The public clash between Obama and his top general in Afghanistan highlight the difficulties US imperialism is facing in what is clearly an unwinnable war. What the general has done is to express in public what is normally reserved for private conversation, but it does bring out clearly the impasse the US is facing in Afghanistan.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlights the real state of US capitalism today. While making a lot of noise, Obama is not prepared to take on the oil companies in any serious meaningful way. What he is doing is passing the buck to the US working class.

This document was drafted in the Spring of 2010, and discussed, amended, and approved at the May 2010 National Congress of the Workers International League. A new phase is opening up in U.S. politics and the Labor Movement as American workers find their backs against the wall and have no option but to fight back.

It’s been close to a month since the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico, just 45 miles south of the already beleaguered gulf coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi. The ensuing oil spill may well surpass that which followed the wreck of the Exxon Valdez, which poured over 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in the spring of 1989. British Petroleum, which was the operator of the oil platform, had been leasing the rig from the deep seas drilling conglomerate TransOcean. BP initially estimated the daily oil spillage to be 1,000 barrels. Within a week of the disaster, that figure was ratcheted upwards by the United States

Well over a year since Obama came to power, virtually nothing has been done for the labor movement. No Employee Free Choice Act, no universal health care, no universal living wage, no equal rights for immigrant workers, no repealing of anti-labor laws like Taft-Hartley. The mines are as unsafe as ever and workers continue to die for the profits of the shareholders...This all highlights yet again what Socialist Appeal has explained since our founding issue: we need a mass party of labor to fight for and represent the interests of working class majority of this country. As representatives of the bosses the Democrats simply cannot and will not do this.

A recent New York Times/CBS Poll presents interesting findings for those interested in the demographics and opinions represented by the so-called “Tea Partiers.” The poll finds support for the Tea Party at just 18%, much lower than the 27% reported in earlier polls. They also added a second and far more relevant category, “Tea Party activist,” for those who have actively done something to “build the movement.” They found that just 4% have actually attended rallies, donated money, etc., which is hardly the “grass roots rising tide” that has been presented in the media.

Reports from Canada and the USA indicate that the crisis of capitalism is having an effect on the trade unions, with radical speeches being given, particularly in Canada. In the USA, in spite of May Day not being an official celebration, there was a massive turnout in Dallas, and rallies in many cities, where the immigrant workers were present in sizeable numbers, but also workers in general involved in ongoing disputes.

In recent years, the mass mobilizations of immigrant workers for their rights has once again brought May Day to the forefront of many workers’ consciousness. Paradoxically, however, “International Workers’ Day” is not widely celebrated in the country where it was born. In fact, it comes as a surprise to many to learn that May Day was originally “Made in the USA.” Today, with millions being forced to work longer and harder for less pay, despite record levels of unemployment, it’s relevant to take a look at the history of this tradition of struggle and its lessons for 2010.

At the forefront of the workers’ movement in the last few years have been undocumented immigrants, most of them from Latin America. In the Spring of 2006, they poured onto the streets by the millions, as decades of discrimination and exploitation boiled to the surface. The traditional non-profits, labor leaders, and “progressives” in general were unable to control the movement when it first erupted. Lacking confidence in or an understanding of how the working class moves, they were taken completely by surprise.

A record number of Americans are without health coverage of any kind, and yet, the five biggest health insurance companies officially marked their highest ever profits in 2009.

On April 5, 29 miners were killed in an explosion at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia. This is the worst mining accident in the United States since 1970. Graeme Anfinson in the United States points out that Massey Energy's prime objective was profit and nothing is allowed to get in the way of that, not even the lives of these hardworking miners who produce the profit in the first place.

With fully a third of the American population now living on less than $21,000 a year and the cost of living continuing to skyrocket, it should come as no surprise that basic necessities like nutritious food, decent housing, medical care, and winter heating are priced outside the means of so many.

America -- a land of opportunity -- so the saying goes. But this is such a shallow phrase when you look into it deeper, right into the heart and core of the future of the US working class, which is the youth and education, where we see that the supposed “equality” is no where near being equal. In fact, it looks like American education is more based on keeping people poor and ignorant to keep a steady supply of cheap, unskilled labor to work the few jobs that are available, than actually providing a real education.

Only a year after the elation that followed his victory, the general consensus is that Barack Obama hasn’t actually done very much; other than continue his predecessor’s policies in one form or another.

On January 24th, the US Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, ruled to remove the remaining spending limits on corporate involvement in elections. The ruling has been criticized by many as a dangerous encroachment by the wealthiest corporate interests and an undermining of free, democratic elections. But even before the court’s decision, corporate cash remained a prime mover of both capitalist parties in Congress and the White House. The influence of the big banks, corporations and the wealthiest will always be a controlling feature of formal democracy under capitalism.