The Militant must be reading right wing media. Well, the article did mention
The Wall Street Journal. What I am hearing is that, in fact, from the pointof
view of Wall Street, the kinds of financial manipulations like quantitative
easing, (a method used by the Obama administration as well), benefits Wall
Street and the stock market. A few years ago, I was reading liberal mainstream
articles that said that it helped make more jobs available, but recently, I've
heard a lot of left wing economists who say that this is absolutely false.
Someone on my most favorite new podcast, Loud and Clear, pointed out that if
the Democratic Party really cared about stopping that God awful tax bill, they
would have urged everyone out in the streets to demonstrate against it. They
would have organized, as they did for the Women's March the day after the
inauguration or as they did against the first Muslim ban.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey ;
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2018 9:32 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] US rulers give high marks to Trump, administration
policies
http://themilitant.com/2018/8204/820405.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 4 January 29, 2018
(front page)
US rulers give high marks to Trump
administration policies
BY TERRY EVANS
The economic uptick in the U.S. and Washington’s moves to defend U.S.
imperialist interests around the world are consolidating support among the
propertied rulers for the course of the Donald Trump White House.
This has not stopped liberals and others in the middle-class left, who never
reconciled themselves to Trump’s victory, from intensifying their demands that
he be driven from office.
The boss press is running articles of praise. “For Businesses, Donald Trump’s
First Year Is a Net Success,” the Wall Street Journal said Jan. 16.
“What the critics don’t acknowledge is that Trump and his national security
team have actually scored some real foreign policy wins,” CNN said Dec. 27.
The bosses give Trump plaudits for cutting taxes on the propertied owners.
Factory orders are increasing as bosses predict further capitalist growth off
the backs of working people. He has slashed the number of federal regulations
and red tape on businesses and banks, and says he will cut the size of the
Washington bureaucracy.
His administration is working to secure a bipartisan agreement on measures that
will assist the bosses in exploitation of immigrant labor, and, at the same
time, scapegoat foreign-born workers.
The economic carnage and deepening competition the working class has confronted
for several years continues to bear down. The number of workers who’ve given up
looking for work and the number employed part time who can’t find full-time
work stands in the millions. Current capitalist expansion has only begun to
affect this. And more workers are looking for a way to respond to what has been
done to them.
Trump pushes rulers’ foreign policy
The administration is advancing the capitalist rulers’ interests in the Middle
East, bolstering Washington’s military and political weight against its
competitors — Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Ankara.
It has carried through the war against Islamic State begun by former President
Barack Obama, but gave U.S. commanders greater freedom in carrying out
operations and expanded weapons supplies to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic
Forces, which drove Islamic State from its capital, Raqqa, in October.
Washington announced Jan. 14 it would set up a 30,000-strong Border Security
Force based on the cadres of SDF. They will be deployed along the border with
Turkey and along the Euphrates River, the line dividing U.S.-backed SDF forces
from Syrian government and Hezbollah troops, backed by Moscow and Tehran.
Washington also announced the deployment of 1,000 more combat “advisers”
to join the 14,000 troops it has stationed in Afghanistan, while maintaining
over 5,000 troops in Syria and Iraq, according to Pentagon figures. Both of
these decisions aim to stem the rising influence of Tehran in the region. And
unlike Obama, Trump imposed no timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The consequences of these ongoing conflicts continue to devastate working
people. Over half the Syrian population has been forced to flee their homes
since 2011, many in recent months. The Syrian regime’s bloody war against rebel
forces and civilians in Idlib province and around Damascus continues.
The administration has advanced Washington’s imperialist interests in pushing
through the U.N. Security Council’s ever-stiffer sanctions against North Korea,
which hit working people the hardest. At the same time, as the governments of
North and South Korea have begun discussing common participation in upcoming
winter Olympic games, Washington keeps open prospects for negotiations with
Pyongyang to press it to end its nuclear and intercontinental missile programs.
Washington remains far and away the most powerful imperialist power in the
world, but its strength has declined relative to Beijing and Moscow.
Trump combines pressure on these regimes with efforts to build relations that
can open doors to advance the political and economic interests of the U.S.
rulers.
The Trump administration has pressed European NATO members to take more
financial and military responsibility. Washington announced Dec. 22 it would
supply weapons to the Ukrainian government in its fight with Moscow-backed
forces operating in the east of the country.
Liberals continue cry to oust president
Liberals, middle-class radicals and some Republicans seeking to build support
for efforts to drive Trump from office seized Democrats’
allegations that Trump used language they claim was racist and derogatory to
African nations in a private meeting at the White House Jan. 11.
New York Times columnist Charles Blow said the problem was the millions of
workers that voted for him are “part of his racism.”
In reality, because of victories won by the proletarian mass movement that
overthrew Jim Crow and workers’ decades of common experience working and living
with immigrant workers, there is less racism and anti-immigrant chauvinism
among working people than ever before. This is a source of strength as workers
seek ways to stand up to the bosses’
attacks on jobs, wages, conditions and to cop assaults.
Michael Wolff’s recently published book on the Trump White House, Fire and
Fury, an instant best-seller, includes the author’s acknowledgement that he
couldn’t verify anything he alleges in the book and that he provides only what
he calls “notional truth.”
While the self-righteous calls of these middle-class layers to get rid of Trump
grow shriller, their actual prospects of driving him from office are
diminishing.
At the center of their witch hunt is the open-ended special counsel
investigation, headed by former FBI chief Robert Mueller. It has failed so far
to come up with evidence of collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Moscow
that could be used to impeach the president. In December Mueller revealed he
had fired FBI agent Peter Strzok from the investigation after finding out
Strzok had called for the FBI to get an “insurance policy” against Trump
winning the election.
What next?
How long the economic uptick will last, and how far it will grow, have yet to
be seen. Also unknown is when the balloons in the propertied rulers’ financial
speculations from Wall Street stocks to Bitcoin futures will burst.
The capitalist rulers have no solutions to the long-term crisis of production
and trade, rooted in declining profit rates, other than continuing to make
workers pay. And today’s depression conditions are driving more workers to look
for ways to stand up to assaults by employers and their government.
The uptick gives us more confidence. Recognizing this, Walmart bosses announced
they were raising workers’ minimum wage.
Socialist Workers Party members — whose party-building efforts are built on
knocking on doors in working-class neighborhoods in big cities and small towns
— find interest in discussing how workers can organize to defend ourselves and
build a party that can lead the fight to overturn capitalist rule.
A look at the upsurge in working-class discontent and protest in Iran indicates
this is true elsewhere in the world.
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