Court rules against WalMart women

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fight back. Given the fact that Libya’s air defenses were destroyed, not to mention that significant numbers of Libya’s people have been murdered, we are not really at war with that country, the “lesser-evil” president asserted.

Democrats in Congress, although complicit in the president’s charade, joined with their Republican colleagues to rap Obama on the knuckles by denying further funding for the war. Then, in another bill, both parties approved continued funding for the Libyan slaughter.

As part of the “peace-candidate” hoax, Obama recently announced an “increased rate of withdrawal” of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. He pledged to withdraw some 30,000 troops by next summer, beginning with 10,000 by the end of 2011. Obama insisted that after America’s longest war—11 years and running—a trillion dollars expended, and 1500 U.S. troops lost, yesterday’s “terrorist threat” has virtually disappeared.

“The tide of war is receding,” said Obama. “It is time to focus on nation-building here at home.” Officially, of course, the U.S. government, even under the George W, Bush administration, rejects the concept of “nationbuilding,” that is, smashing unfriendly governments and disbanding historic cultural, religious, economic and cultural norms which U.S. imperialism finds contrary to its interests. But in his haste to re-position himself as a “peace candidate” the president apparently slipped and told the truth about U.S. war aims in Afghanistan.

“Peace candidate” rhetoric aside, more than two-thirds of all U.S. troops, approximately 100,000, will remain in Afghanistan, plus an estimated equal number of mercenaries. Additional, but unspecified numbers of troops are to be withdrawn by 2014, but the loopholes and contingencies in these provisions allow for nothing less than permanent occupation.

Meanwhile, “counterinsurgency” or secret terrorist attacks led by mercenaries and “special forces,” better named death squads, on suspected opponents of the U.S.-installed Hamid Karzai government remain central to U.S. Afghan strategy. “Al-Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11,” said an American commander, who neglected to add that al-Qaeda has been estimated for years to have about 40 fighters in Afghanistan.

A June 24 New York Times article reported Obama as stating, “The time to rely on massive military force is over. The need now is to focus on more clandestine operations of the type that the U.S. is conducting in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. When threatened we must respond with force. But when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.” “Targeted” of course, means destroying “enemy” forces via drone airplanes and death squads.

On June 20, some 1.5 million female employees who filed a class-action suit against WalMart for discrimination based on sex were faced with the cruel reality of corporate hegemony and sexism when their case was dismissed by the Supreme Court. Their case constituted the most important class-action case in over a decade.

Although there is ample evidence of WalMart’s sexist discrimination both in wages and in hiring, the case was thrown out because there is no companywide written policy of discrimination.

The plaintiffs argued that women are underrepresented among managers and hold only 14% of managerial positions versus over 80% of lower-ranking supervisory jobs that come with an hourly wage.

Regrettably, this decision will affect forthcoming Republican Tea Party leaders met last month, approving the following debt-cutting proposals for candidates running in some 18 swing states: (1) Balance the budget within 10 years; (2) Cut federal spending to 18 percent of GDP—a $1.3 trillion budget cut. (3) Reduce the $14 trillion national debt to no more than 66 percent of GDP (from 100 percent today). (4) Reduce federal spending by at least $300 billion the first year and at least $9 trillion over the next 10 years.

These goals, backed by most Republicans, are supposed to be achieved with no new taxes, more privatizations, health-care cutbacks, etc. Within the Tea Party framework of capitalist politics, without cutting military spending and without raising corporate tax rates, no one seriously believes that these proposals can be accomplished. But this is beside the point! All are designed to give the Democrats enough space to meet their “adversaries half way,” so to speak—that is, to move the broad bipartisan ruling-class agenda farther to the right.

Obama’s rhetoric aside, the “lesser evil” Democrats are in substantial agreement with the Republicans, already reconciling with them on critical issues, like cutting $200 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. How they achieve this is pure gamesmanship, an annual ritual wherein the few direct representatives of the ruling rich, taking into account their conflicting and coinciding interests, arrange back room deals to settle accounts.

Republicans and Democrats debate tax hikes and whether to renewing the previous time-limited tax breaks for the rich. In the end, however, both agree that workers must pay for the failure of the system itself. The class-action claims against Costco and other companies. Other major companies, including GoldmanSachs & Co., Toshiba, and Cigna Healthcare Inc. also face class-action claims from female employees. It is important to note that the court did not rule on whether or not WalMart was discriminatory, just that the plaintiffs could not proceed as a “class.”

Despite this tragic blow to the labor movement and to the ongoing struggle for women’s rights, WalMart workers angered by the Supreme Court’s decision vow to continue a united struggle. Further, they plan to file individual lawsuits against WalMart for sex discrimination. — ONA TZINGER (Above) Protest against Walmart decision outside Supreme Court building in Washington, June 21.

tax codes are replete with almost totally unknown tax breaks and outright gifts for the rich in every industry, not counting those who have, “under the law” moved their corporate headquarters outside the country to avoid paying taxes at all.

There is no end to evidence demonstrating that voting for and supporting Democrats as a “lesser evil” is a tactic that can never lead to effective social change. The worldwide capitalist crisis today compels Obama and the Democrats to make George Bush look like a liberal by comparison. Any serious challenge to his policies can and must arise from a fundamental break with both capitalist parties as well as so-called third parties like the Greens, which seek a “kinder, gentler” capitalism.

Challenging the evils inherent in all capitalist societies requires the concerted action of the great working-class majority, organized independently of all capitalist institutions and their political representatives. Today, the formation of a mass Labor Party based on a renewed, fighting, and democratic trade-union movement would be a good beginning.

Revolutionary socialists would actively build such a party and seek the adoption of a socialist program aimed at the construction of a new society that for the first time in human history would be based on the rule of the working-class majority in unison with all the oppressed and exploited. Exploitation of workers and despoliation of the environment would be ended. A democratically planned society would raise the quality of life for all. Today’s world of perpetual war and ever-increasing misery would be relegated to the dustbin of history. n