What Change We Can Believe In?
When we (Americans) walk into the poles on November 4th this year, most of us who consider our selves to be progressive, or left of center will vote for Barack Obama. Obama provides “hope” and offers “change”. Before we cast our ballots we must think about what hope and what change Obama really provides. It would be foolish to argue that there is really no difference between Obama and McCain. It is undeniable that if McCain were elected there is a good chance Americans could lose their right to abortions. Up to 3 supreme court justices could retire in the next four years, and it is a safe bet that Obama will not replace them with judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade. It is also true that Obama has never used a racial slur in public, while McCain openly referred to his Vietnamese captors as “gooks”. While Obama does not offer any specific policies to further social issues such as racial and gender equality, at least he is more likely to prevent the loss of past victories. It is also true that Obama is more likely to provide more funding for some basic social programs like welfare and education. While this will do nothing to change the overall system, having this extra funding makes a significant difference in many peoples daily lives. There are even a few things actually progressive about Obama. Obama’s tax plan (tax the rich at a higher rate than the poor through graduated income tax) would make the American tax system more progressive. Finally, electing the first Black man to office IS progress (just as electing the first woman vice president would be).
All of that being said, there is nothing about Obama’s presidency that would actually lead to progress, or would better our (the American people’s) condition in the long run. While electing a Black man president would be indicative of progress, it does not have anything to do with what will happen after Obama is elected. It is merely an indicator of an important change in our collective attitude toward race. While there is undoubtedly social issues that work to keep minorities oppressed in this country, economics is the driving force maintaining the superiority of white people. There is no law restricting minorities to ghettos, it is economics. Unemployment and poverty are the plight of black people in the 21st century, not segregation or slavery. Unlike McCain Obama is not likely to role back social progress, but he is also not very likely to drive it forward. Obama, though he supports civil unions for homosexuals, opposes gay marriage (didn’t we decide in Brown v. Board that separate but equal was not equal?). If Obama really wanted to create progress in this country it would be in the economic realm. It is in this area that his proposed policies do not only lack the promise of progress, but in all likelihood will make things worse for us than they already are, never mind people living in the developing world.
Obama’s tax plan moves the federal income tax in the right direction but it does not make any fundamental change. The national income tax is already a “progressive” graduated income tax (it taxes the rich more than the poor). Obama wants to make it a little more progressive, but he is not bringing anything new to the table. Here is where Obama’s politics become more than simply lacking, but down right dangerous. Obama is an advocate of “free trade”. He trusts the capitalist market both nationally and internationally to distribute the worlds goods and resources in a just way. There was a major shift in US economic policy lead by Milton Freedman and Reagan in the early 80’s and solidified by Clinton in the 90’s. This was the shift toward “neo-liberalism”. The belief that by increasing international trade through deregulation, eliminating trade tariffs quotas and subsidies, and promoting privatizations, all the woes of the economy could be fixed. In other words, trust the market and the captains of industry who run it, and all will be well. Since this economic model has been in practice the gap between the rich and the poor has grown tremendously both in the United States and internationally, labor standards have fallen, and the environment has been ravaged. This system, although spearheaded by our government, is enforced on us and the rest of the world through organizations like the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF, and through treaties such as NAFTA. Obama’s rhetoric is not without criticism of this system. He emphasizes the need to place a few labor and environmental protections within these organizations and treaties, and to offer some assistance for the billions of people who come out as the “losers” in this neo-liberal system. While these measures may do a little (and I mean a very little) to mitigate the effects of “free trade” Obama’s policies will expand the reach and the power of the system as a whole. This will mean greater freedom for companies to move jobs overseas to place where the workers are easier to abuse and where the environment is easier to exploit. This will mean more competition instead of cooperation between us and our working brothers and sisters in foreign countries. It will mean fewer high paying manufacturing jobs and more unemployment and low paying service industry jobs for us. It will mean more subjugation to U.S. companies for the people of the developing world. Thanks for offering the relief packages Obama but I think we would rather just keep our jobs.
According to a CNN pole, 48% of Americans think the economy is the most important issue for the upcoming elections, followed by the war at 18% and healthcare at 13%. It is clear that Obama does not represent our interests as far as the economy goes, so what about health care? There was a time when Obama advocated universal coverage. He used to advocate a system where, instead of health insurance companies, the government insured every person in the country regardless of income, where healthcare was a right not a privilege. He even participated in the fight for universal coverage in his state of Illinois back in 2003. This was before the health insurance lobby got to him. After having the health insurance lobby at his ear he backed down. Universal coverage was no longer the goal. Now he proposes creating a public health insurance company, which would be offered alongside private companies, and sliding scale subsidies for people who do not qualify for Medicaid, to purchase private or public health insurance. Here’s the problem. This plan will still leave people uninsured (maybe 15 million), it still treats our health as a commodity, not a right, and the subsidies will function as giveaways for private HMO’s, the very people who have created the problem in the first place. While Obama has not taken any donations from the healthcare industry during his presidential campaign, he took money from health insurance lobbyists in both his state and federal senatorial races.
Obama’s plans for the our troops do not represent our interests either. Obama supports the war in Afghanistan. So far in that country there have been 953 coalition death (CNN) and, although there is no agreed upon number, there have been thousands of civilian deaths, including 540 in the first seven months of 2008 (human rights watch). Obama better be sure that that war is going to end terrorism forever (and not just make more recruits for Al-Qaeda) to make that many deaths worth it. As far as Iran, while he suggests we use diplomacy, he recommends that we leave the military option “on the table”. It is also worth noting that almost all of the major wars on the past century (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam) were started by Democrats. The two gulf wars were started by republicans, but lets not forget that Bill Clinton bombed Iraq too. Finally as far as Iraq goes, Obama wants to pull out. This is better than McCain without a question, but with Obama’s plan, we will be in Iraq until 2010. That’s two more years of our children, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers dying in foreign countries for no reason, not to mention billions of more dollars that could be used to fund education, transportation, disaster relief, or even a real universal healthcare plan. Things that would actual benefit us.
In the end the Obama’s great shortcoming is that he is just another capitalist candidate. All of these things that Americans are concerned about, the economy, healthcare, the war, are not isolated problems, they are part of the capitalist system. It is the free market, i.e. capitalism, that ravages our economy. Even in times of “prosperity” there is unemployment and poverty. It is capitalism that allows healthcare companies to charge absurd prices and pressures them to deny treatment. It is capitalism that allows our government to be pressured by Bechtel and Haliburton to invade foreign countries and throw away the lives our soldiers and innocent civilians. Obama offers to make small amendments to this system while leaving the overall problems intact. In fact he aims to strengthen this system that keeps us all in chains. So what can we do? We don’t have to vote for one of the two major parties parties. The Socialist Party USA is putting forward our own candidate, Brian Moore. We have the opportunity to vote for real change especially those of us who live in states like Vermont or Tennessee where our votes will not matter. If capitalism is an iron cage we are all locked in, Obama is offering us a pillow to keep our heads off the hard cold floor, while putting another padlock on the door. Voting socialist, is voting for the tools to pick the lock.

Written by SPNYC member Zelig Stern

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