Editor’s Note:
The following is an excerpt from the political report of  the December 2005 LRNA Steering Committee meeting. 

The instability experienced by the Bush Administration is a reflection of the overall instability created by the economic changes the capitalists must accomplish to develop the global economy. The national interests of the U.S. are intertwined with this global process. The US must advance the global economy under terms favorable to U.S. interests, restructure the geopolitical order to position the U.S. to protect its interests in the world, realign the U.S. government and state to achieve these goals, and prevent large-scale outbreaks against U.S. policies at home and internationally.

In the course of accomplishing these tasks, the Bush Administration faces a political battle within the Republican Party. The Republican Party is not monolithic. It is an uneasy coalition of various and contradictory forces. These forces are jostling to define how the tasks will be carried out and are scrambling to protect their various interests. At the same time, the policies and actions of the Bush Administration inevitably undercut its own base, particularly in the South. 

Katrina, the Bush administration, and the changes in the state

The Bush Administration has been neither incompetent nor ineffective in its response to Hurricane Katrina. On the contrary, it has skillfully used the crisis to advance the program of the ruling class at every step. New Orleans and its port, as well as the resources of the Gulf region, play a pivotal role in the distribution chain of the global economy. “If these facilities are gone, the very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped.”

(George Friedman, New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize, Stratfor Strategic Planning, 2005). The devastation that Katrina wrought has allowed the ruling class to reconfigure how they will use the port of New Orleans and the entire Gulf Region to strengthen and expand their control of world trade in general, and Latin American and Caribbean trade in particular.

It has allowed them to make changes which could serve as a model for the whole country.  The billions of dollars paid to corporations for clean-up and rebuilding, the suspension of a variety of environmental and labor protections, and proposals which seek to recruit a workforce which will serve their vision of a "new" New Orleans — such as workers for the port, service workers for a greatly expanded tourism industry — reflect the ongoing privatization, the elimination of any barriers to maximum profit and the restructuring of government to serve the corporations. These changes will affect the Gulf region and Southern workers in particular, but it will make all workers more vulnerable.

Katrina provided an opportunity for the rulers to take a further step toward the merger of the corporations and the government, thus exposing the ongoing construction of a fascist state veiled by the misleading term "privatization."  Privatization in the US is not the selling off of government-owned enterprises to private corporations. Rather, privatization in the U.S. takes the form of paying private corporations with public money to carry out what was once a government responsibility. The corporations conduct the work as they wish. Legal, environmental, and labor legislation beneficial to corporate interests puts the corporations beyond public scrutiny and accountability.

Finally, the Bush Administration’s initial actions and subsequent proposals also reveal their intention to destroy the Democratic Party's control of New Orleans and undermine the influence of the Democratic Party in Louisiana as a whole.

At the same time, the Bush administration is caught in the midst of an inevitable dilemma. It has to lead the drive to integrate the U.S. economy into the world economy. And it has to do this under conditions which advance the interests of global capital, and particularly speculative capital.  The current instability within the Republican Party is an expression of these profound changes. Within the Republican Party there is a growing contradiction between the necessity to advance the interests of the transnational corporations and the interests and beliefs of a section of the party's political base.

We can see this in the battle emerging over "big government" versus "small government." While this idea of  “small government” served the demands of the neoliberal agenda at one time, it now conflicts with the need to expand, run, and rule the global economy. The opposition of these forces clashes with the necessity to transform the big government of the New Deal period to the big government built for the needs of today — for war, for repression, for sustaining the corporations, and for controlling and dominating a global economy. (also see Working Paper "The Battle over U.S. Farm Subsidies")

Social response in Rust Belt and the South

A social response is developing on many different fronts throughout the country. The middle ground that previously held the classes together is dissolving. Polarization over issues such as the war are intensifying along with the economic polarization of society.

We have described the social struggle that is developing as a mass struggle. At the core of the mass is formation of the new class. It is objectively communist in that its demands cannot be met without the abolition of private property. Its demands put it on a collision course with the state.  But this motion cannot coalesce, much less fight in its actual interests, without consciousness of those interests.

The South

The South is strategically important to the political control of the whole country, and unity across color lines in the South would have ramifications well beyond the region itself.

Prior to Katrina, the conditions for Southern workers were going from bad to worse. After three major hurricanes and the shocking aftermath of Katrina, there is widespread discontent throughout the South. There are entire communities that have been abandoned by government officials. Many of these communities are mostly white, voted for Bush, and believed in the government. 

The rulers must hide the growing identity of the whites and the blacks in the same economic category. Alongside the devastating black poverty is a hidden and scattered white poverty. Thousands of people are living in trailer parks with no hope of ever returning home. Despite the historical success the rulers have had using racism as a means of dividing the workers in the South, today there is an opportunity to chart a new course.

The Rust Belt

The new wave of cuts in the auto industry compounds the crisis in the already devastated cities, especially in Michigan.  The cuts signal the beginning of another round of bankruptcies, lay-offs, etc. as the problem spreads to other industries. The Midwest Rust Belt is a concentration of industrial workers with history, connections and fighting capacity. They can be instrumental in helping the new class form itself into a class for itself, if educated in their historic role. Up to now this sector has  been a pillar of strength for the capitalist system. The intellectual development and activity of these workers is key to the subjective formation of the new class and to society's understanding of the program of the new class.

 As one revolutionary in Michigan said, what is happening with Delphi is the event of all events. Everyone is talking and writing about it. Michigan is ripe for something to break out. People don’t have a sense of where to go. There is a vacuum in leadership. They don’t feel empowered to step out as there is no organization. But workers are slowly awakening to the realization that the government, the companies, and the unions are not going to help them. They are angry and ready to do something, and they will.

Conclusion

The ruling class is using all of its weapons to ensure the people do not break out of their dependency. From one side, they actively propagandize to win a section of society over to support their fascist policies. From another, the Democratic Party uses the crisis to rally its disillusioned and fading ranks back to them once again. Such motion opens the field for revolutionaries to do their work, but it also opens the field to the fascists.  There is a real urgency to politicize the anger, morality, and sense of loss everywhere we go. 

Overall, in this stage, we can anticipate two things:  One, ideological confusion is giving rise to the most horrid expressions of racism, political bullying in religious terms, an inquisition against science, and, on an individual level, a self-destruction, devoid of spirit and hope, which corresponds to the devaluation of life by the economy.  Without consciousness - vision, hope, strategy, ideology, etc. – this will only get worse.  Two, the objective struggles and demands of the heart of the movement – those thrown out of the system and to the bottom of society – are on a collision course with the state. This situation calls for an organization of revolutionaries that concentrates to develop the consciousness and ideology required of this moment.

 

February.2006.Vol16.Ed2
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