January 16 — The war has begun. It is a time to remember the words of Karl von Clausewitz, whom Lenin described as "one of the greatest writers on the history of war."
"War," said Clausewitz, "is simply the continuation of politics by other means." And what is the objective of all the politics of the U.S. ruling class? To facilitate the systematic garnering in of the greatest possible profits through the exploitation of the workers and the super-exploitation of the oppressed peoples.
This is what the workers must be told. They must be able to look beyond the war itself to the politics behind it. The bourgeoisie, of course, will do all it can to prevent this and sow illusions about who can stop the war. One of these illusions has just been exploded, yet it continues to surface in new forms.
Nothing is so sacrosanct in constitutional law as the proposition that each branch of government is independent and co-equal with separate powers. This is repeated over and over again in the legal textbooks, to the point of tedium.
Yet the historical evolution of the capitalist government has proven that none of this is true, that the branches are often at war with each other.
This has given rise to yet another illusion, that the judiciary stands above both the legislative and executive branches, and indeed acts as the ultimate arbiter. Thus, time and again, lawyers embark upon a legal course to demonstrate that one of the branches has encroached upon another. Frequently, the judiciary does act in its capacity as arbiter, awarding judgment to the aggrieved party.
Nevertheless, there is one branch of the capitalist apparatus which, almost since the end of the Civil War, has steadily and consistently accumulated more power than either of the other two branches. In fact, it stands as a colossus, towering over them.
The executive branch has acquired for itself so much power in the course of its evolution that it is often referred to as the imperial presidency.
From where and how did it obtain such an immense accumulation of power? As judges and lawyers alike are fond of citing, there are strict constitutional prohibitions against such a thing happening.
Every schoolchild is taught that Congress has the authority to enact laws; the president as the chief executive is entrusted with enforcing and carrying out these laws.
Congress alone, it is written in the Constitution, has the authority to declare war and raise an army. It also controls the military budget, a function of its appropriation power.
Yet it would be foolhardy for anyone, certainly in the progressive and working class movement, to believe that Congress is capable of stopping an imperialist war.
Congress alone has the authority to appropriate money — the precious power over the purse. What greater power does an institution need? Yet, if one looks a little more closely, the money appropriated by Congress is expended only by the executive branch.
At any one time, the executive has in its coffers hundreds of billions of dollars. Federal funds are dispensed by a myriad of agencies under the jurisdiction of the executive branch.
That fact alone puts both the Congress and the judiciary in a subordinate position.
Even a cursory look at the past 100 years shows it is not the Congress that really and truly decides these questions. It is the presidency, the executive branch. And this has become more and more pronounced in the last half-century.
Let us examine the latest example. When on Aug. 2 the Iraqi government sent its troops into Kuwait, President George Bush within days began a large-scale deployment of U.S. air, naval and ground forces into the Gulf area.
The 435 representatives and 100 senators must have been alarmed, since so far as the public knows none were either informed or consulted. For weeks, the Bush administration flagrantly continued the gargantuan military buildup.
Right through September, few voices of alarm or opposition were heard in Congress. They only became louder after the huge October 20 demonstrations organized by the Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East.
The Congress had the option of immediately convening a session of both houses to take up the matter. Instead, they took a long vacation.
There were two phases of this particular military adventure in which the Congress might have played a key historical role.
In the first phase, those prone to question presidential authority for such a vast and unprecedented deployment could buttress their courage by referring to the War Powers Act, which was passed at the end of the Vietnam War to reinforce the constitutional authority of Congress on the declaration of war and to rein in the presidency.
All that was necessary was a letter signed by the majority leaders in both houses, both Democrats, to clearly call to Bush's attention that he had violated both the Constitution and the War Powers Act, and that he must either call back the troops within 30 days or get authority from the Congress to validate what he had already done. If not, he would be in violation of the law and must face the possible consequence of impeachment.
Would this have been so drastic? After all, it concerns the question of peace or war, life or death.
But they did no such thing. The deployment continued, and the White House actually argued that it was not necessary to invoke the War Powers Act, since the troops were not being sent to a combat zone!
The Pentagon continued its buildup. But the October 20 demonstrations had broken the ice, and voices of protest began to be heard all over the world.
The Bush administration became fearful of the rising revolutionary sentiment all over the Middle East. Protests soon began to engulf Europe. And the Japanese government, which was so eager to join the military adventure in the Gulf, encountered a storm of protest in parliament. This reflected the anti-war sentiment not only in Japan but all over Asia, where Japan's unbridled militarism, with its great cruelty and casualties, had not been forgotten.
Before October 20, a few congresspeople argued that only Congress could authorize the military deployment, only Congress could declare war. But the president and his horde of assistants and servitors answered with a gimmicky and cynical new interpretation. They said that yes, Congress can declare war, but only the president can make it. That's why he's the commander in chief. There the matter rested.
Then came a psychological change in the mass mood which the Bush administration became fully aware of. They not only lacked support among the world's people, but they lacked the popular support at home necessary to launch such a dangerous military adventure.
It was then, and only then, that the Bush administration began to reverse its position. While earlier he opposed Congress convening, for fear they would be forced into asserting that only they had the right to initiate war, now the situation had dramatically changed. Bush needed Congress to meet and support his war moves, or he would be placed in an extremely precarious situation, lacking a show of political support from the representative bodies of the U.S. government.
So now Bush was all for convening Congress. But no long debate — put them on a short leash. Give them a timetable. Threaten to bend them out of shape, intimidate and harass them, do anything, but get the war resolution passed on schedule before mass pressure against the war overwhelmed them all.
The high-pressure, brass knuckles strategy worked, as it has ever since the Spanish-American War of 1898.
How did they get away with it? The enormous strength of the executive as against the legislature lies not in chicanery, deceit, political manipulation and all that, although these abound in bourgeois politics. The basic reason is the inexorable and irresistible growth and centralization of capital.
The means of production have become centralized in ever smaller and more powerful groupings of financiers, industrialists and military contractors, buttressed by huge mega-banks of transnational proportions.
The centralization of capital has inevitably made the executive branch the chief repository of political strength. For example, Congress theoretically has the right to coin money. But it all resides in the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. The executive branch can devalue or revalue the dollar. All capitalist governments have this prerogative, and no parliament ever interferes.
The processes of capitalist development have led to the growth of huge financial institutions intertwined with the executive branch of the government. Modern communications facilitate this. The government's trade in currencies and its efforts to control the anarchic forces of the financial markets make the executive branch the most naked and formidable instrument of finance capital. It can act with speed, as against the sluggishness of the bourgeois legislative body.
Despite all this, however, a legislator can still utilize the Congress as a forum or tribune to arouse the masses, to give voice to their demands and to their needs; can use it as both a political and organizational weapon in the struggle against the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the banks, and all the rest of the oppressors and exploiters of the working class and oppressed.
They may not be able to influence the manipulations of the bankers, they may not have control over interest rates or commodity exchanges or the stock exchange or the hundred and one other economic and financial categories which the bourgeoisie controls and will not surrender except under the threat of insurrection.
But if they are determined, they can mobilize the masses by speaking truthfully, forcefully and clearly.
It is no answer to say that those in Congress who opposed Bush's war resolution were in a minority.
There's a classic example in U.S. history of a congressional minority that blocked legislation. The racist Dixiecrats for years prevented the passage of the anti-lynching bill. Even though a majority in both houses supported the bill, it never passed. The racists filibustered it to death year after year.
Finally, after massive demonstrations, it was superseded by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The pro-war resolution could also have been stalled by a minority in Congress, especially since this minority was just a few votes short of a majority and reflected the overwhelming sentiment in the country.
Or look at the minimum wage bill and the clean air and water act. Because of the delaying tactics of big business, they stayed on the calendar for months and years before ever getting to the floor of Congress. The senators and representatives lobbied by the big corporations made sure the process went slow as molasses.
Considering this is a life-and-death matter, there is no reason why determined members of Congress couldn't have disrupted the session in the event the pro-war resolution passed. The people are ready to prevent business as usual. Why should an elected representative be any different?
The ruling class wants to direct the anti-war movement into government channels. But the real struggle is in the streets. Any opposition in Congress worth its salt will use their tribune to enhance the mass struggle and not draw it into legislative chambers where it would only be talked to death.
Last updated: 19 February 2018