OBAMA IS LOOSING GROUND

vol. 1, no. 7

DEMOCRATS-REPUBLICANS OR COMMUNISTS?

Of course, nobody – especially in the communist ranks- wishes the defeat of the Democratic Party in the November elections, if it means a regression from progressive policies, in USA or in the world. But, was it the real agenda of Obama and the US Congress for the peoples, including the American people?

Nothing much has changed up to now in USA, as far as Canada is concerned; what we understand mostly is that for many people, especially the young urban middle classes, this mythical president is or was on the verge to do a revolution in his own country almost by the touch of a magic wand, without the pressure and participation of the masses. In the organized labour movement the leadership of the AFL-CIO “shared” of wanted to share this opinion, the attitude was similar in the leading body of the Communist Party USA. Lucid, Barack Obama finally came to conclusion, as the Montréal daily Métro (September 10th, 2010) reported, that: “Democrats will not have good results in the November mid-term elections, if the election becomes a referendum on the today’s economical situation.”

It looks, on one hand, that the economy within the capitalist system does not work, but that in the other camp, the socialist camp it does not work either; see Métro: Communism does not work anymore in Cuba, according to Fidel Castro; as if economy was beyond reach and floating over the populations, abstractly, independently of human beings, groups and societies. The US author, Bill Preston, quoting Joseph Stalin in Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. recalls that “ ‘the radical transition’ to the ‘higher form of economy’ that is communism necessitates ‘a number of stages of economic and cultural re-education of society’.”

While in power during the prosperous years of the Soviet Union, Stalin created collective farms that were ‘large-scale production’ operations, supplied with ‘first-class tractors and other machines’ by the state [...] The state allocates means of production [...] to collective-farm enterprises –it does no sell means of production to collective farms (or to any other enterprises), but supplies them for free.”

Métro underlines too that many Cubans receive rationing tickets in order to have access to subsidized products. Naturally in Soviet Union (in the 1950s, Ed.), “personal property continues to exist in each collective-farm, household over ‘subsidiary husbandry on the plot, a dwelling house, livestock, poultry, and minor agricultural implements.” Raul Castro proposed something like that during the last months. He was insisting that the Cuban people must work harder and stop shouting “down with US imperialism” or any other slogan; since it would never be as such the source of acquiring wealth for the island and its people.

Long before, Stalin insisted on economic planning, which brought fruitful development to Soviet Union up to the 1950s, but it had to be conformed to the “requirements of the basic economic law of socialism: the ‘securing of the maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the whole of society through the continuous expansion and perfection of socialist production on the basis of higher techniques [added] to the economic law of balanced development of the national economy”.

It is nothing but noteworthy that communist criticize with such determination and perspicacity the nature of their work and the society they built; in order to make it better and reach new heights.

The well-known Italian philosopher, Domenico Losurdo, wrote in July 2010 a documented article after a trip he made (with a delegation of progressive and European communists) to the People’s Republic of China.

He stressed that “the first striking thing that one observes, while meeting Communist party, factories, schools and boroughs representatives and leaders, it is the self-critical speech, well let’s say the self-critical passion displayed by our hosts. At this level, there is a huge difference with the tradition of real socialism. Chinese communists cannot help but stress that the journey is long; while problems to be solved are numerous and enormous as well as the challenges; but further that the PRC is still a Third World country.”

However, they are happy to say that with modern technology they will not remain a backward, dependent and exploited country; to put it straightforwardly: a neo-colonial country. They are paving the way for many more developing countries.

Let’s be direct and frank, President Obama who is either a great idealist or a politician like others, except with a milder approach (good cop, bad cop), does not see the progress of the PRC with a favourable eye.

Here is his preference. He wrote this piece before his election in 2008: “The system of free markets and liberal democracy that now characterizes most of he developed world may be flawed; it may all too often reflect the interests of the powerful over the powerless. But that system is constantly subject to change and improvement – and it is precisely in this openness to change that market-based liberal democracies offer people around the world their best chance at a better life.” (The Audacity of Hope, Vintage Books, New York, 2008, p. 373).

US people do not appreciate empty words, even those well phrased. They will vote angrily against democrat illusions and not for the republican credo. They have the elephant, they have the donkey, and will they have the red stallion one of these days?

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

www.laviereelle.blogspot.com