Original article, by Patrick Martin and subtitled On eve of GM bankruptcy, via World Socialist Web Site:
The expected bankruptcy filing Monday by General Motors—for decades the largest US corporation and one of the country’s biggest employers—marks a turning point for both American capitalism and the American working class. Its significance is not only economic and financial. It is also a political milestone. The US government set the June 1 deadline which has forced the bankruptcy filing.
Think, for a moment, like a Democrat would have thought about this prior to the 'New' Democrats taking over the party. Yes, think about this for a moment as if you were a member of a party that was concerned about the working class. Mind you, perhaps such a time never really existed, although many would argue it did up until the end of the Carter administration.
The Obama administration holds the whip hand, having advanced $40 billion in bailout funds to the auto bosses, and the White House will effectively control GM, holding 72.5 percent of its stock and appointing a majority of its board of directors. In return for their collaboration, the administration is awarding the United Auto Workers executives a 17.5 percent stake in the downsized GM.
If you were a Democrat who supported the working class, would you be willing to see the destruction of roughly 1/3 of the jobs for GM? Would you be willing to see the collapse of our industrial infrastructure? Would you be willing to see workers being forced into a contract where they are being forced to grant a no-strike clause for their next contract? The Obama administration is not only willing to, they are the ones forcing this draconian solution upon GM's workers.
In compelling GM to file for bankruptcy, Obama is giving the signal to all of corporate America to attack the jobs, wages, pensions and health benefits fought for by working people in the course of more than a century. The full power of the US government is being used to set an example of making the working class pay for the crisis of capitalism.
This should not come as a surprise, really. Obama taught at the University of Chicago, home of the infamous 'Chicago School' of economics. That he would turn out to be a shill for the neoliberal world view, being a 'Chicago Schooler', is only the result of his training. 'New' Democrats, much like their discredited brothers in 'New' Labor, are neoliberals. Creative destruction, and enrichment by said destruction, is their core principle, damn anyone who gets washed away by their tsunami.
Tens of millions voted for Obama and the Democrats last November in the hope that the Democratic Party would reverse the policies of the Republican Party and the Bush administration: militarism, attacks on democratic rights and the destruction of the living standards of working people. But the promises of "hope" and "change" have proven to be illusions.
Well, Obama's hope was that he would be President, and the change came when he became so. It was his supporters' fault for thinking he actually meant something beyond that. We're now getting what we deserve.
Trillions have been turned over to Wall Street in the form of loans, guarantees and cash handouts from the Treasury and Federal Reserve. But what have the first four months of the Obama administration brought for the working class? Economic figures published this week suggest the answer:
I'll let you read the rest of the article. Needless to say, despite the Obama administration (and the other capitalist stooges) and their cheerleading, the economy continues to drift further down the drain of depression. Their answer, when other supports collapse, will be the same as the Bushies: "Who could have seen that happening?"
It's time for workers, both of the left, center and the right, to see Obama for the neoliberal shill he actually is. There is going to be very little support from the Obama administration for working people (that's most of us). For workers to maintain any sense of a decent living standard, it is going to take them standing up united to fight both the politicos and the bosses. At this point, are any more job losses worth not presenting such a unified position?