richard Mellor, Afscme Local 444, retired HEO/GED – USA
Facing intense pressure from donors and big wigs in the Democratic Party, Joe Biden has finally withdrawn from the U.S. presidential race. “While it has been my intention to seek re-election,…” he wrote, “…I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” The response has been immediate.
Biden’s decision was, “one of the most stunning acts of patriotism of my lifetime” tweeted Norm Eisen, a former diplomat, while Barack Obama called Biden a, “patriot of the highest order” and his decision a “testament” to “his love of his country” and an, “historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own…”
Nancy Pelosi, another multi-millionaire like all of them, concurred, “President Biden is a Patriotic American who has always put our country first.” She writes.
“An act of selfless grace” is the title of David Smith’s, commentary in the UK Guardian today. Smith is the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau Chief. John Stewart, the comedian, tweeted one word, “Legend”. They’re all being dishonest.
The outpourings of praise is nauseating as we witness what is not only a collective sigh of relief, but a cacophony of lies and falsehoods. Joe Biden’s decision was not selfless, courageous, or sacrificing his own interests for three hundred million Americans. That’s not a part of the job description. As of yesterday (7-21-24), 36 congressional Democrats had called on Biden to withdraw while an ABC/Ipsos Poll found that60% of Democrats felt he should end his campaign and that“Three in four Democrats (76%) would be satisfied with Harris as the party’s nominee.” Among those still supporting the sinking Biden ship were Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who once stated that “only in America would she be in the same party as Biden.
I think it’s fair to say that Biden, who only a day or two earlier was adamant about continuing and claiming he had the ability to lead, had no alternative but to quit; the writing was on the wall.
The whole episode along with the disastrous foreign policy Biden has pursued has revealed the political crisis that has engulfed US society. And not only the Democrats. The Republican Party is equally diseased. We are witnessing the continued decline of the two parties of capital that have dominated US economic and political life for over a century and consequently the influence of US imperialism on the global stage. Ukraine is one foreign policy disaster but Biden’s embrace of the fascist Netanyahu and the unwavering support and arming of the Zionist genocide in Gaza and Palestine in general has done irreparable harm to the U.S. image internationally. Apart from the Apartheid Zionist regime, the US has no ally in the Middle East.
Biden will go down in history as the US president that could have stopped the mass murder of thousands of unarmed civilians, mostly women and children but refused. The picture of him hugging Netanyahu is worse than Neville Chamberlain’s embrace of Hitler and the betrayal of the Czech’s. Chamberlain’s actions never led to “peace in our time” and neither will Biden’s. The truth is that within the framework of the capitalist system, peace is never possible. Never ending wars and conflict are an integral aspect of the capitalist system of production wars and crisis.
I raise these points about Biden not in defence of the serial sexual predator and degenerate Trump, but to point out that these events reflect the decline of a social system, its institutions and political parties, not simply the character flaws of its leading figures. That the best the Democrats could field was Biden is an example of this decline. Trump is a particularly distasteful character but how anyone can refer to Biden as a “moral” or “decent man” and other such complimentary terms is beyond belief given his love affair with the Zionist regime that is committing mass murder and genocide in real time.
Don’t whine to me about Germans not stopping Hitler and the Nazis.
Perhaps the worst of all the deception is the politicians and the mass media covering for Biden knowing he was losing his mental capacity; “For months Biden’s decline had been mostly concealed from the public.”, Smith writes. Perhaps the worst example is Kamala Harris, the former Oakland prosecutor and quite possibly the next president of the United States who sent many working class, overwhelmingly black youth in to the California prison system euphemistically referred to as “correctional Centers”.
After Biden’s disastrous showing during the debate with Trump, Harris said that Biden was “clear” in his messaging, had a “slow start” but “thought it was a strong finish.” “In a real leader, character matters more than style,” she added. Biden was out of it, he was confused, blank. That’s not style.
They know the conclusion the electorate drew from that debate but their goal has been to obscure, it and to sow confusion among the electorate. The competition between two capitalist parties in a bourgeoisdemocracy for which one gets to plunder society for the established period of time is but one long deception. A political party represents sections of society, it is not an empty vessel. Both parties represent big business which means working people must pay for the crisis of the system not them. But they can’t campaign on such a program so they lie.
So attacking Trump on the basis that he is a liar, which he is and he lies without any concern for the truth at all, doesn’t make any headway; they are all liars.
No matter which party is in the driver’s seat working class people will have to pay for the crisis of capitalism in its end days; our material well being will deteriorate no matter which party is in power. Both parties will defend the system of exploitation and its march toward the abyss one way or another, it’s not a choice in that sense. A looming environmental catastrophe and the end of life as we know it is a serious consequence of this crisis, possibly the prime factor assuming a nuclear conflict is avoided.
I have commented in previous posts that the heads of organized labor bear much of the blame for us arriving at this point. But there are others. Bernie Sanders could have played a different role over the past period. Then we had the election of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez along with Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib. These women have courage. Ilhan Omar has faced repeated threats for her political positions which are left of center. Sanders could have led a left faction toward building a left alternative to the Democratic Party. Much of his reform program was supported by millions of working class and middle class people. But Sanders refused to break from the Democrats and supported the hated Hillary Clinton.
At the same time, after Sanders betrayed many of his supporters (not for the first time) and supported Clinton which was no surprise to people like me, thousands of Bernie supporters joined the Democratic Socialists of America, (DSA) a fairly small group in the left wing of the Democratic Party that grew to be the largest socialist organization in the US. Some of the left of center Democrats elected to Congress are DSA members. But they’re “socialist” in name only just like Bernie has been all these years.s
But like Sanders, the DSA leadership refused to take that path. Many of the influential figures in DSA are also Labor Notes officials and staffers. Many of them were or are labor officials in the lower ranks of the labor bureaucracy. Labor Notes while producing decent material at times and being capable of organizing large meetings drawing many rank and file union members, also refuses to launch a real campaign among labor’s rank and file against the concessionary and business oriented policies of the present hierarchy let alone a serious campaign for a labor or workers party. DSA, Labor Notes, in conjunction with the politicians I mention above could have taken a different road and led a left split from the Democratic Party. This would have inspired million of workers both inside and outside organized labor. Instead, that train has left the station and another opportunity for a break from the status quo was missed.
Now we’re in for some real battles ahead. But sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves how things actually change, we have won precious little from the ballot box. Our unions weren’t built by voting for the right candidate. Just look at what’s happened in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Supreme court has just reversed a controversial court decision that gave 30% of government jobs to relatives of those that fought in the war of Independence in 1971. This caused an outcry and masses of youth and there have engaged in mass protests. In response, the Bagladesh Supreme Court just reversed that decision and now 93% of those public sector jobs will be opened to candidates on merit.
Worth taking note of.