The politicians in both corporate-owned political parties have now voted on their trillion dollar give-away to Wall Street and would like us to just forget about it, thank you very much. They’re hopeful (wishful might be more like it) that a) the bailout will blunt the edge of the global economic crisis, or at least keep the axe from falling before the elections, and b) the working people who will pay for it can be convinced that it was a one-time, painful aberration that is best forgotten.
Whether it will impact the elections is hard to say, seeing as how both major parties largely supported it, even though the working class constituency of both parties largely opposed it or at least had serious reservations. Plainly it will not be forgotten. There is every indication that the economic crisis will continue and that we are in for a very nasty ride consisting of more foreclosures and evictions, more layoffs and deeper cutbacks in vital services at every level of government.
In the very few days prior to the congressional votes, and despite the constant babble from the corporate media about Goldman-Sachs this and AIG that, we saw the beginnings of a movement to fight back against the bailout or to use it as an opportunity to raise demands on behalf of working people. More than just the right-wing populist demagogues who opposed the bailout on ideological grounds, there were hundreds of working class outbursts in the form of small demonstrations, rallies, and speak-outs around the country demanding in one form or another that our financial crisis be taken as seriously as Wall Street’s.
Most notable were hastily organized demonstrations by the labor movement, though many of these were tepid in tone or uncertain because of fears that being too outspoken on the largest capitalist intervention in the economy in history might upset this or that Democratic Party politician. Also of great importance was the emergence of the movement against foreclosures and evictions, formed months ago as the mortgage crisis began to force people out of their homes but now bubbling up into public consciousness.
But with the congressional vote behind us, there is a strong push from both parties and the media to put all this behind us . . . to forget about what the government is capable of doing and focus on what it can no longer do, such as fund schools, healthcare, essential services, etc. We all have to make sacrifices, after all, and the economic crisis is being treated (now) as if it were an act of god rather than a human phenomenon.
The big unanswered question, though, is whether working people are prepared to wash from their short-term memories the government’s immediate and drastic action to rescue bankers and financiers when we are faced with our own crises. Or will we demand our own bailout . . . government action to insulate working and poor people and our communities from the impact of the capitalist collapse?
Honestly, I believe that the biggest obstacle to a campaign for a peoples’ bailout is the mental blinders that working class and progressive leaders and activists have constructed for themselves. Accustomed to dealing with retrenchment, backsliding and reaction and thinking in terms of the art of what is possible (or at least what was possible yesterday), it is as if people are frightened to speak out loud the measures that are needed to rescue the members of our own class who are drowning in this crisis.
What are those measures? Government action to stop all foreclosures, evictions, and utility shut-offs to ensure that the crisis does not result in millions of homeless. Jobs programs to provide work to the millions who will face layoffs . . . jobs programs that will provide meaningful employment on projects vital to the nation’s infrastructure, from maintaining bridges to establishing community health clinics to improving access to the internet in impoverished rural and urban areas. Price controls to guarantee that basic necessities such as food are affordable.
There is not a single item in this list that is any more impossible or outrageous than a government program that guarantees that the richest fraction of the ruling class can keep their mansions, yachts and luxury automobiles after having successfully tanked the U.S. economy with their unmitigated greed. And everything on this list is not just necessary for working people to survive this crisis — it is the due and entitlement of every person in this country that survives by selling their labor.
These demands were impossible yesterday. Today they have become possible because they are necessary.
Filed under: Economic crisis
