The following is a selection of recent letters sent to the World Socialist Web Site
On “Obama selects Biden to reassure the US ruling elite”
You write, “Today, neither party has any substantial popular base. In both parties there is only one true ‘constituency’: the financial aristocracy that dominates economic and political life and controls the mass media, and whose interests determine government policy, both foreign and domestic... Obama has selected Biden to provide reassurance that, whatever populist rhetoric may be employed for electoral purposes in the fall campaign, the wealth and privileges of the ruling elite and the geo-strategic aims of US imperialism will be the single-minded concerns of a Democratic administration.”
And I would say that’s about as well as it can be said.
CW
25 August 2008
* * *I am writing now to applaud and congratulate you for once again successfully obliterating popular notions put forth in US corpstate propaganda packages, demonstrating clearly that the Democratic Party is rotten from the neck up, and is equally as useless to working people as is the other major capitalist party, and indeed all the minor capitalist apologist parties.
Count me as one clamoring for creative unified direct action. The science is in on available solutions through the current prevailing politique. There are none apparent.
What to do?
In Solidarity,
TP
Shortsville, New York, USA
25 August 2008
* * *Yes, bravo your article on the VP Democratic candidate Biden; absolutely hits the nail on the head.
PB
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
25 August 2008
On “Democrats and Obama prepare platform of war and reaction”
Fine analysis, but I note that you adopt the Bush administration’s budget deficit of “approaching $500 billion.” A Republican conservative activist has calculated it as $829 billion when the trust fund surpluses and the unfunded costs of the war are added. Everyone does this in the MSM, no need to do it on WSWS.
BR
Orange Park, Florida, USA
23 August 2008
On “How the American ‘free press’ toed the government line on Georgia”
It’s odd that people still refer to US mainstream media in terms of the “free press.” Our news media are corporate entities, and as such report the news from the corporate perspective. Our political system is a corporate entity as well, and decisions concerning what news will (and won’t) be covered are based solely on those corporate interests. We can see this most strikingly in economic matters.
Politicians chose to pander to “the middle class” this election cycle—a small and shrinking group of comparatively comfortable people who are currently in fear of falling below middle class. The fear is based on the fact that our media, if mentioning the poor at all, does so only with sheer, cutting, contempt. America despises the poor. But for the most part, the political parties have all simply “disappeared” our poor, and they are almost never mentioned in the media. Indeed, the last time I heard any mention of the poor was in an article that alleged that, despite being in our worse economic crisis since the Great Depression, with tens of thousands losing their homes, homelessness has dramatically declined, and unemployment is negligible. That’s nonsense, we all know it, but that is what the media reports. This is our Brave New Reality.
Today, we see the suffering of the middle class, having no awareness of poverty in the US. Once you fall below middle class, you no longer exist. America’s free press has methodically been eliminated over the past 25-30 years, slowly enough so that many simply never noticed the changes. The most recent target is the alternative media. One tool, for example, has been to hike postage rates specifically for news magazines such as The Nation, and I’ve no doubt that this is just the beginning.
There is no free press in the US. We are given the news that the corporate/political leadership deems appropriate for us to know. There is no legitimate dissent, no opposing viewpoints.
DHF
Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, USA
22 August 2008
On “US exploits Georgia crisis to push through Polish missile deal”
There can be no question, even for the most rabid right-wingers amongst the ruling elites, that the “missile shield” to be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed at Russia and China. With future missile sites in Georgia and Japan, the encirclement of Russia and China would be complete, and we’ll be so much closer to an Orwellian “New World Order” so dreamed of and desired by the neo-conservatives. Poland, of course, will become the next battleground in the upcoming big power conflict. After 9/11 and during Washington’s era of aggression in Afghanistan, Akeksander Kwasniewski, a former member of the Stalinist PZPR, offered Polish airspace for US overflights, begged for an American base on Polish soil, and took part in the CIA rendition flight network. The present US-Poland arrangement is a new development, but quite in line with the perspective of Polish regimes from the early 1990s.
The other aspect is the qualitative and dangerous development of US foreign policy. Whereas post-World War II, the US attacked only small, relatively defenceless nations, this time it is a major power. It is toward this geo-political situation that Washington has been steadily and methodically moving. This is a dangerous and ominous development for the whole world, a sign of desperation of neo-con ruling circles in the US. Notable is the attempt to isolate Russia, by refraining from any aggressive moves or even criticism towards China. The US has apparently been repaid by China not overtly supporting Russia in the Georgia conflict, as one might expect. As the well-known Chinese curse mentions, we are indeed in “interesting times.”
MS
Queanbeyan, Australia
22 August 2008
On “Propane worker cites cost-cutting as cause of massive Toronto explosion”
It is true workers have to work in unsafe environments with no say. Take the government allowance of the deunionization of Schneiders after it was bought by Maple Leaf. Machines were transferred to Maple Leaf from the union facilities. Then the union employees were let go. Some had 30 and 40 years of meat production service. Those that did not take the severance were transferred to non-union Maple Leaf and were laid off shortly thereafter. Most likely this had something to do with listorosis infections.
CS
Toronto, Canada
23 August 2008
On “France: Stalinist paper l’Humanité on verge of bankruptcy”
This article analyzes how the constantly bankrupt policies of France’s stridently Stalinist and amoral newspaper has led to virtual bankruptcy of the Stalinist publication. The almost poetic irony of moral bankruptcy leading to fiscal bankruptcy is patently obvious.
LL
23 August 2008