“After My Election I Have More Flexibility”—Like 2009!

Apr 16, 2012

On March 26, President Obama thought his mike was turned off, and he said to the Russian president he was meeting, “After my election I have more flexibility.”

That was a truth every politician understands.

President Obama after his first election demonstrated how “flexible” he was. He turned himself into George W. Bush II! All his “hope and change,” all his worker-friendly campaign rhetoric of 2008, was forgotten in 2009. Remember Obama’s 2008 promise to support a raise in the minimum wage to $9.50? No, he didn’t. Remember his pledge to pass the Employee Free Choice Act? No, he didn’t. Remember his pledge to end the wars immediately? No, he didn’t. Remember “hope and change?” The hope disappeared and the change never came.

And it wasn’t only because of Republicans. In Obama’s first two years in office, the Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress.

No, it is because Democrats are only Republicans in camouflage.

The wealthy elite, the biggest capitalists of the country, are rich enough to buy up all the politicians of both parties. They did it long ago. But they keep up the illusion that there is a difference. They need to make us think there is a “lesser evil” to vote for.

So the Republicans openly and deliberately proclaim their desire to drive society back to the days of robber barons, sweatshops, Jim Crow, and tenements. Meanwhile the Democrats camouflage themselves in friendly words–but in office, their fangs come out, and they drive society backwards as well.

There is not a dime’s worth of difference. Workers always lose this “lesser evil” game. The politicians are never “flexible” in our interests after they are elected.

Workers need nothing less than our own party under our own control.