[Statement by Socialist Organizer National Committee]

The $1.3 Trillion Bank Bailout and the Death Agony of Capitalism:

* Labor Must Break with the Bush-Pelosi Consensus and Spearhead the Fight to Stop the Corporate Bailout Plan

* Labor Must Present an Emergency Plan to Bail Out Working People and the Oppressed

1) The Failure of a System in its Death Agony

The current crisis that is sweeping Wall Street and that has witnessed the White House scrambling to bail out the speculators to the tune of $1.3 trillion (when previous loans and bailouts related to the mortgage collapse are included) is not a "market correction" or the result of the greed of a few bad apples in an otherwise pristine barrel. It is the expression of the failure and death agony of a "free market" economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production.

The most recent phase of the ever-deepening crisis of capitalism began two years ago as a sub-prime mortgage crisis.(*) It now has exploded into the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. More and more mainstream economists are warning, in fact, that despite the huge bank bailout, there is a very real possibility that this financial crisis could develop into an economic meltdown more devastating than anything experienced during the 1930s.

In his White House speech on Sept. 23, George W. Bush explained why he had abandoned his "laissez-faire" policies and was now proposing a massive government bailout of the financial entities that are facing huge losses due to their market manipulation and speculation. He described the economy as a house of cards made up of paper debt that could collapse at any moment and bring the entire economy to a halt if the government did not step in immediately with its $700 billion bailout package.

The capitalist system, incapable of furthering the development of the productive forces of humanity, is able to survive only on the basis of a permanent war economy and the proliferation of a "fictitious" economy" where mega-profits are made through speculation outside the sphere of production. War and speculation have become the main driving wheels of an economy whose debt has soared to the mind-numbing figure of $53 trillion.

The $3 trillion debt imposed on the U.S. people by the two unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the recent orgy of speculation in the housing industry, have so increased the height of this house of cards, built up over decades by mountains of paper debt, that it now risks toppling over.

But herein lies the dilemma that today faces the captains of industry and finance, as well as the politicians in their service. For decades, the capitalist system has been able to stave off a major financial and economic crisis by offshoring factories, busting unions, and driving down workers' wages -- and by artificially pumping ever more debt and more fictitious capital (or "toxic debt," as it's being called today) into the economy. But by postponing the day of reckoning of a failed economic system in this manner, the inevitable collapse of the house of cards only becomes more devastating in scope.

This crisis is not the result of "bad policies" or measures of deregulation that could have been avoided. The crisis is systemic. The deregulation of the financial markets, promoted by both Democrats and Republicans over the past decades, was required by a system addicted to war and speculation.

Asked if this $1.3 trillion bailout will stabilize the economic system, Bush administration spokespersons and analysts admit they are navigating uncharted waters and simply do not know. They acknowledge that this bailout might not do the job, but they say they have no choice in the short term but to barge ahead and rescue the very speculators who created this most recent crisis.

An article in the Sept. 27 San Francisco Chronicle titled, "Even if $700 Bailout Passes, It Won't Cure What Ails the U.S. Economy," notes that the "bailout won't bail out an economy that appears to be headed downhill."

Ever since the Nixon wage freeze in 1971, when Nixon removed the U.S. dollar from the gold standard, the U.S. economy has used a whole host of exceptional measures to stave off the financial crises that have repeatedly beset this failed economic system. But each time the showdown over the mounting debt has been pushed back by accruing more debt.

Postponing the day of reckoning in this manner only made the next crisis that much deeper, threatening the stability of the system as a whole. 

Throughout the postwar period, the U.S. "free market" economy has been hailed as the linchpin of a functioning and successful world economic system. Never mind that 2.5 billion people around the world survive on less than $2 a day, that more than $800 billion are spent on the military every year, or that the private assets of the 200 richest people in the world are greater than the combined incomes of the poorest 2.4 billion. Defenders of capitalism generally don't like being confused with the facts. They like pointing to the outward appearance of things.

We have been told again and again that There Is No Alternative to the status quo - that socialism is dead. Conservative historian Francis Fukuyama proclaimed "the end of history" after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and concluded that capitalism constituted "the final form of human government."

After the momentous events this past week, all those pundits stand exposed as liars and charlatans. And, yes, There Is An Alternative -- the expropriation of the major means of production and the creation of a socialist society where working people, organized into multi-party councils, would decide all major economic, political, and cultural questions.

Under such a system, production would finally go toward providing for human needs. Vast resources would be allocated to provide for everybody's basic human needs. Under such a system, democratic rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association would become realities for all.

2) The Bailout Plan Rescues Speculators on the Backs of Working People at Home and Abroad

The corporate financial bailout will not prevent the house of cards from collapsing. Worse still, it will rescue the speculators on the backs of working people at home and abroad. The attacks on working people that would result from this plan, heaped onto the already brutal attacks dealt over the past 25 years by Democrats and Republicans alike -- are far-reaching … and devastating. (**)

The leaders of both ruling class parties, the Democrats and Republicans, are now working overtime with the Bush administration to pull off one of the greatest swindles in U.S. history. The aim of their $700 billion bailout plan is to nationalize the debt of the Wall Street bankers who profited from this speculative orgy.

A resolution adopted by the San Francisco Labor Council on Sept. 22 called on the U.S. Congress "to oppose the bailout of the bad debts of the financial industry." The resolution noted, in part:

"The proposed bailout will result in the same market manipulators profiting from the taxpayer-financed bailout while millions of everyday Americans continue to face bankruptcy and foreclosure -- loss of jobs, income and habitat. …

"The leaders of this economy oppose even minimal government assistance for the people, but demand it by the billions for themselves when they run into trouble caused by their own greed."

Indeed. When more than 1 million people in the United States were foreclosed in 2007, the federal government did nothing. The beleaguered families received no emergency aid. The laws of the "free market" could not permit any such government intervention, they were told. Besides, there was no money available to come to their aid. But now when the Wall Street tycoons are threatened, it is an emergency, government intervention is required, and $1.3 trillion is available.

When hundreds of thousands of people -- mainly Black -- were abandoned in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, and when they demanded federal funds for Reconstruction so that they could return to their homes and communities, they were not just ignored; they were put on buses and trains and shipped out, and told not to come back. More than 250,000 survivors of New Orleans have been permanently exiled in the U.S. Diaspora. The large majority of federal funds that have been sent to New Orleans have gone to shore up the hotels, clubs -- or the wealthy and tourist neighborhoods.

This bailout is another stampede by this administration, in cahoots with the Democratic Party, to steal hundreds more billions of public funds and transfer them to the super-wealthy so they don't lose on their gambles. Meanwhile, the food banks have run out of food for the low-income working people and healthcare is out of reach.

More and more working people are seeing through this duplicitous language, and they are getting angry, real angry. The latest poll shows that 59% of the population opposes the proposed bailout plan, while only 20% support it.

A labor activist in San Francisco sent out a letter to fellow unionists decrying this new situation: "Is there anything wrong with this picture? Anything at all? Let's support the bankers! Somehow the benefits of this bailout will trickle down, won't they? And isn't the trickle down the best we can expect as dumb working people? I feel the trickle down all the time from deregulation, NAFTA and 'free trade,' and the oil wars."

Despite this massive rejection, however, it appears that a deal between Democrats and Republicans is in the works. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, working closely with presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain (whose campaigns have been funded generously by the Wall Street speculators), is spearheading the effort to reach a consensus.

At this writing, the media are reporting that an agreement has been reached that safeguards the essential elements of the Paulson bailout plan -- that is, the rescue of the speculators with massive amounts of taxpayers' dollars.

The San Francisco Chronicle (Sept. 26) article noted: "Pelosi said that with the major changes that are being incorporated, both parties will swallow hard and pass it, convinced of its necessity by the dire warning of economic collapse by Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. ... Democrats said they would incorporate some suggestions in what is now being called 'the Paulson Plan'."

The initial plan has apparently been tweaked by the Democrats, who have been asking for more regulatory mechanisms and more oversight over the financial industry, some limits on the financial compensation packets for the CEOs, and some funds for mortgages for homeowners facing foreclosure, among other points. The Republicans might get some sharing of the bailout burden with the private sector. But all this is nothing but window-dressing and band-aids over a gaping wound.

If this consensus is reached, whatever the sweeteners, it will be a consensus directed at attacking the rights and gains of working people in this country and around the world like never before. It will be a consensus aimed at destroying the independence of the trade unions by demanding that the unions go along with the bailout consensus and discipline their members into accepting this poison pill. Thus co-opted, the trade unions -- the organizations that working people created through bitter struggles -- would be impeded from defending workers' jobs, wages and benefits, and working conditions.

Analysts are already warning that some or all of the following can be expected -- that is, unless working people manage to get their class organizations, the trade unions, to mobilize and halt, or reverse, this historic swindle.

a) The U.S. Treasury will purchase worthless paper; the private banks will retain any assets of value. The likelihood that the Treasury will recover any value from their purchases of bad debt -- as Paulson argues -- is near zero. The taxpayers will be stuck with paper with no buyers.

b) The public debt will skyrocket, and interest payments on that debt -- already one of the government's largest budget items -- will undercut funding for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- not to mention public funding for urgently needed social services, education, hospitals, and public works.

Obama, in fact, is trying hard to position himself as a fiscal conservative in this roiling economy. On Sept. 22, he vowed he would slash federal spending on contractors by 10% and save $40 billion. He also said he would "cut funding for programs that are wasting taxpayers' money and would use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve efficiency across every level of government."

This is language borrowed from the rightwing budget cutters and privatizers, for whom public education, public hospitals, and public transportation are "inherently inefficient" -- which is a blatant lie.

c) The bailout -- whatever the tweaking in the final bill -- turns its back on the financial needs of 10 million homeowners facing foreclosures. Home foreclosures, utility shut-offs and home evictions are bound to increase. The tent cities that have sprung up here and there will continue to proliferate across the country.

d) The economic recession that has already begun is bound to deepen and will lead to massive restructurings and layoffs, especially as financial credits for industry and the productive economy become more costly. The channeling of funds to Wall Street and the speculators will divert funds from getting us out of this deepening recession.

e) To finance this corporate bailout, the U.S. Treasury will have to print up massive sums of paper dollars, thereby fueling an inflationary cycle of large proportions. In addition, the dollar will devalue as the government debt will decrease its attractiveness overseas, increasing the cost of imports and adding to an inflationary spiral that will further undermine working people's living standards.

f) Against the backdrop of a shrinking economy, the bosses and the media will heighten their divide-and-rule strategy, further blaming immigrant workers for the crisis of the capitalist system and demanding more raids and deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Working people around the world are also going to be adversely impacted, as the financial meltdown will spread across markets worldwide and the U.S. bailout will be used to extort even greater sums of money from the countries (and therefore from the workers) around the world that have been financing the U.S. debt. Just one example: In the past week alone, 331 billion Euros were transferred from the European Union to the U.S. Treasury just to cover the bad loans of U.S. financial subsidiaries in Europe.

And if this bailout is not able to prevent the economic ship from sinking deeper into crisis in the coming period, as many economists predict, the current financial crisis could, in fact, detonate an economic depression -- and therefore blows against working people -- of untold magnitude.

A central question is therefore posed: Doesn't the U.S. labor movement have a major responsibility to to take on this consensus onslaught against working people? And if this is the case, what must be done?

3 ) The Labor Movement Must Break with the Democrats and Mobilize the Mass Opposition to the Corporate Bailout

The Democratic Party today is taking the lead to fast-track this corporate bailout. Nancy Pelosi has become the front-person for Paulson and Bush among members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.

Pelosi and Obama -- both architects of this consensus -- are bound to tell us that thanks to their determined efforts and "deep changes," the flawed initial bailout plan has been transformed into something that working people can now support.

The leadership of the trade unions -- both in the AFL-CIO and Change to Win -- must not buy this snake oil. The very existence of the trade union movement, the very livelihood of millions of working people in this country, is at stake.

The trade unions, the only organized expression of the U.S. working class today, must break with the Democrats and champion the fight against this consensus corporate bailout. They must mobilize their members to stop the heist of the century.

Denis Mosgofian, the law and legislative director of the San Francisco Labor Council, sent a letter to the national AFL-CIO website to urge the federation to take a determined stand in opposition to the Paulson bailout. He wrote:

"The AFL-CIO must approach this [new situation] as if it were a powerful force representing millions of angry people. We are angry, and we have no other more powerful representative. Be the leaders! Act! ... The AFL-CIO could call a one-hour general strike across America and workers would respond, and there would be little or nothing the government could do, since so many many people across the board are pissed."

Socialist Organizer joins these union activists in calling on the trade union leaders to break with their subordination to the Democratic Party on this crucial issue facing working people. The trade union movement must spearhead the most powerful united front in the streets to oppose the corporate bailout plan. There is no task more urgent than this today!

The time to start is now. The trade unions could call a nationwide mobilization and/or strike to demand "Not One One Taxpayers' Dollar for the Bailout!"

And even if the Bush-Pelosi consensus is reached within the next couple of days, it will not be too late for the labor movement to give voice to this anger and to mobilize in mass demonstrations and strikes in the coming days and weeks to compel the Congress to repeal its decision.

A determined response from the trade unions could open a crisis of major proportions in the U.S. ruling class and could compel reticent members of Congress, faced with a massive rebellion in the streets, to overturn a deal passed at gunpoint.

But this struggle, in turn, raises a second critical question: How is it possible for the trade unions to call for a vote for a politician -- Barack Obama -- who is openly pushing a plan that is so brutal in its offensive against workers, students, and all the communities of the oppressed? Millions of working people hope that Obama will deliver on his plea for "change" -- but doesn't Obama's call to support the corporate bailout plan reveal for all to see the ruling class character of his candidacy? How is it possible for the trade unions to remain tied at the hip to the Democratic Party, the deal-maker of this consensus?

Bill Greider, writing in The Nation (Sept. 19), notes that, "if the [Paulson plan] deal succeeds, I predict it will become a transforming event in American politics -- exposing the deep deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous anger and popular rebellion. ... This crisis has the potential to bring down one or both political parties, take your choice."

Greider goes on to quote Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, a conservative critic, who put it plainly: "The joyous reception from Congressional Democrats to Paulson's latest massive bailout proposal smells an awful lot like another corporatist love-fest between Washington's one-party government and the Sell Side investment banks."

Anger with the Democrats is bound to reach new levels.

The corporate bailout plan, like all other anti-working class plans of late, could not be implemented were it not not for the subordination of the trade union movement to the Democratic Party

There is no doubt that if the trade unions were to mobilize against this anti-worker offensive, labor would once again feel its potential strength. The more committed sectors of the trade unions could then go on to take more decisive steps toward breaking with the Democratic Party -- by supporting the fledgling Labor Party that was created by OCAW leader Tony Mazzocchi in the late 1990s and by running Labor Party candidate for political office against the twin parties of the bosses, beginning at the local and state levels.

This is not pie in the sky. It is a necessary component of a fightback strategy needed to ensure that working people are not to be driven in greater numbers into the Tent Cities that are springing up across the country, having lost their jobs, homes and healthcare insurance.

4) No Corporate Bailout; Not One Taxpayers' Dollar for the Speculators!

Readers may not necessarily agree with our call on the trade unions to refuse to support Obama, to break with the Democratic Party, and to take steps toward forming their own political party -- a Labor Party based on the unions and open to all the oppressed. But one campaign around which everyone in the labor movement can unite today is the campaign to demand, "No Corporate Bailout; Not One Taxpayers' Dollar for the Speculators!"

This is essential. Many trade union organizations and activists, following the lead of liberal Democratic Party members, argue that there should be quid pro quos between the funds that the speculators and CEOs receive in the bailout and the funds that should go for working people, small farmers and students.

Working America, the online publication of the AFL-CIO, is demanding that, "Any bailout package that Congress passes must be balanced to help Main Street as well as Wall Street. The last thing we should do is compound the enormous imbalances in our economy with an enormously imbalanced rescue package."

Working America notes that, "Thankfully, our allies in Congress are pushing back against this dangerous and ill-conceived bill." This, of course, is hogwash. The Democrats are caving in to Bush's railroading tactics in this economic 9/11 much like they did after 9/11 in relation to the war on Iraq and the USA Patriot Act, when they gave away some of our basic Constitutional rights. Working people are looking at this cave-in, and they are mad as hell.

They are tired of being told that including "labor and environmental clauses" in the "free trade" agreements -- as the Democrats continuously propose, to sweeten the bitter pill of these anti-worker agreements -- will protect jobs, working conditions or the environment. They are tired of being told that an ever-more elusive timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq will stop the blood-letting and ensure peace in that region.

No. Every dollar that goes to a speculator is one dollar less that could go to rebuilding the economy and putting millions of people back to work through a mass public works program. These speculators gambled and they lost. They are parasites. They are not needed. Their profits should be confiscated. There should be no pandering to them in the name of "helping Wall Street." Bailing them out is not necessary to stave off the financial crisis. On the contrary, it will only deepen the problem.

5) An Emergency Plan to Bail Out Working People and the Economy is Needed Urgently

From the moment the labor movement engages in struggle to stop this heinous bailout plan, the need immediately arises to present an alternative plan to bail out working people and the economy.

Even before this recent financial collapse, working people have been under assault year after year. The situation is alarming: 50 million people uninsured, with millions more under-insured; Tent Cities on the rise; retirees losing sleep out of fear that their pensions will disappear or be paid out with highly devalued dollars; Katrina-style destruction of Black communities in cities across the country; Gestapo-like raids by ICE against immigrant workers. And the list goes on!

As revolutionary socialists, we in Socialist Organizer understand that capitalism in its death agony can only produce more wars, more financial crises, and more misery and destruction. It will be necessary to wrest the ownership of the large means of production away from the corporate robber-barons. The alternative today before humanity is "socialism or barbarism."

But, again, it is not necessary for the trade unions and for working people to embrace our full socialist solutions to the crisis to begin enacting an Emergency Plan to confront the crisis. The trade unions could put forward such a plan today.

What would such a plan look like? Here are some essential components which we submit for the widest discussion among unionists and activists:

* Nationalize the Federal Reserve and Establish a Federally Owned, Public Banking System

This is necessary to make credit available for small businesses, homeowners, manufacturing operations, renewable energy and infrastructure investments.

The corporate bailout plan calls for nationalizing the debt, but not the assets and structures of the banking and financial industry. To succeed with a national recovery plan, it will be necessary to nationalize these assets, without compensation.

This (re)nationalization should begin with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so that the government, through these two institutions, can stop all foreclosures.

Assuming ownership of the banking system means taking all the speculators and predatory institutions out of the financial equation, not keeping them in the saddle with bailouts so that tomorrow they can again continue swindling the shareholders and the taxpayers. Assuming ownership means enabling the government to enact an emergency plan that addresses the needs and demands of working people and the oppressed.

The bankers can't be trusted to provide investment capital and credit to the real economy. The government must fill that role. Credits to make the economy run will dry up under the consensus bailout plan. Only through a State-run Emergency Board will the real economy be able to get back on its feet, removed from its addiction to war and speculation.

Establishing a national bank -- that is, a rational banking system -- would also solve a number of other pressing problems, including the infrastructure crisis and the energy crisis.

The "free market" is what has created the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The people who created this mess should not be allowed to continue to run the financial system.

* End all Funding for the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Close U.S. Military Bases Around the World, and Slash the Military Budget

In their debate on Sept. 26, both Bush and Obama vowed to increase the military spending in the Middle East. Their only difference was over how much and when to transfer the massive war funding from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. McCain argued that the main military front remained Iraq, whereas Obama argued that this front had shifted to the surrounding countries, including Iran. But an intensification of the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran would lead to an even-more deadly quagmire.

The twin parties of the war are committed to Bush's "endless war" on the grounds that our national security requires that we wage and intensify the so-called "war on terrorism." But the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are hated by the peoples in those countries and by working people the world over. These wars have little support at home and are ruining our domestic economy.

All the funds that have been allocated to the U.S. wars and occupations around the world, and all the military bases needed to sustain these wars, must be re-oriented post-haste toward meeting human needs -- by funding public education, libraries, hospitals, roads, public housing, Reconstruction for the Gulf Coast, social services and more.

* Moratorium on All Home Foreclosures, Utility Shut-Offs and Evictions

Cynthia McKinney, presidential candidate of the Power to the People coalition, has put forward a comprehensive plan to deal with this burning issue for millions of working people. Her plan calls for the following:

1) enactment of a foreclosure moratorium now, before the next phase of ARM interest-rate increases take effect;

2) elimination of all ARM mortgages and their renegotiation into 30- or 40-year loans. (The government could refinance mortgages to provide such long-term loans at reasonable rates of interest -- but at the current market value of their homes, not the inflated prices of the boom.);

3) establishment of criteria and construction goals for affordable housing;

4) elimination of all discriminatory practices in the publicly owned credit industry;

5) full funding for initiatives that eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in home ownership; and

6) recognition of shelter as a right according to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to which the U.S. government is a signatory, so that no one sleeps on U.S. streets.

A resolution adopted by the San Francisco Labor Council on June 9, 2008, also calls on the president and the Congress to "implement a moratorium on public housing demolition, and that such demolitions shall not be allowed to proceed until all such public housing units have first been replaced with affordable units, on the basis of one-for-one replacement at comparable rents.

* Massive National Reconstruction Public Works Program

A WPA-type program is needed urgently to rebuild the nation's schools, hospitals and crumbling infrastructure and to put millions of people back to work, with a living (prevailing) wage and with the unfettered right to join a union and to wield their collective strength, including through strike action (for which the repeal of Taft-Hartley is essential), to press for better wages and working conditions

A job must be guaranteed for everyone at a living wage of $15 per hour.

The country also needs a National Mass Transportation System administered by public-labor-community boards throughout the United States.

Cindy Sheehan, who is running for U.S. Congress against Nancy Pelosi as an independent in San Francisco's District 8, includes the following demands in her Labor Platform.

"The growing environmental and energy crisis cannot be solved under private ownership of the energy companies. We need a mass transportation system. This will be financed by the nationalization of the oil, gas, and other energy companies -- all of which have thwarted mass transportation to keep profits flowing to their corporate stockholders.

* Sliding Scales of Wages to Keep Up with Inflation

This will be needed to enable working people to offset the rising cost of living produced by the "staglation" that has already reared its ugly head and is bound to increase in the coming weeks and months.

* Repeal NAFTA and other "Free Trade" Agreements

The evidence is unmistakable: NAFTA has destroyed jobs, labor rights and standards, democratic rights, environmental and health standards -- and democracy itself -- in all three signatory countries.
James P. Hoffa, president of the Teamsters' union, is urging support for the NAFTA Accountability Act, or H.R. 4329. This legislation requires that action be taken to ensure that workers benefit from NAFTA by the end of 2008, or the U.S. must withdraw from NAFTA. (This deadline could be extended to the end of 2009.) This could be a positive step toward repealing NAFTA.

NAFTA and other similar "Free Trade" agreements are designed to depress wages and oppress workers in every country that are signed parties to these agreements. They must be repealed!

* Stop the ICE Raids and Deportations!

Tens of thousands of immigrant workers are being rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials across the country. These raids must be stopped today!

The only "crime" committed by undocumented immigrants is to work hard to support their families. The real criminal is the U.S. government and its Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is terrorizing and splitting up families across this country.

The raids are a crucial component of the reactionary drive to scapegoat immigrants for the problems caused by the crisis-ridden, profit-driven capitalist system: rising poverty, job losses, deepening inequality, and lower wages.

* For Universal, Single-Payer Healthcare!

H.R. 676, a bill that has overwhelming support in the U.S. labor movement, calls for taking the insurance companies out of the healthcare equation and creating a universal, single-payer healthcare system. Such a plan could be instituted immediately.

5) The Struggle for a Reconstruction Party and a Labor Party

The financial and economic crisis that has shaken the country in recent weeks underscores the glaring crisis of leadership of the working class. If the trade unions and the organizations that claim to represent the interests of working people were to rise up and say, "We Are Sick And Tired of Taking It on the Chin, We're Not Going Along with the Corporate Bailout!," this gigantic swindle wouldn't stand a chance in hell of being approved.

That is why we in Socialist Organizer call for the formation of a Labor Party based on the trade unions and why today, in these elections, we have endorsed the "Power to the People" ticket of Cynthia McKinney for President and Rosa Clemente for Vice President. At a moment of deep economic and social crisis in this country and the world, we have a historic opportunity to build an independent political representation for the working class majority, particularly its most oppressed sectors.

In the words of Black militant Larry Pinkney:

"The Cynthia McKinney-Rosa Clemente ticket is a stinging rejection and rebuke of the Democratic and Republican parties [i.e. the Republicrats] with their putrid, hypocritical, corporate / military apparatus-fueled politics of dishonesty, subterfuge, smoke and mirrors, and unending wars abroad and increasing economic disparity and social misery at home. The sleeping dragon, consisting of the rank and file, everyday woman, man, and child in this nation, has finally begun to awaken once again. ...

"By supporting the candidacies of Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente we are supporting so much more than only candidates for political office -- we are supporting our commitment to the building of an uncompromising, unswerving, people's movement that is unhindered by this system's Republicratic party election time lines and political machine. We are refusing to collaborate with this Empire's system of oppression. Rather, we are working to dismantle it and build a fundamentally and systemically different system that addresses human needs, not human greed."

McKinney has not bowed to the pressures of the Bush-Pelosi corporate bailout consensus. She has articulated a Workers Recovery Plan and an independent, fightback strategy to beat back the corporate juggernaut. In an article posted on her website on Sept. 25, McKinney went one step further and called on working people to create "a financial system of our own." She wrote:

"Too many politicians have told us to support the 'free market.' The unfolding news informs us in a most costly manner that free markets don't work. This is a financial system of their making. … Today our country faces an economic 9/11. The problem that is unfolding is truly systemic and no stop-gap measures that maintain the current bankrupt structure will be sufficient to resolve this crisis of the U.S. economic engine."

Socialist Organizer supports the McKinney-Clemente Power to the People ticket from a totally independent standpoint. We don't necessarily endorse every plank or every political position taken by the campaign - nor do we support or seek to build the Green Party. We characterize the Green Party as a middle-class party with a pro-capitalist program.

What is central for us is that in the course of her campaign, Cynthia McKinney has supported the call to build a Reconstruction Party -- a Black-led party rooted in a Black and Latino alliance and open to all working people in the United States. McKinney also has sought to use her presidential campaign to help lay some groundwork for this Reconstruction Party.

Indeed, history shows that the only way for working people to beat back the bosses' reactionary attacks, to defend our past gains, and to move forward toward liberation is through independent struggle in the streets, the workplaces, and in the political arena.

The struggle for class independence in the United States is combined with, and rendered more complex by, a particular dimension: the Black national question.

Black people in the United States have been locked out of the political system in this country -- a system built on the backs of slave labor and the vicious ideology of white supremacy. Black people have been betrayed politically time and time again -- including by their so-called "white allies."

This very unique situation has fueled a legitimate distrust and defiance among Black people -- particularly among Black workers and youth -- in relation to all organizations and institutions NOT of their own making.

This is why the issue of Black self-determination is so crucial, and why the call to build a Black-led political party, a Reconstruction Party, is of central importance today. Such a party is needed today not just for Black people, but for all working people, particularly Latinos, who today are faced with a brutal onslaught of racist scapegoating, raids and deportations.

We are advocates of a Reconstruction Party not only because we are firm supporters of Black self-determination, but also because we think the creation of such a party would be a tremendous impetus for the creation of a mass Labor Party, based on the trade unions and all the organizations of the oppressed.

A central paradox of the U.S. workers' movement is that the trade unions -- powerful instruments forged in militant struggles against the bosses and their State, which are today the only organized expression of the working class in this country -- remain subordinated to the Democratic Party, one of the twin parties of Big Business.

To break with this subordination - which has led to the current weakening and subsequent crisis in the labor movement -- Socialist Organizer and other militant sectors of the workers' movement have long called on the labor movement to make a decisive break with the Democrats to create a Labor Party based on the unions and open to all the oppressed.

In this sense the McKinney-Clemente campaign represents an important step toward building a Reconstruction Party, linked to the struggle to build a Labor Party.

6) A Few Concluding Remarks

Readers may not necessarily agree with our call for a Labor Party and Reconstruction Party, or with our candidate recommendations in this coming presidential election -- though we hope that you will.

But one thing is certain: It is not possible to go along with the Pelosi-Bush corporate bailout of the speculators and banks. Everything must be done today to stop this broad-side attack on all working people -- on our rights, our gains, and our very livelihoods.

For our part, we in Socialist Organizer pledge to do everything in our power to help build the most powerful labor-led fightback movement to stop this corporate assault. What's at stake is the fate of millions of working people at home and abroad.

SOCIALIST ORGANIZER
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217
theorganizer (at) earthlink.net
www.socialistorganizer.org
***************

ENDNOTES

(*) U.S. capitalism has witnessed repeated financial/economic crises since the 1920s; the sub-prime mortgage crisis that began two years ago finds its roots in all previous crises, including the U.S. Saving and Loan scandal/crisis of 1985, the stock market crash of 1987, the Long Term Capital Market crisis of 1997-98, and the Dot.com crash of 1998-2000.

(**) The major attacks against the trade unions and the U.S. working class began under the Reagan administration, but continued unabated under George Bush Sr., then under Clinton, and finally under George W. Bush.