REPUBLICAN presidential nominee Romney won endorsement from former Polish president and former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, only to see the Solidarity trade union break ranks with its founder and declare its support for the AFL-CIO’s choice in the November US presidential election, the current President Obama.
Romney, a multi millionaire, is notorious for his ability to pay the minimum of taxes and for his hatred of the working class and organised labour, being on record as saying that he enjoyed sacking people.
Solidarnosc issued a press release saying it is ‘in no way involved’ with Romney meeting Walesa and had no part in the ‘initiative’ of inviting him to Poland. It added that it was hostile to Romney’s anti-union stances in the US and would stand with the AFL-CIO labour federation. The Solidarity leader said: ‘In this respect, I wish to express our solidarity with American workers and trade unions. We will always support the AFL-CIO in their struggle for the right of workers to organise and bargain collectively.’
Walesa declined to meet with Obama during a visit to Poland last year.
Romney arrived in Poland hotfoot from a visit to Israel where he had agreed with every policy of Netanyahu, from Jerusalem being the eternal capital of Israel to the Israelis ‘right’ to settle Palestine, and the need to attack Iran.
The Palestinians accused Romney of deliberately setting out to sabotage what is left of the peace process, and of going out of his way to show his absolute contempt for the Palestinian people.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat publicly rebuked him saying: ‘Those who speak about the two-state solution should know that there can be no Palestinian state without East Jerusalem,’ adding that Romney is ‘promoting extremism, violence and hatred’.
Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary-general Yasser Abed Rabbo said: ‘American policy makers must abandon hypocrisy and stop attempting to gain votes at the expense of the Palestinian people’s rights.’ He added: ‘Romney must understand that such an era has ended and Arab nations who are rebelling for the sake of freedom and dignity will not allow him to mess with their fates in order to win some votes.’
Romney is an extreme right winger, nevertheless, Senator Obama in June 2008, ahead of the then presidential elections, came to Israel and referred to Jerusalem as the eternal Israeli capital saying that he would move the US embassy there. He did this to gain the vote of the Zionist lobby in the US. After the election he changed policy, and the US embassy stayed in Tel Aviv.
The differences between Romney and Obama are relative. The Democrats lean on the US workers and are financed by their trade unions, so Democrat leaders have to be far more judicious in their statements. Nevertheless when push comes to shove, as far as the interests of US capitalism are concerned, they can be just as ruthless or even more ruthless than the Republicans.
Witness Obama’s role as the rescuer of the US banks, and the architect of wage cuts and job cuts in a ‘nationalised’ GM, as well as being personally in charge of the drone attacks and the murder of ordinary people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
However, the US workers, the Palestinian masses and the Jewish poor in Zionist Israel (who have now started to emerge as a force) have a common interest in fighting US capitalism, its ruling class and its Zionist allies in Israel.
Internally the US working class must make its trade unions break with the Democrats and found a Labour Party to fight for US socialism.
Externally it must unite with the Palestinians and the Jewish poor to put an end to the occupation of Palestine, to stop US and Israel making war on Syria and Iran, and to build one Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, where Jews, Christians and Muslims can live side by side in a Middle East free of imperialism!
