(Note:  This Solidarity America column addresses one of the questions that BlackCommentator.com has raised among its readers and writers about the place of progressives or those on the left in our modern politics.  The question:  What will it take to bring Obama home?)

Nothing that has happened in the last decade or two has illustrated how far from its home the Democratic Party has strayed like its response to the open assault on American workers and their unions.

It has been said over a long time that the first thing an authoritarian government does when it assumes or seizes power is to marginalize or eradicate trade unions.  The reason for that, simply, is that the organization of unions (where they are allowed) is one of the few mass movements that cuts across all segments of a society and has the potential for very effective political action, at least in the long run, if not in the short term.

Authoritarians are not going to take a chance and allow such an organization to realize its full potential, so usually they just go right to the elimination option.  Over time in modern history, that has been the case.  The best examples of the problems of authoritarian-leaning governments with unions have been Poland and England, along with the United States, during the past three decades.

Poland and the Solidarity union was a warning shot across the bow of governments of the right.  Both Margaret Thatcher in England and Reagan in the U.S. wasted no time in wearing away what life remained in organized labor in their respective countries.  Polish Solidarity had its stirrings in the 1970s with militant unionists’ taking actions that the government would have put down immediately in an earlier time.  As was pointed out at the time, governments in democratic countries didn’t do their work with guns and artillery, they did it with legalisms.

In the U.S., aided by its close affiliation with the most powerful corporations and their think tanks that were set up for that purpose, government began its relentless attack on the power of the people to organize through their unions. 

There are many parts to any given society: class, religion, language, race, region, and many others.  The one thing that nearly all of them have in common is that they work for wages.  Some, of course, think that, if they are paid a “salary,” that they are in some kind of upper class (or ruling class) and not workers, but if they depend on each paycheck for their subsistence, they are essentially working for wages, no matter how big the individual paycheck.

If there ever has been a time in America when all of those various segments had come together for their own collective good, it was through the union movement.  If there had been no union movement, one would have to have been invented.  For the powers that be, the potential strength of the people working together would have to be curtailed, prevented before workers realized they actually had power.

There was a time when American workers thought they had an ally in the quest for equality, fairness, equity, and the opportunity for a decent life in the Democratic Party.  After all, it was the party that brought labor laws which allowed workers to form unions, fought for fair labor standards in pay, length of the work day and work week.  It fought for safe and healthy working conditions and much more.  The one thing that the party forgot, however, was that, once adopted, those laws did not maintain themselves.  Rather, they had to be defended every time a new Congress was seated and a new president entered the Oval Office.

The most recent changes which occurred in the elections of 2008 and 2010 have been no different, except that the Democratic Party seems to have forgotten what was once the reason for its being, working men and women and the unions that struggled in their behalf.  Corporate America likes to point out that, 50 years ago, 35 percent of American workers were directly represented by unions, while today, the total stands at a mere 12 percent of the workers.

While there are many reasons for this decline, it is due in no small measure to the unceasing assault on the union movement by the Republicans, the Right, and many right-wing Democrats over several decades.  This was done through the press, television, schools, colleges and universities, and even movies.    The propaganda has worked to the effect that a considerable percentage of workers have come to blame unions for the problems of the country.

Today, the U.S. and the world are sitting on the brink of economic collapse.  The unions are there to do what they can, but they have been discredited in the minds of the masses of workers and are unable to take the actions that need to be taken.  To most workers, unions represented a way to salvage a vestige of equity, fairness, opportunity, and freedom that were the promise of concerted action through the efforts of a strong union movement.  Instead, they thought that the Democratic Party might be the answer, especially the young people who never have had the opportunity to learn what a union is or what they could do for themselves and their brothers and sisters by joining a union.

People young and old heard the call of a young senator from Illinois to look ahead and believe that they could actually change the way their society and economy operate and they could make a difference.  Against the odds, the Democratic Party prevailed in the 2008 election, giving the presidency to Barack Obama and both houses of Congress to the same party.  The country was set for change, one that would benefit the people.

The merging of the policies of the two major parties over decades ensured that the change that would come would be little (it was), and the new administration, filled with leftovers of previous Democratic administrations ensured that change for the better would continue to be an illusion dangled in the air, out in the distance.  There was the health care “reform,” which left the insurance industry and pharmaceutical industry and the rest of the medical-industrial establishment firmly in charge, just as it has been for decades.  Then there was the failure to close the Bush-Cheney prison at Guantanamo Bay, the failure to end the wars (worse, he ordered the surge in Afghanistan), the drone missile strikes in Pakistan, the continuation and expansion of “free trade” agreements, his push for nuclear power, and the prospect of continued drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.  Those are just a few of the issues that leave voters who are liberal, left, progressive, or young wondering where to go.

The single thing that would bring Obama “home” to the right side of myriad issues would be a resurgent Democratic Party, one in which the party members had everything to say about the direction of the party, the government, and the nation.  This is a condition that has not existed in the Democratic Party for decades, so it may not even be possible.  One of the telling events has been the arrogant attempt by the Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to not only gut union contracts of public workers, but to prohibit collective bargaining.

If the Democrats, as the purported party of working people, refused to raise their voices over the attack by Republicans against the very idea of unions, how can they be expected to take a view different from the GOP in these perilous economic times?  They didn’t raise their voices and neither did Obama, although he made a tepid remark about attacks on unionized workers, but there has not been much spoken of it since a hundred thousand workers gathered in the Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin.

Problem is, as the years have gone by and the two parties have become more alike, voters have either abandoned the parties and become “independents” or they have dropped out of the process altogether.  Either way, the vital element in any party, the people, is missing in democratic politics.  Money and advertising have taken over politics and that’s the way Republicans and Corporate America like it.  Last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which has given corporations and other entities free rein to spend as much money on politics as they wish, is all part of the court’s view of free speech.  With money equated as speech and corporations defined as “citizens” of the republic, it’s easy to see which side of the fence winning politicians will fall.

Short of a renewed Democratic Party (rather, a reinvented party?), Obama is not going to come to his senses and listen to the people who put him in the White House.  Surely, there are more liberal and progressive Americans than there are Tea Partiers, yet they do not turn out to rally or demonstrate.  They had their say at the polls in 2008, but the lack of support by their party, even when it’s in power, caused them to back off in the 2010 election.

Obama failed them in the first two years and he’s failing them now that the Republicans and their right wing supporters have turned briefly from the destruction of organized labor to destruction of any semblance of social programs that provide for the poor, the disabled, the children, the elderly.  The amoral nature of this latest manifestation of Republican policy is appalling, but many Americans who benefit or stand to benefit from government programs actually support the slashing of those social programs in favor of more tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations.

Only Americans of the old Democratic Party stripe, expressing themselves in massive numbers, can bring Obama “home.”  But, they have to educate themselves about the issues and they have to talk to people they ordinarily would not talk with, to educate them.  Most American presidents in the last half-century have ignored the protestors who have gone to Washington to speak to them.  Obama may be convinced to speak with them…just not now.  He wants a second term and he is afraid to buck the power of zealotry exhibited by the GOP and the right wing, lest the ensuing fight detract from his reelection effort.

Perhaps, the only thing that will bring Obama “home” is for him to return to a party that remembers its roots.  To do that, his party needs to make itself a home for him to return to, and he needs to stand up to the powers that be and tell the people the truth about what is actually happening to their country.  He needs policies and a plan that will be in direct opposition to the Republicans and, possibly, even to his own advisors. 

Don’t hold your breath, but it could be done.  Bigger hurdles have been surmounted by peoples in the Middle East, just in the last few months.  Those changes are not yet complete, but it took people massing in the streets to make the changes.  If the U.S. is to be prevented from becoming a nation of, by, and for plutocrats, the people have to stand up and be counted.  Obama will come “home” only when the people demand it.

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BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.