On the Homefront (final part)
IMMIGRATION
Obama recognizes that the Mexican economy (of course there are workers of other nationalities without proper documents) needs to be improved to cut unauthorized immigration, but he is for increasing "personnel, infrastructure, and technology on the border," whatever that will mean in practice. He is also for punishing employers of undocumented immigrants, which could have the same result as cracking down on the immigrants themselves. He is also for creating a labor verification system, which is a hassle for all workers. Among other things he advocates requiring legalized immigrants to pay a fine, notwithstanding whether they work, pay taxes, and the fact that US policy created the bulk of the problem in the first place. If we are going to talk about fines for this problem, maybe the US government should pay reparations to the countries of origin for the foreign and economic policies that keep their working people down and force them to emigrate here for work? Once here, employers attempt to use immigrant workers to divide the American working class against itself. Even if immigration does have an overall negative impact (which is debatable), to attack immigrants is to play into the hands of the capitalist class and shoot ourselves in the foot.
GOVERNMENT SPYING ON AMERICANS & SECRECY
In the Senate Obama has effectively bought into Bush's spying on the telecommunications of Americans and violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In August 2007 the so-called Protect America Act was passed (thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.01927:), giving Congressional (and Democratic) approval to Bush's long-standing violation of FISA. Obama actually voted against Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell's version (S.1927), which was the version that passed, but the day before he voted for Michigan Democrat Carl Levin's very similar version (S.2011, see thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN02011:). A few weeks ago, the Senate unanimously consented to extend the Act by 15 days, instead of letting it expire and returning to the FISA system. That decision was based on H.R. 5104 (thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.05104:), ironically authored by former champion of impeachment, John Conyers (D-MI), now following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's policy of condoning Bush's crimes, if he was even seriously for impeachment in the first place. If Obama was in the Senate chamber on January 29th, he did not speak against the extension. Fortunately the House did not pass an extension, so the small amount of judicial oversight on wiretapping provided by FISA has been restored.
Obama claims that he will reduce Bush secrecy.
WORK
Obama's Patriot Employer Act of 2007 provides incentives to companies for increasing or merely maintaining a fulltime American workforce or US headquarters, or having "decent wages" or healthcare, "prepar[ing] workers for retirement," or helping employees who are in the military. Obama is against corporate bankruptcy that "demand[s] more sacrifice from workers than executives," but presumably he is not for turning that around and requiring more sacrifice by the executives.
Obama says he supports workers' rights, such as protecting the right to unionize, but he has not sponsored bills of his own on this recently. He might have voted for an existing bill instead. Given their past decisions, I would not consider a candidate pro-labor based on the number of union endorsements they receive.
HEALTH
Obama's health plan continues the use of private insurers and provides incentives to them. He advocates an electronic medical record database, which could be an improvement, but also could be vulnerable to hacking and government surveillance, though Obama says there will be safeguards. Obama could undercut Clinton on women's and family planning issues.
EDUCATION
He thinks the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act "was written and implemented poorly and" … "has demoralized our educators and broken its promise to our children," but his solution is more money and "improv[ing] its assessments and accountability systems." Among other things the Act required opening school records to military recruiters.
OPPRESSED NATIONALITIES, RACISM, & SEXISM
Obama offers many promises for oppressed US groups, and women, but after he won the South Carolina primary the chant was "Race doesn't matter!" and his campaign seems to be based on this, as if the US is now colorblind and "united" or will be if he is the first African-American president. This does not solve the related problem of ethnic oppression in the USA, and ignores the right of nations to self-determination, including the option of independence.
Obama talks about the real problem of suppressed voters, who are often black, but he was part of another big attack on civil rights when he apparently used legal challenges to combat ballot access petition efforts in Chicago. This is the same tactic the Democrats have used to deny Ralph Nader and others ballot access, and deny us full choice of whom to elect.
THE "WAR ON DRUGS"
Obama says nothing on this in his Blueprint for Change, other than support for ending the discriminatory difference in punishment of users of powdered versus crack cocaine, and allowing "first-time, non-violent offenders" the option of being sentenced to rehabilitation programs.
ENERGY & FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE
Obama is for "a market-based cap-and-trade system," which has not worked for the European Union, instead of a carbon tax to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to artificial climate change. Plants capture carbon dioxide from the air, but I doubt the carbon is kept out of the atmosphere for very long by being incorporated into plants and soil, yet Obama wants to provide incentives for things like tree planting to reduce climate change. Reforestation has other environmental benefits, but to promote it as a way to forestall climate change is probably a gimmick.
He advocates the creation of a group of "greenhouse gas emitters," including the imperialist G-8 countries that created this mess, along with Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, apparently because they use a lot of energy. I suspect that the less advanced capitalist countries in the list have lower per person carbon emissions than the advanced imperialist countries, and they are poorer, yet they are being compared with the richest and most polluting countries. For example, in 2006 China (at about 6200 megatons) first surpassed the USA (at about 5800 megatons) as the top carbon dioxide producer, by 7.5% (according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency), due to its use of coal and concrete. This is not so impressive when you consider per person emissions. In 2004 China's per capita emissions (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita) were 3.84 metric tons per person (91st) compared to the US with 20.4 metric tons per person (10th), and this pattern has probably not changed that much since 2004. We cannot solve the climate change problem by asking poor countries to do more than those that can afford to change and are the worst polluters. Green technology is touted as a benefit for the economy and employment, but there are also potential costs that might be an undue burden for a poor country. This is not to say that China and India do not have any responsibility, but it is unfair to demand that they stay poor and go first while the rich countries who caused the problem and have the technology to change do less, and the poor countries will refuse, so nothing will change.
He claims he will reduce oil use by 35% or more by 2030, though candidates have been pledging to reduce foreign oil dependence for decades, so this could be a gimmick too. Obama specifically advocates so-called "clean coal," but does not mention using more nuclear energy to reduce carbon emissions.
AGRICULTURE & RURAL IMPROVEMENT
Obama claims he will help "family farmers," rather than big agribusiness. He does not explain how it is fair to support US farmers while pushing for free trade with countries that are not so supportive of their farmers (perhaps under pressure from creditors like the International Monetary Fund) or who were convinced to open their markets by removing barriers like protective tariffs. He supports labeling food with country of origin. Somehow "regional food systems" will be supported, which could be good for the public, but there is not a detailed proposal in the Blueprint.
He seems to favor cellulosic ethanol over ethanol from corn, but in the Senate he says he supported both kinds. Ethanol produced from food crops is undesirable because it reduces our food supply and expands croplands, potentially at the expense of wildlife.
He would use incentives to encourage universal Internet broadband access around the country. I thought capitalists were supposed to fulfill our needs in their search for profit, under "the invisible hand of the market," so why do they need extra incentive to fill a need? Of course, demand is only real under capitalism if there is money behind it, and the monopoly capitalism of today is more "risk-adverse" than the original capitalism.
SERVICE
Obama wants to expand national service programs and assistance to non-profits. He wants "to create an agency within Corporation for National and Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the non-profit sector," which also opens the door for further subversion of that sector. Many non-profits are already beholden to business and the government. Obama "will develop the capacity of our civilian aid workers to work alongside the military," which sounds like militarizing aid, and potentially using aid programs for CIA operations as well, though that is not a completely new problem, as our relations with Venezuela illustrate.
CONCLUSION
Obama offers some changes and good reforms, assuming he can and will keep his word, which is very uncertain, but it should always be remembered that he is an imperialist and on the side of business, not workers, as was shown above. For these reasons I don't plan to support or vote for Obama (or Clinton) in the Democratic primary May 6th, or in the general election. This year North Carolina's Democratic primary will actually matter it seems, but I urge you not to endorse either frontrunner, and I will post more on the third Democrat in the race, Mike Gravel, soon, even though he would need a miracle at the Democratic National Convention to win the nomination now.
Obama, Clinton, and McCain are all imperialists and despite the existence of some differences between them they are fundamentally the same and I see no reason to endorse one when I can vote for a more progressive third party or independent candidate. They differ on how harsh the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan should be, what countries to attack next, how much of health care should be for-profit, and how much tax money to channel to the rich in numerous other ways, but they all support more occupation, war, and other policies benefiting the capitalist minority at the expense of the rest of us.
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