The Bitter Consequences of Corporate America's War on Unions

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/16/bitter-consequences-corporate-americas-war-unions

Republican elites and their patrons have made antagonism toward labor a defining characteristic of their platform. And as Connor Kilpatrick argues, American liberals, far from filling the vacuum left by a party devoted to the wealthy, have adopted a thinly veiled attitude of condescension toward the working class — an attitude that coincides with the rise of neoliberalism, with its favorable view of big business, deregulation, and free trade.

"It becomes clearer every year, particularly with Sanders’s popularity," Kilpatrick writes, "that the American ruling class has made out like bandits simply by keeping portions of the large (and potentially powerful) working class from uniting in a single political party behind even a social-democratic program. And that such a scenario would be nothing short of a disaster for them."

As Democratic Party leaders — and, indeed, the party's likely nominee, Hillary Clinton — rely on high-profile fundraisers featuring celebrities and fat-cat executives and peddle an agenda championing incremental reform as the means to achieve revolutionary ends, working people are left isolated, angry, and without a platform.

Bernie Sanders, despite being shunned by the party establishment for his efforts, has provided them with such a platform, and his remarkable campaign can serve as a foundation from which the working class can build sustainable movements that will be necessary to subvert the horrendous trends embodied by the conditions experienced, on a daily basis, by American factory workers.