Who poses the graver danger to the working class?
Openly racist, right-wing politicians who oppose the building of a mosque near Ground Zero? Or liberal U.S. imperialists who fear that an anti-Islamic image may hinder their drive for Mid-East oil profits as they slaughter millions?
Is it Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, who led a 300,000-strong, lily-white Tea Party/religious revival on the Washington Mall to boost Republicans in the November elections? Or Obama-led Democrats seeking to rally millions more for looming wars with Iran, China, and Russia?
Is it conservative billionaires, like Charles and David Koch and Rupert Murdoch, bankrolling the Tea Party bigots? Or the far more powerful liberal Rockefeller faction, whose “charitable” foundations and think-tanks in fact further U.S. imperialism‘s mass murders behind racist characterizations of Arab, South Asian and Muslim workers in the media and in soldier training?
Both camps are sworn enemies of our class. Racist Tea Partiers target immigrants and unions but the Obama administration has increased fascist oppression of immigrant workers through using National Guard troops at the border and raiding factories, thereby terrorizing and deporting far more immigrant workers than the former could hope to (see CHALLENGE, 7/21/10).
While all these bosses are our class’s enemies, the Rockefeller-led liberal imperialists, with their empire challenged, control the U.S. war machine which can deal death and suffering to billions of workers worldwide. These liberal forces are the main danger to our class because they have a broader base in the working class through their mass organizations and therefore can mis-lead millions into supporting their policies and achieve ruling-class aims, much more effectively than the Tea Partiers.
Bosses’ Split Widens As U.S. Economic, Military Woes Deepen
The mosque flap reflects a crisis-driven, growing division between two capitalist factions, each trying to win popular support. Liberal politicians front for the owners of Exxon Mobil, JP Morgan, and the like, who need to re-enforce and expand their shrinking global spheres of influence through ever wider military invasions and occupations. War means “shared sacrifice” not only from the working class but also from companies in the form of higher taxes and tighter, centralized regulation.
War-making also requires workers’ obedience to the central government, including willing military enlistment, not just relatively meaningless flag-waving. To garner a voter base, however, conservative U.S. capitalists preach a “don’t-tread-on-me” anti-government creed to angry white workers victimized by economic collapse. The right-wingers say the U.S. can solve its military problems with “off-the-shelf,” low-tax “solutions,” with little sacrifice from bosses or workers.
Right-leaning bosses obstruct the imperialists’ war and regulation agenda for a variety of reasons. Some, like media baron Murdoch, are first-generation billionaires, still in the acquisition stage, battling regulation and taxes as obstacles to establishing a dynasty. Murdoch had to fight the Federal Communications Commission and liberal Ted Kennedy tooth and nail to buy up broadcast outlets.
The Kochs’ huge family-owned energy-textile-forest products business — which bankrolls the Tea Party — gains nothing from the main rulers’ developing expansion of their current Iraqi and Afghan campaigns. Koch Industries’ Mid-East footprint is confined to Turkey. Koch does not operate in Exxon Mobil’s, Chevron’s, (and British allies Shell’s and BP’s) oily treasure troves in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait or the Emirates.
In addition, the NY Times, the liberals’ leading mouthpiece (8/28/10) denounced billionaire hedge-funder Paul Singer as a top Republican contributor bent on reversing Obama & Co.’s recent attempts to forcefully regulate Wall Street. Hedge funds — essentially high-stakes gambling — make tons of money for investors but create none of the wartime manufacturing capacity and infrastructure the imperialist wing sorely needs and wants.
Bosses’ Dogfight Over Iran War Plans Behind Mosque, Electoral Battles
At the heart of the mosque debate lies the main U.S. rulers’ prospects for successfully occupying Islamic oil-rich Iraq and Afghanistan — key transport route for Central Asian oil and gas — and the direction of their next major conflict, with Iran’s nuclear-arming ruling ayatollahs. Anti-mosque, anti-tax conservative leaders want an “on-the-cheap” strike by Israel, costing no more than the U.S.’s already yearly $3 billion in military aid to that nation’s rulers:
“Almost two dozen Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers co-sponsored a new resolution late last week that expresses their support for Israel ‘to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force.’” (Foreign Policy, 7/26/10)
War-Making Liberals Need Boots on the Ground, Not Just Air and Sea Raids
Contrary to the right-wingers’ approach on Iran, Richard Haass, head of the arch-imperialist, Rockefeller-led Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think-tank, worries about mosque protests sparking popular uprisings in U.S. imperialism’s most crucial region, hampering action against Iran: “Strident statements by Americans that appear to be anti-Muslim [have] the potential to take a toll on prospects for U.S. policies throughout the greater Middle East, including U.S. efforts designed to…stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, and isolate Iran.” (CFR website, 8/23/10)
Meanwhile, imperialist guru Gary Hart — co-author of the Clinton-era Hart-Rudman reports which predicted 9/11 and prescribed police-state militarization — warns against the Tea Partiers’ “bomb-Iran-now” proposal. He favors rebuilding overstretched U.S. land forces for a more massive invasion and occupation of the oil and gas giant. Give it time, says Hart:
“Such an attack would place great stress on our military. We cannot continue the Afghan war, prop up the neighboring Iraqi government, and create a third battlefield in the Middle East. It is folly to assume that a U.S.-Iran war can be carried out by the Navy and Air Force alone.…We have at least a year, and probably more, to weigh Iran’s nuclear capabilities and intentions, and to rally regional and global opposition to them.” (Hart’s “Matters of Principle” web log, 8/23/10)
But Hart may very well be wrong about time being on the side of U.S. imperialists. China’s rapid rise and thirst for oil, and Russia’s determined re-emergence, both as U.S. rivals, fuel their ally Iran’s hostile ambitions. And Israel’s bosses, emboldened by their unpunished massacres of Palestinians, might not wait for Washington’s O.K. to bomb Iran. Nobody knows just what will happen.
Anthony Cordesman, a top analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) — another Rockefeller-funded policy foundry — sure doesn’t. He says, “This is a ‘game’ without clear limits or rules, and where outside players like Israel can suddenly change the board.…‘stability’ can rapidly turn into large-scale violence” (CSIS, 8/13/10)
No matter what results, the inter-imperialist rivalry driving the U.S., Russia, China, Israel, et al, spells death and destruction for the working class worldwide. Siding with the Rockefeller-led liberals will intensify that slaughter.
Effective working-class action against the rulers’ wars does not hinge on whether or not to build a mosque near Ground Zero, or on voting for the “better” candidate. For us, the ultimate solution is a communist revolution to crush both the liberal and conservative political misleaders, and the war-making, profit-hungry billionaires they serve. Building PLP while exposing and attacking these anti-worker fakes in workplaces, barracks, schools and neighborhoods will bring us closer to that goal.