OBAMA’S re-election is a product of the refusal of US workers to allow an all-out robber baron of capitalism, Romney, to have control over their jobs and lives during the period of a huge capitalist crisis.
It was very much a win for the lesser of the two evils as far as US workers are concerned. However it is a choice that cannot defend the interests of the working class, the middle class and the poor in the days ahead. Large numbers of US workers can see that this is the case. However their trade union leaders were determined to bind them to Obama’s chariot come what may, and made sure that there was no alternative.
For the last four years workers have witnessed Obama, backed and financed by the US trade unions, spend trillions on rescuing the bankers and the major bosses, including those of the motor car industry from the crisis of capitalism.
Workers saw trillions of dollars being printed and handed over to the same bankers, who created the crisis in the first place, while car giants like GM were temporarily taken into state ownership. Obama supervised their slimming down, with scores of plants closed, and workers’ pensions and health care provision slashed, and deals made for new starters to be taken on, with big cuts in their wage rates and with a second class status.
The same GM and Ford, now restored by state aid, closures and wage cuts, are now seeking to balance their books by shutting down their European plants, while the US working class and youth are suffering from mass unemployment, and homelessness, with tent cities in every major city.
What is immediately ahead of Obama is dealing with the world economic crisis.
At home this is appearing in the shape of the ‘Fiscal Cliff’, slashing $600bn from government spending on January 1, or falling into the abyss of US state bankruptcy.
Abroad, it means securing Gulf and Middle Eastern oil, by stepping up the war against Syria, and attacking Iran.
In his message of greetings to Obama, Cameron went out of his way to suggest a new joint action. This was a trade deal between the EU and the US, and action to remove President Assad of Syria. In anticipation, Cameron has already negotiated to have British jets stationed in the Gulf to support any US action against Syria and Iran.
It is to be war on two fronts – at home slashing Medicaid and Medicare to satisfy the US bosses and abroad, war to seize the resources of the Gulf to try to give US capitalism a new lease of life.
In his victory speech before supporters in Chicago, Obama said he would talk to Romney about ‘where we can work together to move this country forward’. This war on two fronts will be the content of their talks. It will be the only joint work that the Republicans will be interested in.
On January 1st Obama will have to impose $600bn of tax increases and spending cuts, the alternative being the shutting down of the entire US economy.
The capitalist world is trembling at the prospect of the US government going bust on January 1st, and the dollar either collapsing, or through the imposition of such savage spending cuts the capitalist world is thrust into a deeper slump.
The honeymoon period of Obama’s second term is going to be very brief indeed.
The same President who rescued the banks and the motor car industry will shock US workers with a deal with the Republicans that will see them pauperised by savage spending cuts and tax rises, to once again save US capitalism.
In the period ahead the US workers will have no alternative but to break with Obama and build a revolutionary party that will put an end to US capitalism by expropriating the bosses and bankers and bringing in a planned socialist economy.
There is no other way forward.