LaborPartyPraxis

Thursday, September 4, 2014

President Obama: A Labor Day Farce
By Lil Joe

Note: Farce): AFL_CIO bureaucracy's invitation to the political commander and military chief of the armed forces of the State, the political and military representatives of the class enemy, Obama, to present a demagogic keynote address at festival [sic!/sick!] is a scandalous betrayal of the American -- indeed of the global -- working classes and toiling masses. States are the armed defenders of the appropriating and possessing classes. It's coercive powers include soldiers, police, prisons used to jail by courts or kill on the streets or in execution chambers working class rebels and revolutionaries -- e.g. Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, H. Rap Brown and many others; see "Social Movement Prisoners".

The State is the armed faction of the political ruling class. U.S. history of class struggle is full of armed strike breaking and anti-labour legislation that show the prime function of the State is to keep producing classes economically subordinate and the poor and oppressed peoples socially obedient. This, in the script, is referred to as to ensure domestic Tranquility. Tumultuous rebellions as in cases of Daniel Shays and Nat Turner tend to upset the ruling classes so suppression is written into the Constitution.

No man can serve two masters. He will serve the one and suppress the other. Obama cannot serve the interests of both labour and capital. The Democrats and Republicans represent different factions of the same class. They are the political power of capital. Since Obama is a Democrat and its representative as commander and chief of the armed State it is there that he serves the interests of capital. This is in opposition to the interests of the working class and the poor.

This syllogism is clear as noon day. If A=B, and C=A, then C=B: Democrats serve the interests of capital, Obama is a Democrat, Obama serve the interests of capital. To serve the interests of capital is to oppose the interests of labour. Democrats serve the interests of capital. Democrats oppose the interests of labour. Democrats are in fact the political enemy of the working class. Obama is a Democrat. Obama is a political enemy of the working class. These syllogisms are valid in that the major premises of which are not assumptions, but empirical, political and economic data, as the charts below show.

So, what the fuck was this Democrat, the President of the capitalist State, the personification of State power, doing at a labor union function? He was invited! By whom? By union officials who are at the same time members of the Democratic Party, the party of the class enemy and functioning therefore as the class enemy of the working class, all be it masquerading as union leaders. The stage was set and platform provided to Democrats by union officials put on one hell of a show! Show is the unessential being masqueraded as essential. Union officials put on a show staring President Obama -- presenting the enemies of the working class as 'friends of labor'. The 'unity' of the democrats and labor unions is an illusory identity of opposites. In fighting Republicans on behalf of Democrats workers are manipulated into fighting not their enemy, but the enemy of their enemy.

Syllogism to dialectics: (-) (-) i.e. negation and negation of negation. Negation of negation engenders a positive ((- ) (-) =(+). Democrats are the class enemies of the working class. In the working class itself Democrats masquerading as labour leaders are class enemies of the working class operating on our side of the barricade to obstruct or block the political independence of the working class by keeping it dependent on Democrats. Thus the presence of a Democrat union official in the working class, while positive for the ruling class is a negative influence in the working class. To negate this negative influence is not just to expel Democrats masquerading as union leaders, but must displace them by class-conscious workers fighting for the political independence of the working class i.e. the working class mobilised in a Labor Party. Political independence of the working class is the positive derived from this negation of negation.

The same as capitalist's 'special interest' so too the working class has special class interests. But, rather than self-organisation of the U.S. working class into a self-conscious independent economic and political force in pursuit of its own interests, separate and apart from Democrats and Republicans, the labor bureaucracy betray workers interests by campaigning for Democratic Party candidates and mealy mouthing campaign promises, spreading lies and illusions among workers. Only recall then Senator and presidential candidate Obama 'promised' an Obama administration along with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate would legislate and sign the Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check) laws and displace private insurance by single payer public insurance. Once in office and with a majority in both House and Senate these Democrats did neither. Yet, as mid-term elections come upon us once again the Democrats in unions are providing platforms from which Democrats are spewing lies and deceptions. How long will American workers allow themselves to be deceived?

But it isn't the bourgeois politicians that betray workers because they were not and are not workers. Democrats are what they are: political partisans of capital. It therefore is not capitalist partisans that 'betray the trust' of the working class. Rather it is labor union officials in the Democratic Party, or rather Democrats in labor unions who as union officials betray the interests of the working class. So long as the trade unions remain an appendage of the Democrats their own class interests will remain a dream deferred.

"With a mid-term election ahead, Obama used the recent economic boost to tout his leadership and said higher wages for workers were only possible if a Democrat-controlled Congress was in place. "By almost every measure, the American economy and American workers are better off than when I took office," Obama told a crowd of about 6,000 people at the annual event."

This is a lying repetition of Obama's previous campaign promises. On these very same issues! Critical thinking workers have access to the Internet and those who use it know Obama was a liar then and is a liar now. Check out the charts below.

Internet inter-communalism- enable workers to use this instrument in their revolution as the printing press was for the American War of Independence -- Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, both were printed as pamphlets for mass distribution. George Washington had Common Sense read to American soldiers. Similarly partisans of the French Revolution wrote pamphlets for mass distribution - Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes What Is the Third Estate and Jean-Paul Marat's articles/ calls in his journal Friend of the People. Printed press and pamphlets printed for mass distribution -- the printing press -- made accessible to the reading public the writings of Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, Francois Quesnay, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot and Adam Smith, Voltaire and Jean-Jacque Rousseau, Baron de la Bred et de Montesquieu, Diderot, d'Alembert, Helvetius, d'Holbach and others. The Enlightenment.

Today the democritisation of knowledge is by Internet. Working class intellectuals have the access to check facts rather than bend over to be rammed into them demagogy, propaganda and spin by bourgeois media and avaricious politicians. Obama's claim that Democrat's are worker friendly on issues as higher wage -- supposedly in contrast to Republicans being for higher profits, can be checked. What do statistics show?

Wages and profits are opposites. Both are derived from the labour process as valorising (value producing) process. Wages of labour and profits of capital are inversely related: the higher pay in wages the lower the rate of profits; conversely, the higher the the capitalists profits the less are the workers wages. No political party can be on both sides of class war.

Obama said to workers at a 'labor day festival: "I'm not asking for the moon. I'm asking for policies that help folks get ahead. Republicans running Congress are opposed to them,". What 'folks'? Certainly not the working class and definitely not 'poor folk'! With a mid-term election ahead, Obama used the recent economic boost to tout his leadership and said higher wages for workers were only possible if a Democrat-controlled Congress was in place. This is a bald faced lie. The data of the charts show the truth. Also what 'folks' Obama is there to help 'get ahead'? It is the capitalist class at the expense of the working class:

1) Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high. Companies are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before. (And some people are still saying that companies are suffering from "too much regulation" and "too many taxes." Maybe little companies are, but big ones certainly aren't).

Corporate profits as Percent of GDP

2) Fewer Americans are working than at any time in the past three decades. One reason corporations are so profitable is that they don't employ as many Americans as they used to.

Employment Population Ratio

3) Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. This is both cause and effect. One reason companies are so profitable is that they're paying employees less than they ever have as a share of GDP. And that, in turn, is one reason the economy is so weak: Those "wages" are other companies' revenue.

Wages to GDP

Wages and profits are inversely related. Thus the class interests of wage workers and capitalists are mutually exclusive. Democrats as well as the Republicans must and will each time come down on the side of capital and profits. Regardless of which party of capital is in power the capitalist classes in possession of the nations productive forces is the ruling class. Classes rule, parties govern and manage the State. This as the data proves (above) is an objective economic fact. It is an oxymoronic concept that class partisans of capital in control of the lever of State power that it would or could use that power on behalf of the working class qua working class.

Working classes as the producing classes and corresponding capitalist appropriating classes have nothing in common. That labor union officials invite and provide a demagogic platform for Democrats, including President Obama and members of Congress to give keynote and other speeches to politically helpless workers at a working class convention, or 'festival', is a farce.

Politics are warfare without bloodshed; war is the continuation of politics by means of violence, coercion -- the State is concentrated political and military power. Democrats and Republicans are opposed to political independence of labour unions creating a rival class party, contesting for State class power. It is a class war. Union bureaucracy of AFL-CIO in the Democratic Party, as well as the few of them in the Republican Party are class traitors.

Workmen and women as a class has its own common interests just as the capitalists have common class interests. A Labor Party must be and will be comprised of unions and worker associations and cooperatives -- its social task is the mobilisation of the entire working class. The working class is multi-ethnic. E pluribus unum - Latin for "Out of many, one" (alternatively translated as "One out of many" or "One from many"). Workers are workers. Unions are all inclusive. Thus, the Labor Party must be an all inclusive class party --

As yet there isn't a working class mass based worker's party in the United States. Consequently the American working class is as yet politically powerless. It is reduced to casting its lot with one or the other party of capital. This is due in part to delusional patriotism pushed along with imperialist wars by bourgeois politicians together with press and media propaganda networks. It is also due to the American workers socialisation and internalisation of bourgeois ideology; the politics of race of and gender.

When police kill workers 'in the hood', for instance. Rather than using this killing a moment of political education explaining the class nature of the State and the need for worker's solidarity in opposition to the State. Black elected officials and members in print and electronic media instead characterise the bloody fact of State terror in the slum, divert the issue of State power to an issue of an individual and an 'issue' of 'racism'.

The State emerges from civil society to mediate the irreconcilable class antagonisms characteristic of it. Rather than Storming the Bastille black elected officials together with blacks in media are elected or paid to protect and promote capitalism and its defenders. Their primary function is legislative and apologetic for the capitalist mode of production and appropriation of labour power, and the capitalist's State power. It is the armed personifications of state violence that do the killing, maiming and jailing of workers and minorities. Politicians and media hosts actually endorse the armed might of the State. By making it an issue of 'racism' of a single or group of 'bad' cops -- a so-called few 'bad apples' the powers of the armed might of the State is yet justified. Thus, within those guidelines they direct the gullible to call on the very institutions of the State to arrest and bring individual cops to trial, calling for so-called 'social justice'! State's legislature, courts and media function to give legitimacy to State terror. It's called 'justifiable homicide'.

Black Panther Party revolutionaries in the 1960s-70s Black Liberation Movement denounced not only the behavior of this and that individual pig tagged as a killer-cop, but also used it as case in point to expose pig brutality to be quintessential behavior characteristic of the function of the State qua the State. Behavior of a single pig is representative personification of the function of State Power. Bourgeois black elected officials and media show hosts are for the most part Democrats elected or hired media show hosts are elected or paid to make it appear an issue of race and racism of individuals rather than an example of class war. Spartacist League Partisan Defense Committee rightly call political prisoners prisoners of war.

There is no federated union created Labor, Socialist, Social Democratic or Communist Party in the United States. The economic mobilisation and political organisation of workers into a class and political party is itself a necessary ideological polemic and political struggle against the State and the political parties that govern and manage it.

Working class power must win the battle of democracy by means of which the Labor Party must and will supplant the Democrats and Republicans and use that authority to appeal to the rank and file of the armed forces to mutiny against the bourgeois officer corp and be a worker's militia to destroy the capitalist's State bureaucratic-military machinery. Working class state power will enable the Labor government to legislate and militarily enforce the transfer of the productive forces from the private possession of the appropriating classes to the public property of the producing classes -- the working classes.

Lil Joe

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President Obama: GOP 'says no to everything'

President Barack Obama speaks at Laborfest 2014 at Henry Maier Festival Park Milwaukee, Wis., on Labor Day, Sept. 1.

'Republicans in Congress love to say 'no.' Those are just facts,' Obama says.

By KENDALL BREITMAN | 9/1/14 4:07 PM EDT Updated: 9/2/14 3:00 PM EDT

President Barack Obama used his Labor Day speech on Monday to slam Republicans for opposing an increase in the minimum wage, equal pay for women, affordable health care and more.

"Republicans in Congress love to say 'no.' Those are just facts, they're facts of life. They say 'no' to everything," Obama said to the crowd gathered at Milwaukee's Laborfest.

The president began to outline his goals for working-class families, saying that he has "put [his] money down" on the middle class.

"I want an economy where your hard work pays off with higher wages, and higher income and fair pay for women, and workplace flexibility for parents, and affordable health insurance and decent retirement benefits," Obama said. "I'm not asking for the moon, I just want a good deal for Americans."

He continued, "Most of the policies I'm talking about have two things in common: They're going to help more working families get ahead, and the Republicans who run our Congress oppose almost all of them."

As the crowd began to boo, Obama responded, "Don't boo, vote," a motto he has used before when directing speeches against Republicans as midterm elections approach in November.

"If we had a Congress that cared about policies that actually help working people, I promise you we could get everything done that we've talked about doing," Obama said. "But until we have that Congress, it's up to us to fight for these policies."

Obama traveled to Wisconsin on Air Force One with Secretary of Labor Tom Perez and several labor union leaders, according to White House press pool reports. The president was greeted at the General Mitchell International Airport by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate who's locked in a close reelection battle this year, and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat.Wisconsin has faced scrutiny from labor unions since Republican state lawmakers voted to revoke collective bargaining rights for public employees in 2011.
President Obama: GOP 'says no to everything'

President Obama slams Republicans on Labor Day

US President Barack Obama speaks during Laborfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 1, 2014.
Tue Sep 2, 2014 12:23PM GMT

US President Barack Obama has lashed out at Republicans during his Labor Day speech, blaming the rival party for the country's problems.

"I'm not asking for the moon. I'm asking for policies that help folks get ahead. Republicans running Congress are opposed to them," Obama said on Monday.

He made the remarks in Milwaukee at a festival hosted by the local AFL-CIO (The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations).

With a mid-term election ahead, Obama used the recent economic boost to tout his leadership and said higher wages for workers were only possible if a Democrat-controlled Congress was in place.

"By almost every measure, the American economy and American workers are better off than when I took office," Obama told a crowd of about 6,000 people at the annual event.

"Despite what the critics say, America is on the move," he said.

President Obama also blamed Republicans for trying to block his efforts such as immigration reform, increasing the federal minimum wage and lowering the cost of healthcare through the Obamacare.

According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, Obama's approval ratings were at a new low in August.

The poll showed that Obama's rating fell to 40 percent, down from 46 percent for the first three months of the year, indicating that his poll numbers may reach George W. Bush levels if the most recent polling trend continues.

The poll also said the decline in Obama's ratings is due to his loss of backing from Democrats and African Americans.

The poll also found that six in ten Americans are dissatisfied with state of the economy with nearly 80 percent fed up with its political system. Obama's image is believed to have been tarnished by the troubled launch of his key healthcare law and the economy's sluggish recovery as well as the US president's handling of key foreign policy issues.
AN/AGB Obama slams Republicans on Labor Day

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