Labor Party

Ted Folkert

May 7, 2016

These two words together “labor” and “party”, can seem like an oxymoron – like nice insult, or pleasant illness, or bad fortune, or sweet sorrow. We like to party for fun, but labor is something we do for food, usually not for fun.

But in the sense of what we don’t have and badly need, a Labor Party can mean a voice in the way we are governed, a voice for the working class, a voice now unheard from the invisible class, those of us who do the work to keep everyone in food, shelter and clothing – and streets, highways, fire departments and police forces.

This may come as a shock to some of us, but the working class has no voice in the way we are governed. Lincoln’s description of the way our government should function – “of, by and for the people” – has never been the case, was never meant to be the case by our founders, and has never been allowed to carve out a space in our political system. The original intent of our founders, who were pre-capitalist in those days, seems to have been protection of property, their property. What it became after the advent and massive growth of capitalism is a government of, by and for the corporations and the wealthy. This was no accident. It was by design. It was created this way to prevent an uprising by the people and an overthrow of the government, a plan that was not very Jeffersonian but merely the best they could agree to when considering the landholding and slaveholding interests of the planners.

They didn’t teach us this in the public schools. They taught us from the textbooks which were deemed pertinent to glorify the democratic intent of the founders and to give no hint of the intent of the consensus that resolved the issues.

Our primary focus has always been on our two party electoral system, the Democratic and Republican. What we have always been lacking, and which seems to place more emphasis on government of, by and for the people, is a Labor Party – a party of the working class as opposed to the aristocratic class which has always governed us. Our two parties are both controlled by corporate interest first and equality of opportunity interest last or not at all.

We were led to believe in my youthful years that the Democratic Party was the working class party. That was when labor unions were strong, when we had presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, (perhaps) Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and (perhaps) Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, since 1980 we have been saddled with conservatives – Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. And, yes, even Barack Obama, who tries to be labor oriented but, unfortunately, got in bed with the bankers early on in order to get elected and reelected and has been repaying those debts ever since by looking past the felonies committed by these acclaimed pillars of society. His healthcare breakthrough has been good for the people but he skipped a great opportunity to reduce the overpowering control of equality of opportunity by the big banks. And perhaps, in all fairness to Obama, he could have accomplished much more if he had some congressional support, which has been zilch except for his first couple of years in office while he was still training for the job and getting acquainted with a few of the millions of employees suddenly under his reign.

As we witness in some European countries, from which our founders originated, Labor parties can be very effective. Political control of the various countries, such as Britain and France, seems to vacillate between the conservative and liberal leaning prime ministers. The British Labour Party, originally formed by the union movement, represents the interests of those who do the work, as opposed to the Whigs, who encourage a more constitutional form of government, and the Tories, who are in favor a strong monarchy. We see the leadership in France vacillate between conservative and liberal leaning prime ministers. In European countries socialist parties seem more effective than in the US. The fearsome term “communism” is not linked to socialism as it is here. French leaders are sometimes considered socialists, which would by definition be more labor oriented.

Of course, our unions took a devastating hit when Reagan showed up in 1980. He had been GE’s mouthpiece on the airways for years and knew all of the misleading arguments against collective bargaining as well as welfare for those less advantaged. He used his experience very effectively in the war against the workers and the needy. We should have formed a labor party then and there, while the labor unions still had funding capability. Instead the labor unions have linked with the Democratic Party, which has now become more of a Republican Party. We now have two likely candidates for president who are Republican by nature, Hillary and the Donald. And then there is the democratic socialist, Bernie, who could open a path to a labor party which could become an influential force for future contests for control of our government and our economy.

Yes, it is true. We have lost lots of wars the last few decades. We lost the war on drugs, the war of poverty, the war in Vietnam, the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan. And the war that was never mentioned that was actually won, and the one that did the most economic damage, was the war on the workers. That one is still going on although the corporations and the rich and powerful won it a long time ago.

We need a labor party so we can get back in the action, rearm our troops, take back some territory and maybe lose the war on the workers in the future.

Think about it!