Spending, Debt and the Shutdown: The Bi-Partisan “Disappearance” of Race and Class

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/04


'In the current battle over the issues of governmental spending and the debt ceiling in the U.S., there is general bipartisan agreement on the fundamentals, which adhere closely to the elite agenda,' writes Barak.(Photo: Getty)

Whatever the result of the current governmental stalemate, one thing is certain: The ongoing crisis of workers in general and the African American working class and poor in particular will continue unabated.

This is understandable given that, when the U.S. and the capitalist world faced the unraveling of the global economic order in 2008, the health of banks and the financial sector proved the main concern of Congress and the President. In fact, the recession presented managers of the global order with an opportunity to impose much-needed “discipline” on workers in the U.S. and Europe through the imposition of austerity programs as well as regressive fiscal and monetary policies, which had the dual objectives of weakening the relative bargaining power of labor while enhancing the dominance of the financial sector globally.

The result has been that the contradictions of the global capitalist/colonialist order finally caught up with the labor aristocracy in the West. Nor were the Western working class or its organizations prepared for the systematic assault on their relative privilege.

From the Golden Dawn in Greece to the Tea Party “movement” in the U.S., the economic crisis has once again brought forth the ugly specter of race-based fascism, that seemingly cellular characteristic of the more extreme expressions of white supremacist ideology that has poisoned Euro-American consciousness and culture and undermined national and transnational working-class solidarity and anti-imperialist politics.

[marmar]

1. k/r

[xchrom]

2. i don't think this article will get much attention.

it's not 'sexy'.

[liberal_at_heart]

3. K&R

[pampango]

4. When times are bad, the "us vs them" mentality (most often based on race or nationality)

seems to become hard to resist. The more liberal, "We are all in this together, so we need to resolve problems together" gets thrown out the window. As the article indicates Golden Dawn in Greece and the tea party in the US are good examples of this.

When times are relatively good, it is easier to throw minorities and immigrants a "bone". Golden Dawn and the tea party would never throw them a bone, but the rest of society is more willing to do it.