People all over the world have waited for the end of the hated far-right-wing administration of US President George Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney.
However, what will an Obama presidency bring with it? US Socialist Worker held a round table with a range of activists and left-wing authors on this topic. Below are some heavily abridged excerpts of some contributions. All contributions, in full, can be found at http://socialistworker.org.
United States
The deepening financial calamity exposes how the fundamentals of the economy impact on working people in the US, particularly African Americans. The so-called unfettered free market system has been a failure.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain has let the dogs loose. Apparently, he’s decided that if winning the White House means whipping up the right wing into a racist frenzy, he’ll lead the charge.
Independent presidential candidate and anti-corporate activist Ralph Nader led a protest of hundreds in front of the New York Stock Exchange against the US governments US$700 billion Wall Street bail-out package on October 16, according to an AFP report that day.
Many people are understandably frustrated when they try to make sense of the world financial crisis based on what they read in mainstream newspapers.
The below October 1 article was written by Mumia Abu Jamal, a political prisoner currently on death row in a US prison. Mumia is a radical African American journalist and activist who has been wrongfully imprisoned since 1981 over the shooting of a police officer. He writes weekly columns from death row. For information on his case, and to get involved in the campaign for his freedom, visit http://freemumia.com.
On the fateful evening of September 18, when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Bank Chair Ben Bernanke pulled together a closed-door meeting to discuss the rapidly unfolding crisis plaguing the financial system, congressional leaders feigned shock and horror at its severity.
Whether or not US Treasury secretary Henry Paulsons rescue scheme works, one thing is already crystal clear: The capitalist system has failed spectacularly. The following editorial was published by the US Socialist Worker on September 25.
The Wall Street socialists are at it again with another big-government takeover of privately owned firms, aimed at protecting the rich by extorting money from working people.
Unionists protested on July 20 in San Francisco against the decision by Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to cut the wages of more than 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of US$6.55 per hour, alleging he must do so because the state legislature has not passed a budget.
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