PDA Blogpost by Randy Shannon

Secretary, PDA Board of Directors

Real Life Response to the Latest Political Entertainment

Today’s Washington Post article “Biden turns up the pressure on corporate “price gouging” as 2024 nears” is laden with entertaining irony.

President Biden blasted corporate ‘price gouging’ more forcefully this week than ever before, reflecting a renewed administration effort to respond to voter discontent over the economy as next year’s election looms…After weeks of internal meetings…Biden aides recently pitched the president a plan to sharply rebuke firms for not lowering prices despite record profits, according to three people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal deliberations. The president liked the idea and quickly approved it, the people said.

On Thursday, he followed up with a post on X. “Let me be clear to any corporation that hasn’t brought their prices back down even as inflation has come down. It’s time to stop the price gouging.”

Meanwhile Reddit is being populated by threads discussing how to survive in the neoliberal corporate hellscape. “What’s the best vehicle to live in with a family of four?” “My van has broken down, what’s the cheapest way to get it repaired?” “If I move to another state, how can I get free food?”

A brief retrospective: 

On April 12, 1962, President John Kennedy held a special press conference to demand that the executives of U.S. Steel (and many other domestic steel companies) roll back their recently-announced $6 per ton price increase. He accused steel executives of being virtually traitorous in their “pursuit of private power and profit.” He said that the Department of Defense would only order steel from the firms that rolled back prices. Steel companies quickly complied, rolling back prices the next day.

By the next day, Friday the 13th of April 1962, the nation’s eight biggest steel companies surrendered to the President’s demands in quick succession: At 3:05 pm, Kaiser Steel was the first domino, followed by Bethlehem Steel at 3:21. U.S. Steel bowed at 5:25, followed by Republic Steel (5:57), Pittsburgh Steel (6:26), Jones & Laughlin (6:37), National Steel (7:33), and finally Youngstown Sheet & Tube (at 9:09).

And:

On Aug. 15, 1971, in a nationally televised address, President Nixon announced, “I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States.”

After a 90‐​day freeze, increases would have to be approved by a “Pay Board” and a “Price Commission,” with an eye toward eventually lifting controls — conveniently, after the 1972 election.

President Biden’s Administration is controlled by the neoliberal oligarchs through their minions inhabiting the Executive Office, the Congress, the State Department, and the Department of Defense. So, these minions’ efforts to save their President can only result in words that harken to the real actions of previous Presidents when the US Government was supported but not controlled by the corporate elite. The Washington Post is their own newspaper and serves to control the neoliberal “news narrative.”

The American people are growing more disillusioned with this Democratic Administration as the crisis of economic survival deepens and their government focuses its real efforts on expanding the US global empire through sanctions and war. 

As CardiB said last week: 

“Joe Biden is talking about, ‘Yeah, we can fund two wars.’

Motherfucker’s talking about, ‘We don’t got it, but we got it, we’re the greatest nation.’ No the fuck we’re not. We’re going through some shit right now. We are really, really, really fucked right now.

The world is in fucking shambles… we can’t fund these wars. We can barely fucking fund this country.”

The solution to these problems must come from the key forces that are building power and momentum. These forces are mainly the labor movement, the black community, and the progressive and left organizations. 

The Congressional Progressive Caucus led by the “Squad” of African-American legislators is the political expression of these forces. They enjoy the support of PDA; and the growth of PDA will provide more troops to support this insurgency against control of the billionaire elite.

The trade union movement, now led by UAW President Shawn Fain, has broken out of the decades of repression and corporate domination, to become a leading voice for the people who understand that they must take their future in their own hands. The uprising of low wage workers at Amazon and Starbucks is a clear signal of change ahead.

The progressive and left organizations are moving toward cooperation and united action. An outstanding leader of this moment is former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, an African American leader of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Senator Turner has founded We Are Somebody. She discussed We Are Somebody at a recent PDA Town Hall. An article in The Intercept announced the new effort:

On Wednesday, the former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders surrogate launched We Are Somebody, an organization geared toward amplifying the work of unions and supporting striking workers, both financially and through organizing efforts. We Are Somebody adds to a steadily growing network of progressive organizations working in and outside of Washington, including labor-oriented outlets like More Perfect Union and Labor Notes and political organizations like Justice Democrats.

“In this country, the battle for workers and everyday people is so immense that you need a variety of organizations to come at the challenge from different angles. And We Are Somebody is a part of that larger coalition to come at this conundrum of inequality from a different angle,” Turner told The Intercept. She describes her new venture as “a capacity-building organization for the working class,” for which she drew inspiration from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Economic Bill of Rights and the nearly two-year long Alabama coal miners’ strike.