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Saturday, October 08, 2011

Socialists say Democratic Party working to co-opt Occupy Wall St “to politically emasculate this movement” and “turn it into a harmless safety valve”

From:
Occupy Wall Street and the Democratic Party

(WSWS.org) -- by Bill Van Auken --

As the Occupy Wall Street protest enters its fourth week, it confronts increasingly sharp political pressures and choices that center on the question of the Democratic Party.

On Thursday, both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden made statements meant to project sympathy for the protesters. Obama, at a White House press conference, declared that they “are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.” In virtually the same breath he defended his support for the TARP bailout of the banks...

The aim of the Democrats is to politically emasculate this movement and somehow harness it behind the reactionary policies of the Obama administration. They want to turn it into a harmless safety valve for popular anger while at the same time using it to “energize” the Democrats’ base.

As the New York Times reported Friday, “To hear some Democratic analysts tell it, the mushrooming protests could be the start of a populist movement on the left that counterbalances the surge of the Tea Party on the right, and closes what some Democrats fear is an ‘enthusiasm gap.’”

This intention was made clear by union leaders who were paraded before the mass protest held in New York City’s Foley Square on Wednesday. Their empty demagogy and tired chants were interspersed with announcements of Democratic Party officials who had turned up for the occasion. One of the union officials, TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen, affirmed that the Wall Street protesters should get behind the drive to reelect Obama.

Meanwhile, a collection of Democratic notables have either paid visits to the encampment at Zuccotti Park or issued statements professing support for the protest...

The Democrats’ aims were further spelled out in a column by Paul Krugman in the New York Times Friday. Citing gestures of support from unions and Democratic officials, Krugman wrote, “Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.”

A turning point to what? Essentially, a second term for Barack Obama.

“Democrats are being given what amounts to a second chance,” wrote Krugman. “The Obama administration squandered a lot of potential good will early on by adopting banker-friendly policies that failed to deliver economic recovery even as bankers repaid the favor by turning on the president. Now, however, Mr. Obama’s party has a chance for a do-over. All it has to do is take these protests as seriously as they deserve to be taken.”

What, precisely, is Obama to “do over?” The agenda for a second term has already been set by a $4 trillion deficit-reduction program that will be translated into devastating cuts to core social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, continuing record unemployment, and even deeper reductions in real wages for the working class.

What the Democrats really want to “do over” is their 2008 election victory, using populist demagogy to mask policies that uphold the interests of the banks, corporations and super-rich. This is where they see the Wall Street protests as potentially useful. If they can somehow identify themselves with popular protest against these conditions, they hope to mask the real record of the Obama administration.

They are desperate to breathe new life into the illusion that the Democrats are somehow a “lesser evil” and a means of combating the Republicans and Wall Street...MORE...LINK
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Chris Moore comments:

The money-worshipping, two-party regime elites are a clever lot. Plunder the credit and mature markets built up by the sacrafices of generations of hard-working Americans by granting a blank check to the Fed, which then distributes billions to banksters, who then hand it out to their cronies at zero interest, who then use chunks of that money to finance the campaigns of the two-party regime elites...

It's a closed loop pyramid scheme serving a network of fascist insiders masquarading as democracy.

The Democrats may be the most cynical of all, papering over their fascism with platitudes about equality, social justice, and human rights, even as they escalate bombing of women and children in the Mideast in wars for Israel and the military-industrial complex, and rob average Americans blind by plundering their country, its credit, and its future.

They're like someone who shows up at a car wreck pretending to help the victims, who then picks their pockets while they're splayed out on the street.

But the socialists have it all wrong. Any state is, by its nature, is murderous, thieving, coercive and authoritarian. The Communists murdered and plundered millions before the fascists ever got going. Outlaw capitalism, and the most greedy, venal and ruthless elements of society simply join the Party, become commissars and live the same life style, only with even more power.

Only a well written, finely-crafted Constitution limiting both Big Government and Big Business, one that is ruthlessly enforced, can ever get us where we want to be. Government needs to be trust-busted, and so does business, and even any unions that get too big. All corporations, from government to business to unions should be perpetually suspect. Only a propoer Constitution, a leadership that is committed to enforcing the rule of law, and an educated and responsible populace that can comprehend the crucial necessity of living by and enforcing the Constitution is capable solving the problems afflicting the U.S. and the world.

If every country organized itself along these lines, the insanity could be brought to an end.

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