Views in brief

A businessman in plumber's clothing

BARACK OBAMA and John McCain spent a good portion of the third and final presidential debate talking to their ol' buddy Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as "Joe the Plumber."

Being from Toledo, Ohio, I've paid some interest--as usually Toledo gets mentioned only as the "hometown of Katie Holmes," or as the place where a new home was built by Disney.

Anyway, McCain and Obama kept referring to Joe as if he were some representative of the mythological "middle" class in America. This view is not quite accurate.

"Joe the Plumber" is not, in fact, a plumber. According to a recent article published in the Toledo Blade, a search for a plumbing license under Mr. Wurzelbacher's name, and even under misspellings of his name, returned no results for a license. The company he works for is licensed, but Ohio law would still require the individual plumbers to be licensed themselves.

In the article, Tom Joseph of Local 50 of the United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics was interviewed, and he stated that the union plumbers, who have undergone apprenticeships and education on how to do their jobs, are the "real Joe the Plumber." So, basically, Joe Wurzelbacher is a scab who aspires to be a petit bourgeois business owner.

In reality, this discourse did nothing but attempt to promote the pro-business, pro-wealthy schemes of two "opposition" candidates whose main goal is to ensure that capitalism survives its current crisis. Neither candidate has put forth any real solutions to ensure that all Americans have health care. Either one will increase U.S. militarism. Both will preside over a system in which the rich will still profit from the labor of the workers.

It is, then, not real surprising that the "working-class hero" highlighted in this debate is none of the above, but a person who believes our borders should be sealed and that taxes should be lowered on the wealthy because they "earned" that money?
Alex Read, Toledo, Ohio

We have no illusions about Obama

REGARDING "UNDERCUTTING the struggle for real reform": Great exposé of the Health Care for America Now organization and its sure-to-fail incremental approach to health care reform.

I agree with you that their efforts will retard the movement toward a single payer solution. That's probably why they were formed.

One issue I'd like to bring up: You say that "many activists have enormous hope that Obama, if he wins the White House, will do the right thing and enact single-payer."

As a member of Progressive Democrats of America for the past three years, I have not met even one person in our organization who believes that. We have no illusions about Obama being a progressive or about him initiating legislation that challenges corporate power the way that single-payer does.

Rather, we think that under an Obama presidency, progressives will have an opportunity to influence policy if we can mobilize a broad, grassroots movement. If McCain were to win, even that door would be closed.
Bill Bianchi, Progressive Democrats of America, Chicago

A message to the banks

A RECENT story in the local news speaks to the brewing anger at the housing crisis, which has been made even worse now that the government just came up with $700 billion to bail out the banks.

It seems a man in Milpitas, Calif., got word that his house was being foreclosed on, and he had nine days to leave. Well, from what I hear, it is not that uncommon for people to leave a mess behind when a bank decides to kick you out of your house. But in this case, the resident, James Williams, was not going to just get evicted without making a stink.

Williams trashed the place and left all sort of "obscene" messages for Deutsche-Bank spray-painted on the house to let others know exactly how he felt. When interviewed, Williams said, "I watched legislation be passed, too late to save me. I watched banks get billions. I got no help."

Williams was rightly unapologetic for his actions. "Why not the bank? If they hadn't have thrown me off, I'd have cleaned it up. Nine days? This is what you get," said Williams.

Later, Public Works moved in and cleaned off the outside of the property. The city will be sending a bill to the bank, which now owns this place.

While these acts by individuals will not be the way we build pressure to force the government to bail us out instead of the rich, this story does speak to the growing anger and resentment which will be unleashed over the coming months and years due to this growing economic crisis.

Ultimately, unless we can organize this anger into collective action, we will see the rich (and the government flunkies they elect--both Republican and Democrat) continue to get away with these outrages.
Andy Libson, San Francisco

Safeguarding the right to vote

REGARDING "SMEARED for registering voters": The attacks and slanders against ACORN's voter-registration efforts, plus the mounting Republican-instigated drive to "suppress" voter turnout and participation--and indeed, the effort of Sarah Palin and others in and around the McCain campaign to encourage an incipient McCarthyite movement--all suggest to me, at least, that there is a basic question here of democratic rights--civil rights, voting rights--that transcends whatever one thinks of Obama's candidacy.

The civil rights movement fought for and largely won the right of African Americans to vote and to have their votes counted. That conquest is now under concerted attack in many areas of the country.

It seems to me that it's time to mobilize and speak out in defense of voting rights, and in particular, the right of African Americans, Latinos and poor people to participate in the electoral process, to vote and to have those votes counted.

I see no reason that this should not include working alongside Obama volunteers and organizers to register voters and, on Election Day, ensure that new voters get to the polls without hindrance. It would be great if International Socialist Organization activists and supporters took the lead in such an effort.
Russell Morse, from the Internet

Is Obama less threatening to the elite?

SO, WHY has Colin Powell come out for Barack Obama, and at this time?

I think there's a fear that John McCain might actually try to change things. I don't mean fundamental change. More of an "off with their heads" type of change--for example, firing the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

We'd see a big reduction in earmarks, outsiders (governors) coming into the cozy confines of the Beltway to swat at the special interests. We'd see an attempt to restore some elements of competition, which would threaten industries--like Boeing and investment banks--that have depended on cooperating closely with the government.

While the elites don't know Obama well, he has charmed them and is surrounded by people whom the establishment trusts. I think they're not seeing Obama as a leftist, but rather as an ambitious, young and charismatic man who conned the left early in his political career and has become a multi-millionaire in the process (hence one of them).

The fact that Obama is a con man doesn't bother them, as they are con artists--illusionists--themselves. The professional politicians, investment bankers, trial lawyers, academics and unionists (the rank and file of whom I do have sympathy with) see him serving their agendas once he is in office, through a Democratic Congress. Meanwhile, the activist legions who comprise his army of volunteers paint him with their dreams of real change.

I think the elites see McCain as the wild card, the man without the demeanor to be president. That is, he is someone they are not certain they could control. They may not be able to control Obama either, and may live to regret bringing him to power. If he screws up though, in their eyes, the elites would move away from Obama quickly during his first term. Meanwhile, the Republicans would turn to someone safe, someone the elites trust, like a Mitt Romney, for 2012. (Probably not Mitt Romney himself, however, as the Republican base would not support a Mormon.)

Do you think the media would be so lined up against McCain if Romney were running? Pure speculation, maybe, but I don't. I think we would have seen a lot more reporting on Obama's shadows.

It's my personal opinion, but I think Obama is an opportunist who would play ball as president, with a lot of empty symbolism tossed to the masses that have supported him. People like Dennis Kucinich would go forth to the activists--like he has already done--to try to convince them that change is coming. Kucinich has said his task is to keep the left in the Democratic party; he dutifully tried to do that during the Kerry election. Most people see Kucinich as an ineffective gadfly, but peace activists see him as a principled activist.

As for Colin Powell, he was one of the supreme backers of invading Iraq, along with Joe Biden. Without the two of them, Bush wouldn't have been able to get enough validation--through Congress and the United Nations--to start the war.

Bush and his war planners would have been isolated. Powell gave him the "coalition of the willing"--enough cover for Bush to say he had international backing. Powell has blood on his hands, in my opinion. It's ironic that Obama has sandwiched himself between Powell and Biden.

Only Fox has held out in the mainstream media, but I've seen even it become less pro-McCain lately. Yesterday, field reporters on Fox News gave very different performances than the ones they had been giving. Carl Cameron reported on McCain and then gave Obama's rebuttal, even though he is not with the Obama press corps. Then Major Garret reported on Obama's day, and included a bit about how some Republicans are complaining about McCain's campaign tactics.

Not exactly fair and balanced. Why has Fox turned? I think it's because it has relished having the large conservative slice of the marketing pie, but it's not looking forward to having an unpredictable person in the White House.

I think Powell is joining the "haves" who support Obama, signaling to the establishment powers who back McCain that Obama will not hurt their interests. Defense contractors needed to hear that message, perhaps, from the Obama camp's point of view. I'm sure Powell's coming out when he did was pre-planned. As with the Iraq War, when he went to the UN on Feb 5, 2003, a little more than a month before the start of the war--his coming out was to get Obama over the hump.

We have our work cut out for us. I get some comfort knowing that many of us will roll up our sleeves on November 5, no matter who is elected.
Charles Jenks, from the Internet