En Passant

Eric Ruder in Socialist Worker US reports on a new weapon of choice in U.S. wars around the globe – the drone.

If unions, advocates for the elderly and health care activists want to draw a line against the Washington establishment’s threats, they would have millions standing behind them.

But taking such a stand will require recognizing that the austerity drive in Washington is being carried out by both parties – and that working people have to confront the Democratic White House every bit as much as the Republican Congress.

Easy access to guns – one-third of Americans own a gun, and the U.S. as a whole has half the world’s guns in civilian hands – may provide the means for committing certain types of crimes, but the roots of Adam Lanza’s actions go deeper. They lie in a profoundly alienated society in which violence in general is sanctioned by the most exalted American institutions–as long as it is carried out for “legitimate” purposes, like U.S. wars abroad or police at home defending law and order.

The disarray of the Republican Tea Party right will give confidence to all those that want to fight back. Our hope must be that in doing so, workers discover the power to unite and go well beyond the Democratic Party that has taken their votes for granted and delivered so little.

The election has returned to its “fundamentals,” where voters are weighing a choice between an indefensible status quo and an uncertain future. Whatever the outcome in November, we will need to be ready to face this fact: The austerity agenda will grind on – with a few palliatives (Obama) or on steroids (Romney) – until working people put a stop to it.

The US Presidential election is a choice between two representatives of big business. Romney offers a shit sandwich. Obama asks if you want fries with it. The task is to fight the one percent and build an alternative. Occupy gave us a glimpse of the possibilities. Winning the immediate fight and building that alternative, as Occupy and now the Chicago teachers’ strike shows, can only be done on the streets and in the workplaces, through demonstrations and strikes.

If James Holmes is a barbaric mass murderer for allegedly killing 12 innocent people (which he is if he is not insane and assuming he pulled the trigger) who will feel the full force of American justice (which he will), why isn’t the barbaric mass murderer Barack Obama going to receive the same treatment?

Bashar al-Assad, the butcher of Syria, has killed another 100 people, overwhelmingly women and children. Western leaders are ‘outraged.’ Barack Obama, the butcher in Washington, authorised another drone bombing. It killed a family of 8 in Afghanistan. Western leaders are silent. Zionism continues its genocide against the Palestinian people and the West enthusiastically supports the [...]

Obama isn’t being a “leader” on the issue of marriage equality, as some supporters claim, but a latecomer. His position only “evolved” to an open statement of sympathy after opinion polls showed it was a politically safe position among a large majority of the population outside of conservative Republicans.

That sea change in public sentiment was driven not by politicians, but because masses of LGBT people and their supporters spoke up and took action. Their position on what ought to be considered an elementary right hasn’t “evolved,” and they have good reason to be frustrated when supporters of the Democrats claim that Obama is making a “courageous” statement.

Instead of welcoming mass murderer Obama, the Greens, as the biggest non-mainstream party, should be organising demonstrations against the war criminal.

Shame, Greens, shame.