Obama's victory.

international | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Thursday November 06, 2008 17:56 by john throne - labors militant voice loughfinn at aol dot com

He selects his team.

"There is no one who represents the black inner city, who is rooted in the black community. It's the whole black Brahmin thing.: Vote for us because we're better than you."

Obama is moving very quickly to consolidate his victory and get his government prepared. The details are not known yet. There are rumours he will have two Republicans. What is certain is that he will make see to it that the overall compensation of his administration will reassure the capitalist class that his government will be safe and handle things in its interest.

Another aspect of the formation of the new administration will be the increased influence and rise of the African American bourgeois. The Wall Street Journal has an article on its front page today headed: "Black power brokers ready to rise in tandem with new president.

It writes: "For more than a decade Mr Obama has cultivated ties with a growing circle of black power brokers who are poised - and eager - to wield greater national influence. Some of these stand to gain new status in an Obama administration, and many more in law firms, big corporations and Wall Street." What we see here are the rising black corporate elite, the increasingly strengthening black bourgeois.

The article goes on to say: "Absent from the senator's advisory circle for instance, are the civil rights leaders and ministers who figured prominently in the candidacies of an older generation of black politicians such as Jesse Jackson." The article goes on to quote an influential African American minister from Boston, Eugene Rivers. He says: "There is no one who represents the black inner city, who is rooted in the black community. It's the whole black Brahim thing: Vote for us because we are better than you." Damning and accurate condemnation.

African Americans have a much higher rate of unemployment, have a much lower wage, have much worse housing than the population average. Obama did not mention this in his campaign. Obama is part of the rising African American bourgeois, and now as President he will move decisively to represent the US bourgeois as a whole. There will be great disappointment.

What is necessary is the building of a fighting working class movement in the African American population and the population as a whole.

#Build "Hands off our Homes" committees in the neighbourhoods to stop all foreclosures and evictions through mobilizing in direct action.

#Build "Hands off our Jobs/Wages/Benefits" committees in the workplaces and unions and defend our standards and rights through direct action.

#Link these committees together and mobilize working class people to defend every home and job and wage and benefit and to fight for a decent job on a decent wage and benefits for all. And to fight for universal free health care and a free federal equally funded education system.

#Out of these struggles and working class committees lay the basis for building a mass workers' party which can unite the working class in the country irrespective of race or gender in a struggle against the employing class and their parties and representatives. The Republicans and Democrats are capitalist parties.

#Basing ourselves on this struggle invite the millions of Obama volunteers and the tens of millions of Obama voters to work together in the struggle against foreclosures and evictions and to defend jobs, wages and benefits. And in doing so consider our analysis that the problems we face cannot be resolved inside the capitalist system or inside a capitalist party.

#Join us in building a mass workers' party and in fighting for a democratic socialist alternative to the present system with its mass poverty, destruction of the environment, wars and occupations. Only a democratic socialist world can solve the problems we face and this can only be brought about by an international democratic working class socialist movement.