WALL STREET SEEKS BAILOUT BY SOUTH CAROLINA AFRO-AMERICANS!Statement by Revolutionary Organization of Labor, USA – February 14, 2016
The Bush II and Obama Administrations each in turn gave Wall Street an almost one trillion dollar bailout within the first year after these same Wall Street criminals created the 2008 economic crisis. As Senator Bernie Sanders has pointed out, Wall Street has paid $200 billion in fines yet not one of these criminals has gone to jail. In fact, we can calculate that the bailout gifts from these two "Republicrat" administrations (from our tax money) left Wall Street at least one and one-half trillion dollars ahead! Meanwhile, the crisis still plagues most of the rest of the 99% of us in the USA till this very day, almost eight years later.
The "generosity" of the rest of us toward the super rich U.S. ruling class evidently does have some limits though: In the 2016 presidential election season thus far the candidates of the mainstream Republican and Democratic parties, the "Republicrat" candidates of Wall Street such as Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, have been unable to mount effective campaigns — even with their campaign coffers flush with largely untraceable corporate cash thanks to the Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.
While the fascistic Tea Party candidates — Trump, Cruz, Carson and Rubio — are attracting the Republican primary voters, they are even scarier than the Republicrats. It is in the Democratic Party primaries that the Sanders campaign provides some limited ability of the U.S. working class and masses to express our political needs and aspirations. It is in this campaign that thousands of us are gathering around the elementary truth that Wall Street has much too much and Main Street is entitled to much more than we have. It is here that we are taking the first political baby steps toward seizing political power from Wall Street finance capital backed by "Republicrat" political rule and the U.S. military/police forces at home and around the world.
Tragically, Sanders, like all the other "Republicrat" and Tea Party candidates, is a defender of the U.S. Empire. Thus, on foreign policy issues, as usual, the Democratic/Republican political duopoly in the 2016 Campaign effectively suppresses the ability of the U.S. population to express solidarity with the rest of the international working class and the oppressed peoples against the unceasing U.S. imperialist-led War of Terror from North Africa and the Middle East to Asia and Latin America. This is why Sanders could say from the outset that he will support the Democratic Party candidate and that he "likes" the brutal war criminal Hillary Clinton with her hands stained with the blood of the peoples from Honduras to Syria and Libya.
Nonetheless, the Bernie Sanders campaign is mobilizing among the 99% of us to make economic, political and social demands on the U.S. monopoly capitalist ruling class. And the campaign is gathering momentum far beyond anything even Sanders had imagined. After a virtual tie in Iowa, Sanders decisively defeated Clinton 60% to 40% in New Hampshire, even winning among woman voters.
In fact, the Clinton campaign, with the hopes and prayers as well as the financial blessings of the Wall Street ruling class, is counting upon the Black masses of South Carolina to deliver Clinton and Wall Street from the serious and simple demands for single payer health care (that would wipe out the health insurance industry), free public college tuition (that would stop the loan sharks feeding on struggling students), $15/hour minimum wage (almost a living wage). Yet, there is almost no other sector of the U.S. population that would benefit more than South Carolina's Afro-American population from taking from the Wall Street rich and funding these programs for the rest of us!
–Why the Wall Street Rich Believe the Afro-American people of South Carolina Will be Their Deliverance–
Eight years ago, Obama won his first primary victory in South Carolina. We reported then, “In South Carolina, in a record turnout, more than half of the votes in the Democratic Primary were Afro-American. Eighty percent of the Afro-American voters supported Obama. It was on the basis of this Black solidarity or Black electoral power that Obama won an overwhelming victory in the South Carolina primary—55% to Hillary Clinton's 27% and Edwards' 15%. Yet Obama did nothing to encourage the hard-pressed Afro-American people of South Carolina.
Exultant in this decisive victory, Obama and his campaigners chanted, "Race doesn't matter!" in the face of the obvious fact that 'race' had mattered there ... instead of expressing appreciation to the Black masses for the victory and dedicating himself to representing their interests, Obama and his 'campaigners' insulted the Black masses, deprecating their effort. As if ashamed of their support, Obama distanced himself from the very people who had provided his victory.” (“The 2008 Presidential Election, the Barack Obama Campaign, and the Need for Afro-American National Liberation,” Ray O' Light Newsletter #47, February-March 2008)
(over)
Through the eight years since, the Afro-American people of South Carolina have continued to show remarkable loyalty to Obama, in spite of the fact that his seven years in the U.S. Presidency have seen their fortunes grow ever more desperate economically and politically and socially. From the execution of Troy Davis to the immediate and unjust firing of Shirley Sherrod, the first Afro-American head of the Georgia Department of Agriculture, to the Obama-Ied War on Libya and the African Continent and his elimination of the Department of Homeland Security monitors of White Supremacist terrorist groups which paved the way for Dylann Roof to massacre the bible study group at Charleston's most historic Afro-American church, Emanuel AME Church, just days after a white North Charleston cop fatally shot a Black man eight times in the back. Obama and U.S. imperialism praised those among the bereaved church families who had reverted to a slave culture. They forgave the cold-blooded Roof who had not shown any remorse or asked to be forgiven.
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Now, days before the 2016 South Carolina presidential primary, a huge fraud is being perpetrated upon the Black masses of South Carolina. On February 11th, the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee, announced its endorsement of Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders. There had been no vote by the Congressional Black Caucus itself! There are 46 members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The CBC PAC voters had included eleven lobbyists, 2 PAC officials and seven elected officials. These are the people responsible for bringing the money into the CBC. And they dutifully followed the money. And the money is with Clinton. And most of the CBC members kept their mouths shut.
To try to seal the deal, Congressman John Lewis, a true icon of the 1960's civil right movement, grabbed center stage at the CBC PAC Press Conference and disgraced himself with a fraudulent statement no doubt addressed directly to the Black masses of South Carolina.
Congressman Lewis, at other times a modest person, trashed Bernie Sanders' role in the civil rights movement. Lewis who, with other civil rights heroes, functioned in the Black Belt South in the early 1960's, dismissed Sanders by stating that he had never met Sanders in that period. Lewis immediately added that he had met Hillary and President Clinton. Hillary Clinton had actually been an active supporter of Senator Barry Goldwater's Republican Presidential run in 1964. And Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964! In fact, Hillary Clinton had remained a Young Republican until 1968. Sanders had been an active member and leader in Chicago of CORE, a major civil rights organization.
The only member of the Congressional Black Caucus who has endorsed Sanders, and the only Muslim in Congress, Keith Ellison, exposed the absurdity of Lewis' "testimony" about not knowing Sanders in a period when there were thousands in the movement all over the country and when Sanders and Lewis were working in different parts of the country. Others have come forward with documentation including photos of Sanders in action back then. This was very positive. In addition, Ben Jealous, the former head of the national NAACP has also endorsed Sanders. If the word from Congressman Ellison and President Jealous gets to the Afro-American voters in South Carolina, they will have the opportunity to think for themselves about who to vote for and against.
A final thought: Hillary Clinton has been wrapping herself around Obama and is now touting the fact that Barack Obama got more money from Wall Street than anyone else in the 2008 Campaign. She then tries to say Obama wasn't bought and she praises Obama's alleged "fight" against Wall Street, challenging Sanders to spill the beans about Obama and lose the vote in South Carolina. Because Sanders is tied to the Democratic Party and the U.S. Empire, it is unlikely he will tell the people the truth about Obama and Wall Street. Nevertheless, Sanders has stated that the people of this country understand that if the sharks on Wall Street are "investing" in political candidates they expect to get a big pay-off. So, on this fundamental question of Big Money in politics, the Sanders Campaign is helping to educate the people. It is all to the good.
Meanwhile, the fact that Ben Jealous, Keith Ellison and other Black leaders are supporting Sanders against the Wall Street candidate and against the tired old leadership of a corrupt Congressional Black Caucus is the beginning of a new way forward for an Afro-American liberation movement that has been unwilling to participate in constructive and principled criticism for decades since the martyrdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. placed him and black leadership "above criticism."
We are confident that when the Afro-American masses of South Carolina grasp this truth, they will reject the Wall Street bailout.
No to Wall Street Bailout in South Carolina!
Toward Victorious Afro-American National Liberation!
— Ray Light
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