The Council on Foreign Relations, the Biden Team, and Key Policy Outcomes. Serving a corporate ruling class.

Jun 27, 2021

The U.S. working class, led by people of color, has, at least temporarily, defeated the criminal Trumpian regime and the specter of the consolidation of gangster neofascism.

… Together with private think tanks that reflect the needs and wishes of the plutocracy, the U.S. government constantly faces challenges at home and abroad. The Biden administration has brought in many well-trained professionals, “seasoned players” from the CFR, other private think tanks, strategic advisory groups, and corporations, to attempt to handle the perfect storm of problems that accumulated during the disastrous Trump years. Both the existence of a skeptical U.S. population and pressure from the large progressive sector of the Democratic Party has meant that Biden and his team have tried to hide their plutocratic nature with rhetorical flourishes about “diversity” using the Democratic Party version of representation politics as a cover.

A central problem is that the CFR and the plutocratic U.S. ruling class is much more interested in global domination than ecological sustainability. It has a long history of both refusing to recognize the seriousness of the climate crisis and an imperialistic posture toward other nations. Both tendencies are based on the requirements of the capitalist system and are likely to become manifest sooner or later, including a superpower arms race. This is true even though there are some indications that some members of the Biden team recognize that something like a serious Green New Deal is needed and China is now on par with the United States in overall power, and therefore new, more moderate and careful foreign policies are required. Ultimately, our movements need to more intensively organize on a class basis, independent of the Democratic Party, to force onto the Biden agenda both a strong, ecosocialist Green New Deal and a peaceful approach to China and other nations. Since the Biden team is dominated by “inside game” players whose forte is making deals and ignoring and attempting to bargain down movement demands, heavy pressure by the organized and united U.S. multinational working class will be required. Plutocratic politicians and their professional experts want the people to vote them in, then disappear so they can serve their corporate ruling-class masters in peace, forcing the people to become mere spectators. This is what Obama did, rapidly dismantling the movement that elected him. One result was that Trump captured a significant sector of a frustrated population.

Since the Biden team will likely need to be forced to do what is needed, and since they only respond to power, activists have to generate and apply maximum pressure. A tendency toward dismissive postures and contemptuous attitudes toward the working population—the very people responsible for their being in power—can be expected from an administration, already subject to plutocratic interests, both from within and without. Consequently, intense pressure from the democratic majority of working people at the bottom of the social hierarchy, constituting the most diverse sector of the U.S. population, is exactly what is now required if we are to avoid the immense dangers looming before us and the world as a whole.

This is an excerpt from a review published by the Monthly Review.

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