Obama Delegate Norman Solomon Defends Warmongering Death Penalty Democrats

On Hiroshima Day, August 6, 2008, when we commemorate the racist and unnecessary use of atomic weapons Democratic President Harry Truman against Japan to warn the Soviet Union that the 20th Century was to be the “American Century,” Norman Solomon shamefully defended the warmongering pro-death penalty Democratic Party in a debate with antiwar activist Larry Everest on 94.1 FM KPFA’s Flashpoints on the non-existent differences between Democrat Obama and Republican McCain.

This program can be heard at: http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=27718

The current street chant is “We remember Hiroshima (Democrat Truman); we remember Vietnam (Democrats Kennedy and Johnson), Democratic Party, we know which side you’re on.”

The horror of hearing Obama delegate, Democrat Norman Solomon, one of the shameful defenders of the government’s conspiracy theory lie on the 9/11 Inside Job, on antiwar community radio, KPFA, 94.1 FM, was illustrated once again on this broadcast, and hopefully it is the last time we have to suffer with these shameful defenses of the Democratic Party on KPFA.. It lasted an entire half hour on Hiroshima Day, when we should have heard about the crimes of Democrat Harry Truman, who not only dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6 and 9, 1945 respectively but also arrested Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell in 1950 in a vicious frame-up to build support for a war of anti-communism against Korea, in an attempt to make Jew, Communist and traitor synonymous. Sobell was imprisoned for some 19 years, freed essentially by the peace movements against the next anti-communist war, the war against Vietnam. The Rosenbergs were murdered by the American government, Democrats and Republicans together, on June 19, 1953. By refusing to cooperate with the government’s frame-up, they literally broke the back of the Cold War, perpetrated by Democrat Harry Truman.

Norman Solomon tried to raise the issue of Supreme Court appointments. The anti-abortion majority, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas, were all approved by Democrats as well as Republicans. It was Nixon appointee Justice Harry Blackmun who wrote the majority opinion in 1973 in Roe v. Wade, guaranteeing women a right to a safe and legal abortion. It was Kennedy appointee, Justice Byron White, who dissented. It was the massive peace movement, and its accompanying civil rights movements including the women’s liberation movement, that made possible this 1973 decision legalizing abortion, not the Democrat-Republicans. The biggest issue the Democrats like to promote is that they support women’s right to abortion which is a lie. Senator Majority leader Harry Reid is anti-abortion, Democrat Dennis Kucinich had an anti-abortion record before he suddenly became pro-choice (but not pro-abortion) in order to run for president so as to divert the peace movement to the dead-end of the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party is busy welcoming the anti-abortion crowd.

The other civil rights issue, besides women’s rights, that was not discussed was the death penalty. Both Obama and McCain are staunch supporters of the racist, anti-workingclass death penalty, which is always a class weapon against the workingclass, and in racist USA, a racist weapon. By supporting the death penalty, Obama makes very clear that he will do nothing to oppose the prison-industrial complex and the daily police state terror in the black community. As Larry Everest stated, Obama has been promoting the vicious lie that the problems of the black community, overwhelmingly workingclass, are their own fault. His speech on Father’s Day condemning African-American fathers would have made Hitler proud.

A major domestic issue that was not discussed was healthcare. Both Obama and McCain support private insurance funded healthcare systems, like the disaster we have now, resulting in the US having the highest infant mortality and lowest life expectancy in the industrialized world. The rest of the industrialized world has national healthcare provided by their tax dollars. We pay the most and receive the least.

Larry Everest, author of Oil, Power & Empire, did a good job of advocating grassroots organizing but needs clearer definitions of the capitalist parties and what is to be done to get rid of it before humanity and the planet are destroyed. It is not only true that the Democrat-Republicans are the parties of the ruling imperialist capitalist class, which perpetrates a dictatorship, but also these parties are paid to play the good cop/bad cop game by the SAME CORPORATIONS, who of course are giving money to both because they expect both parties’ candidates will guarantee maximum profits, the goal of capitalism, which always means the vicious exploitation of the workingclass. Grassroots organizing around various issues is fine but the only way we can get rid of capitalism is by supporting labor organizing so that labor is strong enough to carry out a general strike. Only labor can put an end to the private profit system that is the cause of all these wars.

As to voting, elections simply confirm the class struggle that has preceded them, if any. We now have alternative electoral parties that do not accept corporate contributions, namely the Green Party, running Cynthia McKinney for President, and Peace & Freedom Party, running Ralph Nader for president. For those who participate in voting, only by voting your conscience can you send a clear message of what you need and want done.

Norman Solomon even admitted that there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans when it comes to supporting the US military base called Israel, which steals Palestinian land and murders and torturers Palestinians, all paid for with our tax dollars to the tune of $4 billion a year. Yet, he continues to defend the Democrats and is in fact a delegate to the Democratic Party convention. Such a person has no business being on KPFA at all. THE PALESTINIAN ISSUE IS A LITMUS TEST ISSUE, and every single Democrat and Republican at all levels fails on this issue. Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland-Berkeley supported the resolution praising the Butcher of Palestine, Ariel Sharon. Only the Green Party and the Peace & Freedom Party support the Palestinian liberation struggle.

Norman Solomon claimed that things somehow improve under the Democrats. This writer has witnessed almost 60 years of living in the backward USA and things have only gotten worse, whether it be the pro-war, death penalty Democrats or Republicans in office. Some improvements were made in the 1960s and 1970s, but only because of mass struggle against the capitalist class for its war against Vietnam, and its racism at home, but also because both struggles were based on the economic advances and comparative prosperity made possible by the labor movement of the 1930s. It was the 1934 general strikes in San Francisco, Minneaplois and Toledo that made possible the 1935 laws providing for Social Security and unemployment insurance and the right to organize labor unions. The economy has declined, labor is much weaker, and there are no more crumbs to toss to the workingclass, so the twin parties of the capitalist class, the Democrat-Republicans, have nothing to offer us, and neither does Norman Solomon, and his rotten Democratic Party, which only exists to make sure we never vote Red or Green as there is no other reason for two capitalist parties with the same capitalist agenda to exist.