Democrats, Republicans, Greens: Class Enemies of Workers, Oppressed

For a Workers Party to Fight for a Workers Government!

For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!

For the first time in U.S. history, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party—once the party of the Southern slavocracy—is a black man, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who is set to face presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. Certainly if this deeply racist country ever saw a black president, it would be a significant development. But it would not change the oppression of black people, which forms the cornerstone of American capitalism and cannot be ended short of the destruction of the capitalist order through socialist revolution.

For all his hoopla about “change,” Obama is in fact a mainstream capitalist politician, linked to the Illinois Democratic machine, who has put himself forward as the best candidate to run U.S. imperialism and keep working people, blacks, immigrants and all the oppressed down. He promotes himself as a bipartisan candidate who can “work across the aisle” to “get things done.” We can only recall the words of the late George Carlin: “Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.” To a growing sector of the U.S. bourgeoisie, Obama is more than qualified to be the chief executive of U.S. imperialism, not least in order to refurbish its waning credentials in the world arena. Obama’s aim is to be the black overseer of the whole bloody plantation.

As Trotskyists (i.e., genuine Marxists), we do not extend any political support to Obama, McCain or any capitalist politician on principle. We fight for the complete political independence of the working class from all capitalist parties—Democrat, Republican, Green or “Independent.” This ABC Marxist principle is regularly jettisoned by the reformist left, which, despite occasional criticisms of Obama’s positions, is working for a Democratic victory this November either through overt support to Obama (such as the Communist Party), or via the small-time capitalist Green Party, which acts as a shill for the Democrats, or through protest politics to pressure the Democrats.

Our starting point is the understanding that capitalist society is divided between two fundamental classes: the capitalist class and the working class. The bourgeoisie owns the means of production—the factories, mines and transportation systems of modern industrial capitalism; the proletariat, in order to survive, is forced to sell its labor power to the capitalists, and through its labor generates the surplus value that the capitalists reap as profit. The interests of these two classes are irreconcilably counterposed. With its hands directly on the means of production, the working class has the social power and objective interest to overthrow capitalism. Only then can the material basis be laid for ending exploitation, imperialist war, racial and other forms of oppression, all of which are endemic to the capitalist system. (read on)