With the US elections out of the way, the American ruling class is moving with remarkable speed to implement a deeply unpopular agenda centered on trillions of dollars in cuts to health care and other social programs.
The first order of business, to be at least partially implemented even before the newly elected Congress takes office in January, is the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
The language is chosen quite deliberately. The image of a “cliff”—first used by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in February 2012—is intended to create a sense of impending catastrophe. The fiscal cliff has become the latest mantra of the political and media establishment,
complete with a continually updated countdown on CNN. The aim is to foster a crisis atmosphere to force through measures long desired
by the ruling class that would otherwise be impossible to impose.
Under the impact of the economic crisis and in response to the policies of the ruling class, the disillusionment of millions of workers and youth will turn toward anger. What political form will this anger take?
The array of pro-Democratic Party institutions—from the trade unions to the liberal and pseudo-left organizations and publications—are compromised by these developments. They hail Obama’s reelection as a great victory for “progressives” and look on the alienation of workers
from the Democratic Party with fear and foreboding.
Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. The strength of the socialist perspective—and of the program of the Socialist Equality Party—is that it corresponds to the logic of objective developments. In the course of the elections, the SEP campaign warned of what was to come after the elections. The ruling class in its own actions is demonstrating the correctness of this warning and of the Marxist perspective.
Obama’s post-election pivot
Obama’s post-election pivot to austerity and war
With the US elections out of the way, the American ruling class is moving with remarkable speed to implement a deeply unpopular agenda centered on trillions of dollars in cuts to health care and other social programs.
The first order of business, to be at least partially implemented even before the newly elected Congress takes office in January, is the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
The language is chosen quite deliberately. The image of a “cliff”—first used by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in February 2012—is intended to create a sense of impending catastrophe. The fiscal cliff has become the latest mantra of the political and media establishment,
complete with a continually updated countdown on CNN. The aim is to foster a crisis atmosphere to force through measures long desired
by the ruling class that would otherwise be impossible to impose.
Under the impact of the economic crisis and in response to the policies of the ruling class, the disillusionment of millions of workers and youth will turn toward anger. What political form will this anger take?
The array of pro-Democratic Party institutions—from the trade unions to the liberal and pseudo-left organizations and publications—are compromised by these developments. They hail Obama’s reelection as a great victory for “progressives” and look on the alienation of workers
from the Democratic Party with fear and foreboding.
Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. The strength of the socialist perspective—and of the program of the Socialist Equality Party—is that it corresponds to the logic of objective developments. In the course of the elections, the SEP campaign warned of what was to come after the elections. The ruling class in its own actions is demonstrating the correctness of this warning and of the Marxist perspective.
Volledige artikel: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/nov2012/pers-n12.shtml