CAPITALISTS AND POLITICIANS MUST JUMP ON WAR WAGON

Despite serious government attempts at regulation, including jailings and billions of dollars in fines, U.S. financiers remain largely unfocused on this sharpening rivalry--unlike their counterparts in Russia and China. Putin now adds armed force to Gazprom’s and Lukoil’s energy blackmail of much of Europe. China’s central planners manage economic growth and militarization simultaneously. Wall Streeters, meanwhile, still serving their separate interests, have been selling each other worthless “securities, “ sparking crises, and undermining the U.S.’s overall global standing, especially its ability to finance wars. Re-nationalizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (LBJ privatized Fannie to help pay for U.S. genocide in Indochina) and selling damaged firms like Bear, Stearns to bigger ones aim ultimately at creating a wartime economy. Consolidation of capital under tight state control is a hallmark of fascism. But U.S. rulers have far to go in putting their financial house in order. We can expect sharper crackdowns on financiers in the near term. Lehman Bros. may be one example as they’re forced into declaring bankruptcy with no bail-out. Ultimately, world war is the only way for U.S. bosses to maintain their status in the world.

In the same vein, the rulers strive to whip politicians into line. A commission led by James Baker (a major heir of both JP Morgan and Exxon Mobil) and Warren Christopher (whose law firm represents Exxon) proposes a new War Powers Act of 2009. By demanding Congress’s express approval within 30 days of any future U.S. military action, it means to stifle ruling class dissent. It also targets today’s war-impeding hypocrisy whereby Congress members tell constituents they oppose the Iraq war then vote for every nickel the Pentagon and White House ask for.

YOUR RETIREMENT OR YOUR LIFE

Workers should also prepare for more drastic attacks on the working class, which produces every penny of the wealth that capitalists steal as profit or--more and more--war expense. The dominant liberal, Rockefeller-led wing of U.S. rulers hopes that Obama or McCain, once elected, will drop campaign lies and rob Social Security and Medicare in order to bankroll the U.S. war machine. The liberals made this clear recently in a two-page New York Times ad sponsored by Peter Peterson, a Clinton cabinet member and David Rockefeller’s successor as head of the Council on Foreign Relations, the rulers’ top foreign policy think tank. The ad called upon the future president to address a $53-trillion financial hole with “meaningful reforms” (this means cuts) in Social Security and Medicare. Peterson & Co. made it more than clear that workers will pay for coming wars either with their lives or the retirement they have earned. “Americans have grown too used to hearing we can have everything, tax cuts, spending increases, and war funding--for free....When politicians tell us we can have it all without making any sacrifices, we must reject that siren call and hold them accountable.” Tellingly, the ad also bore the endorsement of Warren Rudman. He helped draft the Clinton-sponsored Hart-Rudman reports, a blueprint for wartime fascism designed at maintaining U.S. supremacy well into the 21st Century.

STRIKING BOEING WORKERS SHOW THE WAY

As this is written, tens of thousands of workers, many putting forth our Party’s views, are striking against a major U.S. war contractor, Boeing. Their militancy shows a more viable response, than backing Obama or McCain, to the rulers’ escalating war plans. It shows the potential when the working class, armed with communist ideas can seize power through communist revolution.