$6-billion and over a year of campaigning later, and it would appear that the status quo remains. Obama is still the president; the Democrats control the Senate; and the Republicans control the House of Representatives. On the surface, "nothing has changed." Taken at face value, this is correct. As we have explained many times before, both Obama and Romney are defenders and advocates of the capitalist system. Nothing fundamental was going to change no matter who won. However, looks can be deceiving.

Tomorrow, Americans will go to the polls to elect a new president. Despite the what the corporate press may trot out, there is little choice for the US working class; Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both represent two sides of the same coin -- the interests of Wall Street and the so-called "1%". There are underlying pressures growing within US society and regardless of who is elected president, these will eventually come to the fore. Here, we re-publish an article from the US Marxists of Socialist Appeal.

24,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union are on strike against the dictates of Democratic Party mayor Rahm Emanuel and his corporate backers. This is the first time in 25 years that the CTU has gone out on strike, and comes in the shadow of the upcoming US presidential election. This marks a new chapter in the nationwide struggle between public-sector unions and the Democratic Party.

The mainstream media has made much ado about the fact that #OccupyWallStreet does not have a unified, cohesive message. In trying to belittle it, they smugly point out that the occupy movement is an amorphous and heterogeneous mix of people. Every shade of political opinion and ideology is present: Makhno anarchists and Ron Paul libertarians; Trotskyist socialists and New Age neo-hippies; Anonymous and Zeitgeist; atheists and hard core believers; the homeless and those who have quit their jobs to become full time protesters against unemployment.

“Enough is enough! We are the 99%!” This is the sentiment being expressed by the brave youth now occupying Freedom Plaza in New York City, just a few feet away from Wall Street. This is the pent-up feeling of millions—no—billions of people around the world. Enough unemployment! Enough war! Enough poverty! Enough discrimination!

In the last year, the world’s governments have been rattled by several major leaks of secret documents through the WikiLeaks website. First releasing thousands of US Military reports from the war in Afghanistan, then the same from the Iraq war and finally tens of thousands of secret diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks has stunned the world.

President Obama has just passed the 100 day mark of his term in office. What a difference a few weeks makes! Even though GM and Chrysler have already been given millions in public money, Chrysler has now been allowed to go bankrupt. All of its plants will be idled until it emerges from bankruptcy. And despite putting forward the option of a UAW “ownership stake” in GM and Chrysler, Obama is at the same time addressing auto workers with the cold vocabulary of Wall Street: Viability, Profitability and Liability. And these words are not hollow.

The US Workers International League analyzes the crisis in the auto industry. As the economic crisis deepens, the bosses will seek to unload the burden onto workers’ shoulders. This underlines the need for militant, class struggle policies in the unions to place the burden of the crisis where it belongs: with the bosses!