"Getting Real With The Democrats"

[Mairead]

(Reprinted from the Labor Party News by permission)

by Chris Townsend

The public debate about labor’s future has been underway for well more than a year now. And only one thing is certain: the depth of our problems guarantees that the discussion will continue long after the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago. Let’s hope that labor’s subordinate relationship to the Democratic Party—and what that means to our future as a labor movement—will be a bigger part of that continuing discussion.

Over the past few months some within the labor leadership have alluded to problems on this front, but these expressions of concern are not nearly enough. Instead, labor must ask: “Is the Democratic Party capable of or willing to oppose the unrelenting attacks on working people by both the Bush administration and Corporate America?”

A review of several key Congressional votes over the past months may help answer that question.

For starters, the House of Representatives passed the regressive, anti-worker bankruptcy “reform” bill in April, the Senate having done so in early March. The credit card companies rejoiced. The House vote was 279-149, with 50 Democrats supporting the Bush scheme. The Senate tally was even worse, passing by a 74-25 margin, with 41 percent of Senate Democrats caving in.

The House repealed the estate tax in mid-April by a vote of 272-162. A total of 42 Democrats jumped on this Bush bandwagon. Now the idle rich will remain rich in perpetuity. I don’t expect much better whenever the Senate finally gets around to this issue.

When it came time in early May to give Bush another blank check for his Iraq adventure, the scene was frightful. The House passed a bill to provide $82 billion dollars for the war, by a 368-58 margin. A grand total of 143 Democrats (71 percent of all House Democrats) supported this unsupportable legislation. A few days later the Senate passed the same bill by a 100-0 margin, with all 44 Democrats (100 percent) surrendering to Bush. Let’s not even mention that the last $400 billion dollars thrown away on this disgraceful adventure has yet to be accounted for. The death toll mounts day after day, with no end in sight. Need we be reminded that this war was launched on the basis of lies tailored to suit the needs of the Bush White House?

My last example is the May 26 House vote, when Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) offered an amendment that would have compelled the Bush administration to craft an actual plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. It would have made Bush and Rumsfeld come up with a plan—just a plan—to get us out of Iraq someday. The amendment failed 128-300, with 79 Democrats (39 percent of all House Democrats) opposing the idea that we should have a plan to extricate ourselves from this fiasco. Maybe these 79 Democrats think we should just stay there forever and make Iraq the 51st state.

We have managed to get some tough talk out of many Democrats in defense of Social Security, but no votes have been taken. We’ll see if that tough talk translates into real opposition when Bush brings his privatization plan to a vote. Does anyone remember the 1983 collapse of the Democrats to Reagan’s attacks on Social Security?

The Democrats seemed to grow a backbone recently on the issue of confirming the judicial appointments of Bush, but that’s a pretty remote issue for just about anyone out in the real world these days.

While we are on the subject of “real”, perhaps you would be interested to know what House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) had to say recently. When pestered by the arch-conservative Washington Times newspaper about why so many House Democrats were voting in support of Bush legislation, he replied, “The only real effort we made was on the budget …” Please read that again. “The only real effort we made was on the budget.” And unless I missed something, we haven’t seen much opposition to the Bush budget either. Keep in mind: these are comments coming from the guy in charge of lining up the Democrats on the daily votes in the House of Representatives! Would you want this guy as your shop steward where you work? (emph. added)

My friends, we are in deep trouble. No longer do the Democrats offer a plan or a future direction for our nation that is visible, coherent, or on most days even detectable. This is why we started, and why we work so hard to maintain, the Labor Party. Let’s remember that as the discussion about our future goes forward. The case has been made; it’s up to us to build the alternative and make it real.

Chris Townsend is Political
Action Director of the United
Electrical Workers Union (UE)

[iconoclastic cat]

1. I totally fucking agree.

[Gay Green]

2. So do I.

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