Revolution
is not an overnight event. In revolutionary moments, political
institutions and the law are all caught in the tumult. This
tumult comes from the fact that there are earthquakes and
seismic shifts in economic relations, gender relations,
military relations, and class or power shifts. Institutions
such as the legislature or the banking institutions may
be thrown into topsy-turvy. In my book, Barack Obama and Twenty-first Century Politics: A Revolutionary
Moment in the USA, I drew the attention of
readers to the revolutionary moment during which Barack
Obama emerged as president of the USA. This revolutionary
moment came to a head on September 15, 2008, when the big
banks of Wall Street collapsed. It is here important to
underline some of the elements of the revolutionary moment.
1) The failure of the US global war on terror and the delegitimization
of the US military might. 2) The technological energy which
unleashed new capabilities for politics and economics, especially
as manifest in social networking tools. 3) The cultural
revolution and engagement of new forces in politics. 4)
The heightened consciousness of the environmental justice
movement. 5) The potential power of a grassroots anti-racist
and anti-sexist movement that believes in Ubuntu. 6) The
financial implosion which exposed the dead end of neoliberal
ideas. These elements of the revolution came to a head at
the same time the people were called upon to make a statement
in the elections of 2008.
REVOLUTION
AND COUNTERREVOLUTION
When the financial crisis exploded on the world in September 2008, the US financial
oligarchs were wounded but not defeated. For 30 years previously,
these oligarchs and their allies in the media and academia
had been building up counterrevolutionary power in the USA.
This counterrevolution was manifest in many ways, and we
want to itemize them in order to get to the essential conjuncture
of the revolution and counterrevolution as witnessed in
the midterm elections. 1) The armaments culture and� imperial
overreach with the heightening of fear in the name of Homeland
Security, as well as the explosion of private military contractors
to protect the interests of the financial oligarchs and
the ruling class. 2) Media disinformation, mind control,
psychological warfare, and the brain washing of US citizens. 3) 21st
century Eugenics and new forms of bioterrorism and biological
warfare. 4) Economic polarization and concentration of wealth
to prop up the Wall Steet- Treasury- IMF cabal that is defended
by US military. 5) Environmental decay, pollution, and environmental
racism. 6) Support for big pharmaceutical companies with
differential access to health care. 7) Support and subsidies
for agribusiness and corporations at the forefront of producing
genetically modified seeds and the championing of the rights
to patent life forms (with the TRIPS regime of the WTO).
8) Prison-industrial complex. 9) Racism, sexism,
and homophobia. 10) Anti-immigrant and Islamophobic hysteria.
11) The Wall Street-IMF infrastructure manifest in the bail
out of bankers and the growth of speculative capital at
the expense of productive investment for human beings. 12)
Privatization of education, the propping up of the Ritalin/cocaine
pipeline and war against the poor.
These elements of counter revolution are all interrelated and have been refined
over the past 30 years. It was the coming together of the
youths in 2008 that provided an opening for the challenge
to counterrevolution forces. Barack Obama rode on the back
of the wave against counterrevolution and was swept into
power along with the Democratic Party in 2008. Once in power,
Obama, as a liberal, dithered and was caught up in the business
of saving capitalism, in effect, supporting those social
forces that were at the forefront of counterrevolution.
This is evident in his appointment of advisers from the
old order, including Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Rahm Emmanuel,
Tom Donilon, Gen. James Jones, Robert Gates, and Ken Salazar.
One of the manifestations of the power of counterrevolution�s
stronghold on the Obama administration was the handling
of the massive environmental destruction in the Gulf when
some people from the administration tried to cover up the
depth of the crimes of the oil companies and their contractors.
Throughout this massive oil spill, the administration worked
to protect the British Petroleum Company with the same enthusiasm
that it protected the barons of Wall Street.
MIDTERM
ELECTIONS
The foregoing is to put some context to the midterm elections that were held
in the USA on November 2, 2010. Midterm elections are called
such because they are usually in the middle of the 4 year
term of the president. It is a moment when there are elections
for 435 members of the� House of Representatives (which
is every two years). It is also a time for the election
of some governors, senators, and legislative officers in
the 50 states of the USA. In the 2010 midterm elections,
the wounded financial oligarchs and counterrevolutionary
forces went all out to beat back the popular alliance that
brought Obama to power. This all out campaign was itself
a reflection of the nervousness of these oligarchs. For
the first time in the history of the USA over $4 billion
was spent in the mid term election campaign. Over $3 billion
was spent on advertising. In this way, the media was suborned
into supporting the �forces of organized money.� The US
Chamber of Commerce dropped all pretenses of neutrality
and poured money into the coffers of Republican candidates.�
In fact, individual capitalists came forward to fight, targeting
law makers who were against militarism and those who stood
for the well being and rights of workers and ordinary citizens.
This was the case in Wisconsin, where Ron Johnson was the
front for the defeat of Sen. Russ Feingold. Senator Feingold
was specifically targeted because of his principled stand
against militarism. He was the only Senator from this upper
house to vote against the Homeland Security legislation
and he was the only Senator to vote against the unleashing
of the US military machine against the people of Afghanistan.
Johnson had inherited his money and other capitalists from
across the US poured millions into this campaign to ensure
that Feingold was defeated. Similar tales abound in the
Congress where progressive representatives were targeted.
In fact, in one race in California, one politician spent $170 million of her
own money. In another race, one candidate spent US $150
million of her own money and then spent $3 million for a
party. Both of these capitalists lost. Indeed, big capitalists
did not disguise their anxiety over the direction of the
country. After studying the networks of grassroots forces
of the 2008 popular upsurge, the same capitalists pumped
millions of dollars into varying formations that had right
wing populist messages. In the US, there is a new movement
called the Tea Party movement. This movement consists of
various factions such as the Tea Party Nation, the Tea Party
Express, Freedom Works Tea Party, Tea Party Patriots, among
others. Some of the faces of this movement were Caucasian
women such as, Christine O�Donell, Nikki Haley, Carly
Fiorina and Sharron Angel. Sarah Palin emerged in this period
of counterrevolution, leading the opposition to reproductive
rights for women. Many of the male purveyors of this movement
uttered such homophobic and racist verbiage that they even
embarrassed the racist ruling class. With the emergence
of the Tea Party, Karl Rove and George W. Bush sounded like
moderates. Militarism of the Carlyle group vintage was too
tame for these counterrevolutionary forces so in this election
cycle the forces of the Republican Party were far to the
right of George Bush. It must be underlined that these so-called
grassroots forces were financed by billionaires and given
maximum exposures through the corporate conservative media.
Members of this counterrevolutionary force unequivocally
said that it was their job to roll back the civil rights
gain of the 1960s. In fact, Rand Paul and Tom Tancredo were
two spokespersons who were very explicit on this call to
roll back civil rights.� Sharron Angle of Nevada displayed
some of the most racist and anti-immigrant ads in US politics.
RESULT
OF THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS
On Wednesday morning (November 3), it became clear that many white workers in
the heartland of America fell prey to the deception and
mind control of the corporate conservative media. From Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to Wisconsin and Michigan, what
was once the industrial heartland of the US, the conservative
Republicans swept the board. The conservatives captured
the US House of Representatives, with Democrats barely holding
onto the Senate. The Republicans won the governorship races
in key states such as Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Florida and
Pennsylvania.� The Republicans also captured over 600 legislative
bodies at the state and county levels across the country.
The Republican ruling class celebrated while the liberals
wrung their hands about the future. There was no shortage
of advice to Barack Obama on what he should do. For those
who perceived of Obama as a Messiah, there were different
suggestions on the ways forward. The New
York Times stated that: �Mr. Obama has a lot
of difficult work ahead of him. The politics in Washington
will likely get even nastier. Before he can hope to build
the minimal bipartisan consensus needed to move ahead, Mr.
Obama will have to rally more Americans to the logic of
his policies�. But the liberal ruling class cannot have
their cake and eat it. It is not just up to Obama to decide
the future. It is up to an organized progressive force that
will determine the direction of the politics of the US.
LESSONS
FROM THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
In
the book, Lords
of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World,
the author spelt out the recursive processes that emanated
from the rapacious activities of the bankers in the 1920s.
The author quoted John Maynard Keynes who said at that time:
�we have been involved in a colossal model, having blundered
in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which
we do not understand.� What the author did not properly
connect was how this blundering was also manipulated by
fascist forces that brought fascist leaders to power in
Germany and Italy with the strengthening of fascist parties
all across the world of white supremacy. It should be remembered
at this present� time that the financial entanglement of
the Wall Street speculators are far more profound than that
of the 1930s. It was only last week that we spelt out the
interconnection between finance capital, fraud, and foreclosure.
We highlighted the fact that what is called the foreclosure
crisis might be throwing a section of the legal structure
in the US in disarray. The insolvency of the banking system
means that the capitalists will need another bailout. One
day after the elections,(on November 3) the Federal Reserve
poured another $600 billion into the banking system through
what was called quantitative
easing. Quantitative easing is another fancy word for the
devaluation of the dollar. Many citizens of the USA forgot
that it was the same competitive devaluations of the 1930s
that plunged the world into the quagmire of misery and unemployment.
Some sections of the Republicans are saying that the only
way to get out of this depression is through war. Hence
there will be more drumbeats for war against Iran. During
the elections, the same conservative forces were calling
for steps against China.
It is this reality of the massive bail out of the banks with this new injection
from the Federal Reserve that ensured that although Obama
did everything to save the capitalists. But they are still
insecure in relationship to the potential mobilization of
the working people. We must restate the fact that in this
revolutionary moment, the future direction of peace and
social reconstruction is not up to Obama. The peace movement
should be self critical to ask itself why is it that the
war that has gone on for years was not one of the issues
in the midterm elections. It is here important to remember
that at the height of the crisis in Germany before Adolph
Hitler came to power, the Communists, Socialists and Social
Democrats were bickering among themselves as to the direction
to take. The left in the US cannot afford the luxury of
bickering at this time. The left must be clear and focused
on how to secure a progressive front to stand up, reorganize,
and to develop a strategy to beat back the wave of counterrevolution.
We must remember the words of Karl Max that, �men and women
make their own history, but they do not make it as they
please, they do not make it under self selected circumstances,
but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted
from the past. The tradition of all the dead weighs like
a nightmare on the brains of the living.�
Marx wrote these words in the context of the farce of the second Napoleon. The
midterm and the results was a reenactment of the nightmare
of the past history when representatives such as Benjamin
Tillman and Jesse Helms could proudly display overt racism
in order to win elections. Jim Crow, sexism, homophobia,
and militarism dominated this election cycle. It is like
history threatening to repeat itself in the second major
depression in the USA. We agree with Marx that �history
of great importance in the world occurs as it were, twice.
The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.� In
this counterrevolution, we are witnessing the farce of a
ruling class and financial oligarchs who have not yet been
reconciled to their newly diminished standing in the world.
Hence, they continue to promise a recovery of the US economy
based on the 20th century model of accumulation. The working
peoples of the mid west who have seen their jobs disappear
are angry and anxious. It is the task of the progressive
forces to work harder to organize these workers to educate
them to the reality that fighting wars overseas cannot be
the basis for economic reconstruction.
The revolutionary moment requires that the progressive forces sharpen their
understanding of revolutionary ideas, revolutionary organization,
and revolutionary leadership. And I would like to restate
what I stated in my book, Barack Obama and Twenty-first Century Politics: A Revolutionary
Moment in the USA, that the future does not�depend on Obama being perceived as a messiah. It
is up to us.
There will be many more turns, twists and Zigzags in the Revolutionary Moment
in the USA.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Dr. Horace Campbell,
PhD, is Professor of African American Studies and Political
Science at Syracuse University in Syracuse New York. He is the author of Barack Obama and Twenty-first Century Politics: A Revolutionary
Moment in the USA. Click here to contact Dr. Campbell.
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