Railroaded, Again
Railroad tracks leading to the Tule Lake Concentration Camp for Japanese Americans. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
You can’t call the Democratic Party’s almost unanimous decision to back a strikebusting bill against railroad workers a “betrayal.” It’s more like the ultimate fulfillment of a project begun in 1985 with the birth of DLC designed to unshackle the party from its decades-long bond with organized labor so that it could free itself up to fill its campaign coffers with corporate cash.
The DLC was founded by the likes of Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, after Mondale’s loss. The DLC cynically titled their “think tank” the Progressive Policy Institute, although the only thing “progressive” about it was how it progressively moved away from the New Deal political programs which had come to define the modern Democratic Party.
Justified as a reformation of the party to attract white working class voters (the so-called Reagan Democrats), the “free” trade policies of the DLC and the Clinton/Gore administration hit the working class harder than almost any policies of the Reagan/Bush era. As the job losses from NAFTA took hold, Clinton (with Biden’s support) slashed the social safety net that would have cushioned the blows.
Now, Biden himself stands forth as the latest Reagan, whose poll numbers soared after he busted the PATCO strikers, prepared to stomp on the very workers he claimed to represent but never has when push comes to shove. (For more on this history see our new book, An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents.)
+ Democrats are always “pro-labor” until that crucial moment when labor asserts itself against the machinery of corporate profit-making. How the neoliberal Biden–the go-to senator for bankers, credit card companies, and the DuPonts–has gotten away w/ his Scranton Joe routine for 50 years is a mystery. The only unions he ever truly supported are the ones whose members are cops, firefighters and prison guards…
+ Net income of the railroad industry: $27 billion.
+ The Congressional Progressive Caucus folded faster than they did on Ukraine…
+ Here are the EIGHT House Dems who voted against the strikebusting railworker bill…
Rep. Norma Torres (CA-35)
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-13)
Rep. Mary Peltola (AK-01)
Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02)
Rep. Donald Norcross (NJ-01)
Rep. Jared Golden (ME-02)
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11)
Rep. Judy Chu (CA-27)
+ Has any party ever said Fuck You to its base more forcefully (or repeatedly)? I’m reminded of the Ramones song…
I don’t wanna walk around with you
I don’t wanna walk around with you
I don’t wanna walk around with you
So why you wanna walk around with me?
+ In Minnesota, the Democratic Party is still officially known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, not one of whom voted for railroad worker’s ability to strike today. Imagine a Banker Party failing to support bailouts for banks?
+ The question as always with Bernie Sanders is what was he willing to do about it? Would he filibuster the strikebreaking bill? Or simply initiate a distraction by offering a sick leave bill he knew had no chance of becoming law?
+ The latter, of course. Which he rationalized as a victory, even when it went down to defeat.
“I’m proud that the House of Representatives passed legislation to guarantee seven days of paid sick leave for all rail workers. While I’m disappointed that we were unable to get the 60 votes we needed in the Senate, we did receive the votes of every Senate Democrat, but one, as well as six Republicans.”
+ Joe Manchin signaled he will oppose adding paid sick leave to the rail strikebusting bill: “I’m really reluctant for us to jump in and set a precedent.” I guess the precedent of strikebreaking has already been set…
+ Manchin’s pals in the coal industry weren’t sweating the strike. They knew Biden would crush it: “We’re still believing that the federal government will be involved enough to prevent…So we’re placing a low probability on it.”
+ Is AOC really any better than Manchin? With both of them you usually end up in the same desolate legislative place. But Manchin’s much more honest about how you got there.
+ How does a political invertebrate define “stand”? By voting for it reluctantly, of course.
+ “Disappointed?” Really, is that the right word? How about: “appalled,” “disgusted,” “enraged,” “infuriated,” “inflamed,” “incensed,” “revolted” “exasperated” “maddened” or “pissed off”?
+ Jesse Walker: “Bipartisanship: when 211 Democrats who don’t mind slapping down labor team up with 79 Republicans who don’t mind interfering with contractual negotiations.”
+ Out of the planet’s 193 countries, 179 of them enjoy paid sick leave.
+ I’m not entirely sure, but I think the person in the lower right is signing: “What a jerk!”
+ It’s well-known that the Republicans will go to almost any lengths to “own the libs,” even to the point of political self-destruction. But here’s the thing: so do the Democrats, but they seek (as in this week’s strikebusting votes) to own the libs where it counts and hurts the most.
+ Binyamin Appelbaum: “The Democratic Party, which took both chambers and the White House in 2020 promising to pass a law that strengthens collective bargaining, just demolished collective bargaining in one of the few industries that still had it. Quite a legacy.”
+ Apparently, most Democrats can live on rhetoric alone. You’d think they’d be thinner…
+ But laborers can’t sustain themselves on such fatuous bombast and the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee responded by unanimously adopting a resolutiondeclaring the Congress’ move to be completely illegitimate, and saying they reserve the right to organize and prepare collective action.