Tom Morello Rages Against Anti-Union Bill at Wisconsin Rally, Denounces 'Mubarak of Midwest'

Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello spent Monday at the Wisconsin protests, performing acoustic songs at a rally and delivering a fiery speech to the thousands inside of the capital rotunda who are protesting Governor Walker’s attempt to end the right of state employees to collectively bargain.

"What's happened so far might be the most inspiring 24 hours of my life as an activist," Morello tells Rolling Stone. "I've never seen this kind of outpouring of unapologetic, steel-backboned support for union causes in the United States. The Madison police were delivering bratwurst to the protesters inside the capitol, and the kids were thanking them. It was unbelievable."

At a freezing cold rally outside of the capital, Morello was joined by Rise Against frontman Tim Mcilrath, Wayne Kramer of the MC5 and Boston folk group Street Dogs. The show mixed classics like Neil Young's "Ohio," Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up" and Morello's driving acoustic version of Rage Against the Machine's "Guerilla Radio." "No matter what Gov. Walker, the Mubarak of the Midwest, says, this land is your land," Morello said before singing Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land." "Never give up and never give in!"

If Governor Walker’s bill passes, it would effectively destroy Wisconsin’s civil servant unions; many fear that other Republican-controlled states would attempt to follow suit. "I come from a coal-mining town in central Illinois where everybody was union," says Morello.

"For almost 30 years, my mom was a public high school teacher in Libertyville, Illinois. I grew up with a firm belief that the leverage we have as working people is through the union. It's the only counterweight to the raw greed of corporate power. For the past 22 years, I've been a union man in L.A. as a member of the Professional Musicians Local 47."

After the rally, Morello entered the packed Capitol rotunda, which had been occupied for the past week, grabbed a bullhorn, and made one of the most rousing speeches of the day. "This is what they do in times of economic crisis," Morello said.

"They think people aren't paying attention, that they can just sneak through this legislation that would rob us of decades, centuries of social progress. We didn't pick this fight. [Governor Walker] tapped us on the shoulder and said 'let's fight.' And now we're gonna knock his legislative teeth out."

Patrick Doyle/Rolling Stone

Strikes, Workers’ Protests Spread Throughout Egypt

Large numbers of workers in Egypt’s main cities staged strikes and street demonstrations yesterday for higher wages, better working conditions, and the removal of corrupt managers of state-owned enterprise promoted under former President Hosni Mubarak. The movement of the working class is developing in defiance of the ruling military command, which has stridently demanded an end to all industrial action.

The junta, headed by Mubarak’s henchmen Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, declared an unscheduled public holiday yesterday, apparently in an attempt to defuse the strike wave. The military also declared today a public holiday.

Workers across many industries nevertheless mobilised yesterday, in both the public and private sectors. One BBC journalist commented, “There appears to be a whole series of mini-revolutions going on in the wake of the removal of Mr. Mubarak”.

The Central Bank of Egypt ordered that banks throughout the country be closed because of a strike by workers in the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), the largest state bank. Hundreds of workers demonstrated outside NBE’s headquarters, reportedly demanding that temporary workers be granted permanent positions. “It’s part of the revolution,” the bank’s chairman, Tarek Amer, told the Associated Press. “They believe that it’s an opportunity—if they had any complaints and demands—and that there’s a higher probability of getting them answered.”

Thousands of oil and gas workers employed by several companies are on strike and staged a protest yesterday in the Nasr City district of Cairo, outside the Ministry of Petroleum. According to blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy: “The workers have several economic and political demands, including putting an end to abusive management practices such as sacking workers who speak up for their rights, reinstating the sacked workers, raising salaries that roughly average LE400 [$68], establishing an independent union, impeaching the corrupt oil minister Sameh Fahmy, and stopping gas exports to Israel.”

Also in Cairo, hundreds of public transport workers demanded higher wages outside the state television and radio building. One of the workers, Ahmed Said, who has worked as a driver for 18 years, told the Guardian that more than half of his wages goes toward paying rent and he is forced to feed his family of five on the rest. “There is just enough money for food... If a child goes to the hospital and we have to pay for that, then me and my wife do not have a meal. This is wrong. How can Mubarak be worth so much and we have so little? Before, we had to be careful. We would be arrested. But now we can talk. We need food. We have been on strike four days. The army cannot stop us.”

Hundreds of ambulance paramedics demanding better pay parked about 70 vehicles in a row on a roadside along the Nile River in Giza district. Employees at a key Cairo traffic tunnel threatened to shut down the route if their wages weren’t raised. Several hundred people employed by the state Youth and Sports Organisation also demonstrated in Tahrir Square for improved working conditions.

Among other reported struggles, workers with state airline EgyptAir went on strike at Cairo International Airport and successfully demanded that the company’s head, Alaa Ashour, be removed. About 500 employees of the Opera House have similarly accused the organisation’s chairman of corruption and demanded his removal. Workers with the education ministry in Cairo’s satellite 6th of October City also protested yesterday, demanding higher wages, permanent contracts for temporary workers, and the removal of the ministry director.

The action was supported by several students. Kholoud Abdallah, from a secondary vocational school, told Al Ahram, “We have no books, no computers and we require these for study.”

There were also reports of continued strikes by textile, steel, and post office state workers.

Several hundred people also staged a demonstration outside the Mubarak regime’s official trade union body, the Trade and Workers Federation, demanding that the federation’s board be dissolved. Union bureaucrats inside the building reportedly exchanged volleys of bricks and bottles with demonstrators outside, before they were separated by soldiers.

Outside of Cairo, workers went on strike at the enormous Sukari gold mine, near the southern town of Marsa Alam. Near the Great Pyramids, about 150 tourism industry employees protested for higher wages.

The Associated Press also reported that in Beni Sweif, an impoverished city south of Cairo, “thousands demanded the distribution of promised state-built, low-cost apartments that are often awarded on the basis of nepotism”. Police admitted that local people have occupied 60,000 empty units of such housing in the provinces of Cairo, Beni Sweif and Qalioubiya.

Police officers demanding higher wages staged a provocative demonstration in Tahrir Square yesterday morning. About 2,000 anti-Mubarak protestors held a counter-demonstration against the widely hated police, but Al Jazeera and other media outlets were forbidden from broadcasting any footage from the square. This censorship appears to be part of the military’s effort to remove all the protestors from Tahrir Square and project an image of a return to “normality”.

Another mass rally, however, dubbed a “victory march” has been called for Friday.

The military council issued a statement yesterday demanding an end to the strikes. “Noble Egyptians sees that these strikes, at this delicate time, lead to negative effects such as harming the security of the country which causes disruption in all institutions and facilities of the state,” a military spokesman declared. “[Strikes] negatively affect the ability to provide for the needs of citizens and disrupt the process of production and work in state sectors ... and they negatively affect the national economy.”

This statement comes after an army official told Reuters that the military leadership intended to ban union meetings, effectively forbidding strikes. It stands as a sharp warning to the working class as to the policies the army hopes to ultimately carry out.

The military has been the central pillar of the Egyptian capitalist state ever since the 1952 Free Officers Coup. Under Mubarak’s IMF-approved “free market” measures, the senior command amassed enormous personal fortunes as the military appropriated vast swathes of privatised state industry and landed property. The workers’ movement for higher wages, jobs, improved living conditions, and democratic rights represents a direct threat to the army hierarchy’s lucrative interests, as well as an implicit challenge to the rule of the entire Egyptian bourgeoisie.

The latest developments underscore the military’s concern over the emerging movement of the working class in the final days of Mubarak’s rule. Mass strikes erupted February 8 and 9, continuing up until Mubarak made his televised speech on February 10 in which it had been expected he would announce his resignation, but instead strove to cling to power.

According to a detailed account published by Al Ahram, the dictator had intended to step down but was persuaded by his wife and son Gamal not to. When this threatened to provoke a further upsurge in the revolutionary movement, the military stepped in and seized power to try to maintain control over the situation.

Notably, none of the official middle class “opposition” parties—including the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed ElBaradei’s National Association for Change—has condemned the military’s threats against the working class. Striving to maintain illusions in the role of the army, these forces have urged an end to the demonstrations and strikes. ElBaradei and his colleagues are now preparing to enter the military regime.

Britain’s Foreign Minister William Hague said yesterday that Egypt’s Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq told him that the current government would be reshuffled to include opposition figures by next week. While the successful elevation of these “opposition” forces would open up opportunities for the individuals involved, for the Egyptian working class it would signify no more than providing a civilian fig-leaf for the military government.

Prominent anti-Mubarak activists, Google executive Wael Ghonim and blogger Amr Salamahey, met with representatives of the military council. They were reportedly told that the army plans to rewrite the constitution within ten days—entirely behind the backs of the Egyptian people—and put it to a referendum for ratification within two months.

The military has yet to announce when it will deliver on its pledge to rescind Mubarak’s draconian emergency legislation. It has also remained silent on whether it will release the many political prisoners who remain in detention.

The Independent’s Robert Fisk asked: “Is this because there are prisoners who know too much about the army's involvement in the previous regime? Or because escaped and newly liberated prisoners are returning to Cairo and Alexandria from desert camps with terrible stories of torture and executions by—so they say—military personnel.”

From WSWS

Egypt: The Ancien Regime Tries To Hoodwink the Working Class

Events since the fall of Hosni Mubarak have shown that the Egyptian revolution is only in its initial stages. With its series of communiqués issued over the weekend, the Egyptian military has made clear its response to the revolutionary struggles. Its aim is to divert and suppress the mass movement, while ensuring a tactical transfer of power to maintain the old regime in all but name.

The Egyptian army is highlighting its elimination of various legal fictions of the Mubarak regime— the rubber-stamp parliament and the dictator’s constitution. Far from leading a “democratic transition,” the army is trying to keep itself in power while granting none of the basic demands that are driving millions of Egyptians into the streets.

The country is now under the rule of a military junta, which is retaining all the emergency powers of the old regime, preserving the police, and attempting to rule through a network of old Mubarak cronies like Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq.

Deeply tied to Egypt’s business community, the officer corps is hostile to the wave of strikes that is shaking Egypt, and workers’ demands for improved wages and social conditions. While it does not yet feel strong enough to do so, the army is signaling its intention to move against strikers. In a statement denouncing “chaos and disorder,” the Higher Military Council said it would ban meetings by labor unions or professional syndicates, effectively making strikes illegal.

In the six months, and perhaps longer, the army plans to hold elections on the basis of a constitution drafted exclusively by itself, and without dissolving Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP). That is, it hopes to use the six-month period to wind down the protests and give a pseudo-democratic cover to a regime no less responsive to the demands of the population than the one controlled by the hated Mubarak.

This basic political fact is summed up in the person of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi — now officially the ruler of Egypt — as depicted in cables by US Ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone published by WikiLeaks.

Describing Tantawi in March 2008 as committed to the 1979 treaty with Israel and firmly “opposed [to] both economic and political reforms,” Ricciardone summed up Tantawi’s politics thus: “He and Mubarak are focused on regime stability and maintaining the status quo through the end of their time.”

The claim that this corresponds to protestors’ demands is a repugnant lie. The millions of people now participating in strikes and protests — and the thousands who were killed or tortured — were not struggling to preserve the old regime.

Egypt’s official “opposition” is nonetheless signaling its support for the army. After stressing the need for “law and order” Friday, Mohammed ElBaradei declared yesterday: “We trust the army and call upon people to give them the opportunity to implement what they promised.”

Mohamed el-Katatni, a leading official of the Muslim Brotherhood, said: “The main goal of the revolution has been achieved.”

These statements clearly demonstrate that no constituency for genuine democracy exists in the Egyptian capitalist class, or its backers in Washington, or in the capitals of the other imperialist powers. The basic demands of the workers and oppressed masses — for better wages and living conditions, for social equality, and for an end to imperialist domination — fill all sections of the political establishment with dread. Faced with a mass upsurge of the working class, threatening their basic class interests, the pro-capitalist “opposition” has reacted by backing the dictatorship.

Egypt: Mubarak's Fall Is Only the Beginning of the Revolution

Hosni Mubarak’s departure came after 18 days of demonstrations and strikes that had waxed and waned, but that had generally grown in size and scope in spite of the brutal oppression of the regime. At this stage in the revolution, at least 300 have been killed―the real number is doubtless far higher―and thousands have been arrested and “disappeared”.

The decisive moment came Wednesday and Thursday, when the Egyptian working class moved to the forefront, partially or completely shutting down every sector of the economy.

The strike wave propelled the Egyptian military to finally move against Mubarak. Up until then, the Obama administration backed Mubarak, fearful that his removal would only spread the revolutionary contagion beyond Egypt and set the stage for a showdown between the Egyptian workers and the military, which will be neither willing nor able to address the social and democratic grievances of the masses.

Today there is justified jubilation in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and other cities, as millions of Egyptian workers and youth celebrate their historic victory.

These extraordinary events are a turning point not only for Egypt, but for the entire world. They have shown the immense social power of the working class, unanswerably refuting claims that the collapse of the Soviet Union signified the “end of history”—that is, the end of class struggle as a factor in human affairs. The victorious heroism of the masses of Egypt in the face of torture, arrests and repression are an inspiration for workers and youth around the globe.

Mubarak’s resignation was a humiliating about-face from his speech, delivered less than 24 hours earlier, in which he provocatively refused to step down. It was also a blow to the military brass, which issued a statement on Friday morning supporting the transfer of authority to Vice President Omar Suleiman, the longtime head of the Egyptian intelligence agency.

It is a devastating setback for the Arab bourgeoisie, which fears the spread of revolution beyond Egypt; for the Israeli state, whose policies of repression and military terror depend on the suppression of working class struggle both in the Arab countries and in Israel itself; and above all for US imperialism, which for 31 years was the main financier and backer of the Mubarak dictatorship. Washington has been complicit in all the regime’s crimes, including the widespread use of torture against political opponents.

The revolutionary upheavals gripping North Africa are the first major response of the world working class to the conditions created by the global economic crisis of capitalism. In bringing down Mubarak, workers in Egypt have launched the first salvo in a world struggle against economic exploitation, the suppression of democratic rights, and social inequality defended by governments not only in Egypt, but around the world.

As significant as the resignation of Mubarak is, however, it is only the beginning of this struggle. Mubarak may be gone, but the regime remains, with power in the hands of the officer corps that has been the linchpin of the capitalist dictatorship in Egypt for decades. The masses know they have only begun to settle accounts with the exploiters—the secret police, the venal Egyptian generals, and Mubarak himself.

In its struggle to hang on to power, the Egyptian regime will find its most ruthless allies in the financial aristocracy of the imperialist powers. For weeks, the Obama administration has worked behind the scenes to bolster Mubarak, insisting that he should oversee an “orderly transition.”

Obama’s perfunctory speech Friday afternoon acknowledging Mubarak’s resignation came on the heels of a Friday morning statement in which the administration pointedly did not call for Mubarak to step down.

Washington is undoubtedly engaged in intense discussions with the Egyptian military to ensure that whatever regime replaces Mubarak will equally be committed to US imperialist interests.

No confidence can be placed in the military or in Egypt’s official “opposition”—which has indicated its complete support for the military government—to oversee a “democratic transition.” One “opposition” leader, Mohammed El Baradei, has suggested that this could take place in a year’s time, leaving the military free to do what it wants for an entire year.

US imperialist strategists hope that in the meantime Washington will be able to shower its favored stooges in Egypt with cash, and arrange a “transition” that returns the working class to where it was before the overthrow of Mubarak. Speaking on CNN, former CIA director James Woolsey said the US should “work with the forces of stability and change in a democratic and law-abiding direction” and “help them economically, help them politically.”

Such comments are a serious warning to the working class. The jubilation tonight at Mubarak’s departure is as it should be, but the initial gains of the revolution must not be lost. The question of class strategy and the formation of a new revolutionary leadership in the working class will determine the fate of the next stage of the revolution.

The backing given by Washington and El Baradei to the military government is not an accident, but a reflection of the interests of the capitalist class. Every attempt to improve the conditions of the masses—raising wages, reducing prices, or defending political freedoms—inevitably puts workers in conflict with the representatives of this elite, who oppose any change that impinges on their economic or strategic interests.

From WSWS

Maoism In India: Left Sectarianism Is Anti-Worker & Anti-Peasant

There has been a spate of growing murder and violence in certain areas of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal by armed persons acting on behalf of the 'CPI (Maoist)'.

The vicious violence unleashed by these death squads in various parts of the country must be condemned. In West Bengal alone these death squads have targetted the CPI(M) and have killed more than 60
members and supporters of the Party in the past few months.

Their use of the name of Mao Zedong, a widely respected figure, while carrying out the acts of carnage and killing, is reprehensible.

Such acts can also in no way be justified in the name of a war against the State. While every conscious citizen opposes acts of oppression committed by members of the exploiting classes or individuals in the State apparatus, the self-styled Maoists by their violent acts of vendetta, torture and gruesome killings, are gravely damaging the cause of the popular democratic movement. Indeed, they are in fact working against the interests of the workers and peasants.

In order to isolate the self-styled Maoists politically, it is important that the Indian State do all that is necessary to restore its presence and credibility in tribal areas whose interests it has largely been ignoring. The Manmohan Singh government should review its neo-liberal policies that have pauperised the tribal people and help the state governments to meet their developmental challenges in these areas.

Counter insurgency vigilante groups (such as Salwa Judum) have proved to be counter productive. Harassment and killing of innocent local people should be avoided while tackling the violence, and those responsible for such acts in the name of fighting the "Maoists" should be punished. A genuine dialogue should be started with those "Maoists" who are ready to give up the path of armed struggle.

Watch this video in which CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat at a public meeting explains how the self-styled Maoists are working against the interests of the workers and peasants.

Tehran and Tegucigalpa: How The Corporate Media Looks At Two Capitals

In Tehran, demonstrations called by the defeated US-backed presidential candidate are given non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage by the American media.

The charges of former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi of a stolen election and a “coup d’etat” are embraced uncritically and reported as fact by the New York Times, the Washington Post and other “authoritative” newspapers, without any independent investigation or substantiation.

A media propaganda campaign ensues aimed at isolating and destabilizing the ruling faction in Iran headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The protests are dominated by better-off sections of the urban middle class, who largely voted for Mousavi and support his right-wing program of closer ties to American and European imperialism and a rapid introduction of pro-market policies.

The working class, seeing nothing to support in the faction of “reformists” headed by Mousavi and the billionaire former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, abstains from the protests.

The media dispenses with any pretence of objectivity and proclaims the protest movement and its leaders the spearhead of a “green revolution” for democracy. Every act of “repression” by the Iranian regime is given headline coverage, and rumours of hundreds of deaths are reported as fact. The US media focuses its wrath in particular on the regime’s efforts to block Internet and mobile phone communication.

Two weeks later, the US-trained and equipped military of Honduras breaks into the home of the elected president, bundles him onto a plane and flies him out of the country at gunpoint.

The basic crime of the deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, is aligning his government with Washington’s nemeses in Latin America, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and carrying out modest popular reforms within Honduras, such as raising the minimum wage.

There can be no dispute that Honduras has undergone a coup. But the event is barely reported by the US press and broadcast media. Neither are the arrests and deportations of ministers of Zelaya’s government, the closures of local media outlets sympathetic to the ousted president, the arrests of foreign journalists and shutdown of US-based outlets such as CNN, and the imposition of a de facto state of siege, including a dusk-to-dawn curfew and the mobilization of thousands of Honduran troops in every major city.

The coup regime, which is backed by the Honduran business elite, the Congress, the courts and the Church, seeks to halt Internet and cell phone communication—evoking no protest from the US media.

Demonstrations in support of the coup staged by the new regime are dominated by the wealthy middle class of the capital, Tegucigalpa.

In the teeth of state repression, the Honduran teachers union launches a 60,000-strong strike that closes the schools, and thousands demonstrate in Tegucigalpa. The demonstrations are dominated by trade unionists, workers, the unemployed and the rural poor. This working class resistance to the coup barely gets a mention in the US media.

On Sunday, July 5, troops barricading the airport at Tegucigalpa fire on unarmed demonstrators who have gathered to welcome Zelaya as he attempts to land a chartered plane and resume his office. A 19-year-old youth is shot and killed. Again, barely a mention in the US news media.

One can only imagine how the US media would have responded had Ahamdinejad arrested Mousavi and thrown him out of Iran. Or the howls of indignation that would have erupted had the Iranian president blockaded the airport to prevent him from returning.

Examples of the double standard applied to Iran and Honduras abound. Just to cite a few:

CNN made great play of the efforts of the Iranian regime to censor the news and intimidate foreign journalists. It has said nothing about the shutdown of its own broadcasts by the Honduran coup government.

On July 4, CNN.com reported that it had received a video tape showing Honduran troops shooting out the tires of buses bringing anti-coup demonstrators to Tegucigalpa from the countryside. This video has been given little, if any, airplay by the network.

Most significant is the virtual absence of coverage in the US media of the murder and wounding of anti-coup demonstrators at Tegucigalpa airport on Sunday. The Financial Times on Monday provided a chilling account of the atrocity which makes clear its premeditated character. Reporting that a crowd of about 1,500 had gathered at the perimeter fence of the airport to welcome Zelaya’s plane, the newspaper writes:

“However, at about 3 PM on Sunday, soldiers guarding the runway to prevent the return of Mr. Zelaya launched an offensive against the unarmed crowd, according to witnesses.

“They opened fire from positions inside the airport and then sent tear-gas into the crowd.

“Moments later, a handful crossed the perimeter fence, which had been cut by the demonstrators, raised their automatic rifles and pointed them towards the mass of terrified men, women and children. Then they opened fire again. At least one person was killed, and as many as 30 were injured.”

The Latin American press has widely published photos of the fatally wounded youth, Isis Obed Murillo, being dragged away by fellow protesters. No such photos have appeared in major US newspapers or on television news channels. Murillo remains unnamed and unmourned in the American media.

One need only compare this callous treatment to the media frenzy over the death on June 20 of Neda Agha Soltan in Tehran. The death of the 27-year-old student, who was reportedly a bystander at a pro-Mousavi protest, occurred under murky circumstances.

The government denied responsibility, but the media immediately declared her a martyr of the “green revolution.” Her picture was splashed across the front pages of newspapers and broadcast by every TV channel. “Neda” was proclaimed the “Joan of Arc” of the Iranian opposition.

This tale of two capitals provides a graphic illustration of the character and role of the American media. Owned and controlled by corporate goliaths, it functions as an adjunct of the state and a propaganda machine in behalf of US imperialist interests.

Its class bias—and that of the lavishly paid individuals who serve as top editors, senior reporters and TV anchormen—is underscored by the diametrically opposed responses to the protests in Tehran and Tegucigalpa.

The American media adheres to no standards and observes no limits in carrying out its function of manipulating public opinion in accordance with the objectives, domestic and foreign, of the American ruling elite.

Nothing so clearly demonstrates the decay of American democracy and the “free press” in the United States than the manner in which it lines up behind phony “colour revolutions” against regimes deemed inimical to US interests and ignores flagrantly antidemocratic measures by regimes backed by the CIA, the military and the State Department.

Barry Grey

EU Voters Turn Back On Social Democracy

When millions of workers turn their back on social democracy in the middle of an economic crisis, it shows one thing: they no longer expect any solution to their problems from these parties


The most notable result of the European elections held last weekend is the dramatic decline of social democracy. On average across Europe, social democratic parties received only 22 per cent of the vote, six per cent less than in the previous European election in 2004. With a turnout of just 43 per cent, this means that less than one in ten of the electorate voted for these parties.

Average European figures distort the real extent of the decline. In the major industrial countries of Western Europe, where social democratic parties have led governments for decades or functioned as the main opposition party, their losses were huge—irrespective of whether the parties are currently in government or opposition.

In Great Britain, where the Labour Party has been in power for the past twelve years, Labour’s support plummeted to a record low of 16 per cent—lower than the vote received by the extreme right-wing UK Independence Party.

In Spain, the ruling Socialist Party lost five percentage points and trailed the right-wing Peoples Party.

In Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which has been in government for eleven years, recorded an historic low of 21 per cent.

In Portugal, support for the ruling Socialist Party fell from 45 to 27 per cent.

In France, where the Socialist Party has been in opposition for the past seven years, the party received just 17 per cent—a decline of 12 percentage points compared to five years ago.

In Italy, support for the Democratic Party, which is a successor organisation to the Italian Communist Party and other “left” parties, plunged from 31 per cent to 26 per cent.

In Denmark, the opposition Social Democrats lost 12 percentage points and finished with a total of 21 per cent.

The vote for the Dutch Labour Party was halved to 12 per cent, and in Austria it sank from 33 per cent to 24 per cent.

This decline is all the more remarkable when one bears in mind that the election took place in the midst of the most severe world economic crisis since the 1930s. Although unemployment is rising rapidly and the living conditions of broad layers of the population have worsened considerably, voters are deserting the social democrats in droves.

The cause for this shift is to be found in the politics and character of the social democratic parties, which have for many years functioned like any other bourgeois party. In the past two decades, they have used their influence, in close alliance with the trade unions, to carry out the sort of social attacks that had provoked massive resistance when attempted by conservative governments.

In Britain, the Labour Party led by Tony Blair adopted the program of the Conservative Party’s “iron lady,” Margaret Thatcher, while the German SPD led by Gerhard Schröder passed the anti-welfare Hartz laws and carried out more attacks on social rights than all previous conservative governments put together.

The 'Financial Times' in an editorial on June 9 pointed to the seeming anomaly of massive electoral losses for parties historically associated with socialism under conditions of growing popular disillusionment with capitalism. It correctly notes that, in fact, there are no serious differences in economic and social policy between the social democratic and conservative parties.

The newspaper wrote: “At a time when ‘the end of capitalism’ is raised as a serious prospect, the parties whose historical mission was to replace capitalism with socialism offer no governing philosophy. Their anti-crisis policies are barely distinguishable from those of their rivals.”

When millions of workers turn their back on social democracy in the middle of an economic crisis, it shows one thing: they no longer expect any solution to their problems from these parties.

The election result also expressed a broad rejection of the European parliament. The job of the parliament is to provide a pseudo-democratic cover for the institutions of the European Union and the army of 40,000 well-paid bureaucrats in Brussels who, in turn, serve at the beck and call of a comparable army of business lobbyists.

Vast numbers of voters, especially from the working class, refrained from casting ballots. The biggest party in the election was the party of non-voters. At 43 per cent, voter participation was 2.5 percentage points lower than the previous record low turnout, in 2004. In Holland, Great Britain and most Eastern European countries, turnout was less than 40 per cent.

The resulting political vacuum was exploited by conservative and right-wing parties. This has led many commentators to speak of a “turn to the right” in Europe. Such a conclusion is unwarranted and superficial. Right-wing parties were able to exploit the collapse in support for social democracy and the low turnout. In most cases, however, they failed to increase their vote and in some cases saw their support decline significantly.

Even extreme right, xenophobic parties that gained significantly—such as Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in Holland (17 per cent), the UK Independence Party (17 per cent), and the British National Party (6 per cent)—have, based on the low voter turnout of 35 per cent in the two countries, less support than their results suggest.

What is evident in the European election is a sharp social polarisation. Until now, the ruling classes have been able to rely on the social democratic parties and the trade unions to suppress social struggles. The decline of these organisations means that future class confrontations will take a more open and explosive form.

Peter Schwarz

The GM Bankruptcy

The bankruptcy of General Motors is an historic event. The collapse of the 101-year-old Detroit automaker is the largest industrial failure and third largest bankruptcy in US history.

The action will have a devastating effect on GM’s 230,000 global employees and the millions more who will be hit by plant shut-downs, the closing of more than 1,000 dealerships and the wave of failures of auto suppliers that is expected to follow.

GM, which has already announced plans to cut 47,000 jobs worldwide, including 23,000 of its remaining 62,000 hourly employees in the US, is expected to announce plans to close between 12 and 20 more plants.

The rise of the automaker in the first half of the 20th century paralleled the ascent of American capitalism and the global predominance of US industry. And the bankruptcy of what was long the iconic symbol of the power of American industry signifies the failure of not only one company, but of American capitalism as a whole.

It is a milestone in the decline in the global position of US capitalism and the crisis of world capitalism. It poses in the starkest form the need for the working class to advance a socialist alternative to the profit system.

With its massive size, innovative management methods and global reach, GM defined the modern American corporation. With 850,000 hourly and salaried employees, including half a million in the US, GM was the largest private employer in the world, second only to the state-owned industries of the former Soviet Union.

In the decade following World War II, Detroit’s Big Three automakers—GM, Ford and Chrysler—were making four out of five of the world’s cars, with GM producing half of them. In 1955, the largest foreign competitor, Volkswagen, was only slightly bigger than GM's own German subsidiary, Opel, and Toyota was producing only 23,000 cars in Japan, compared to 4 million manufactured by GM in the US.

Over the last three decades, a sea change has taken place. In the late 1970s, faced with growing competition from abroad, a falling rate of profit in basic industry and the militant resistance of workers determined to defend the gains won in past struggles, the American ruling elite embarked on a deliberate policy of deindustrialisation.

Sections of industry deemed insufficiently profitable were starved of investment and then shut down in order to free up capital for increasingly parasitical forms of financial speculation.

This coincided with a corporate-government offensive against the working class, involving union-busting, strikebreaking, labour frame-ups and the use of plant closures and lay-offs to undermine the militancy of the working class and impose cuts in wages and benefits. This offensive was carried out under Democratic as well as Republican administrations.

The government-dictated bankruptcy of GM marks a new stage in the ruling class offensive against the working class. After this next round of restructuring, GM expects to have only 38,000 hourly workers and a maximum of 34 factories left in the United States, compared with 395,000 hourly workers in more than 150 plants at its peak employment in 1979.

The billions in wage and benefit concessions extorted from workers since the early 1980s were used, not to invest in the company’s long-term viability, but to finance stock buybacks and other measures to boost “shareholder value,” i.e., to enrich Wall Street investors and GM executives.

After decades of declining market share and some $90 billion in losses since 2005, the final nail in the coffin was the financial crash of 2008 and drying up of credit, which have led to a collapse of car sales in the US and internationally and what many analysts expect will be a wave of bankruptcies and mergers that will leave no more than five or six global auto companies left standing.

A “New GM”—largely owned by the government—will be shrunk to a fraction of its current size and freed from any obligation to pay decent wages, pensions or retiree health benefits. Once ample profits can be guaranteed, the government will sell the company back to private investors at a bargain price.

The New York Times website reported Sunday night that administration officials briefed reporters and stressed that the government, which will own 60 per cent of GM stock, intends to leave management of the company in private hands.

While handing out trillions in public assets to Wall Street, the Democratic administration has demanded that auto workers accept the destruction of all of the gains won in the course of decades of bitter struggle.

The wage and benefit concessions imposed on auto workers—with the direct complicity of the United Auto Workers—will freeze wages, eliminate cost-of-living increases, substantially reduce break time and holidays and strip retirees of medical benefits, including dental and optical care.

The companies will expand the use of low-paid entry level and temporary workers and workers will be stripped of the right to strike or even to vote on the terms of the next labour agreement until 2015.

The UAW, which will be handed 17.5 per cent share of the “New GM,” will be retained as a labour police force to suppress any resistance to poverty wages and brutal exploitation. With billions in shares and a seat on the corporate board of directors, the UAW apparatus will have a direct financial stake in collaborating with the Obama administration in the further slashing of labour costs.
Jerry White/WSWS