http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/elections1118.php The election and misplaced hopes Bush's win need not set back the movemen By Fred Goldstein The victory of George W. Bush and the Republicans in the elections is a victory for political reaction. But that does not mean that the defeat of John Kerry should be mourned as some great loss for the workers and the oppressed. Nor does it mean that all is lost and the movement should reconcile itself to four more years of reaction or gear up for renewed efforts to get the Democratic Party back in the saddle.
Right now the world is watching a bloody, one-sided criminal offensive by the Pentagon against the city of Falluja, an offensive prepared by weeks of bombing and artillery barrages. The U.S. is trying to drown the resistance in blood--killing as many civilians as necessary to take the city. Bush is doing precisely what John Kerry repeatedly said should be done--"stay the course" because "we must win in Iraq." In the recent election, 11 states passed vicious, right-wing initiatives against same-sex marriage. Some even included restrictions on civil unions and domestic partnerships. For four years, Karl Rove and the masterminds of the Bush campaign dredged up all the reactionary anti-gay forces they could locate to put these referenda on the ballot and get out the vote for Bush. The pro-Bush forces were doing exactly what John Kerry, who said he opposes same-sex marriage, repeatedly said should be done on the question: "Let the states decide." With a witch hunt against Arab, Muslim and South Asian people raging in the country under cover of "homeland security" and the Patriot Act, Kerry pandered to the right wing and stoked the flames of reaction with blood-thirsty diatribes about "tracking down and killing the terrorists, wherever they are." More than 45 million people--and millions more undocumented immigrants--lack any healthcare. Millions more have inadequate healthcare. Meanwhile, the government is giving away $400 billion a year to the military-industrial complex and the Pentagon. Kerry declared his determination to improve the military while declaring that his healthcare plan "is not a giveaway." Everyone will have the "opportunity" to purchase quality healthcare. Where they will get the money, Kerry did not bother to say, beyond referring to some paltry tax credit. Healthcare is a right. It should be universal, free and of high quality. But under Kerry, just as under Bush, the working class and even large sections of the middle class would be denied government-guaranteed healthcare and other services on the grounds of avoiding any "giveaway." Yet the Pentagon, Lockheed, Boe ing, Ray the on, General Electric and all the other merchants of death would have the absolute right to government contracts, and profits, to produce horrendous weapons of terror and destruction. They would get government money, not merely some vague "opportunity," that comes right out of the workers' pockets. Some Monday morning critics condemn Kerry and his advisers for running a botched campaign. But the political sins of Kerry have nothing to do with bad campaign tactics. They reflect the reactionary character of the campaign, the candidate, the Democratic Party and the imperialist ruling class it represents. Kerry's top advisers and fund raisers were from the ruling class. His national security adviser, Rand Beers, came over from Bush's National Security Council. Kerry's braintrust included former Clinton Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, who came from Goldman Sachs to Wash ington and then left to become the head of Citigroup. Kerry was also advised and funded by billionaires George Soros and Warren Buffet. Buffet is the second-richest man in the world with a fortune of $40 billion. His holding company, Berk shire Hathaway, controls or has major holdings in a vast corporate empire, including Coca-Cola, Gillette and American Express. As of last September, Kerry's top corporate donors, who also gave to Bush, inclu ded Citigroup--$170,000 to Kerry, $246,000 to Bush; USB AG financial services--$139,000 to Kerry, $369,000 to Bush; Goldman Sachs--$128,000 to Kerry, $296,000 to Bush; and Morgan Stanley--$100,000 to Kerry, $486,000 to Bush. (Center for Public Integrity) The Bush administration is a reactionary, militarist grouping that wants to make war on the people at home, on countries abroad and on the environment of the planet, all in the interests of the transnational corporations, banks and brokerage houses that make up the behind-the-scenes ruling class. But nobody should regard Kerry as a savior of the masses. His camp of millionaires and billionaires is afraid that Bush is ruining U.S. imperialism around the world, undermining the financial strength of Wall Street with his tax policies and budget deficits, and accelerating the prospect of social, class conflict in the U.S. Kerry was their candidate because he fit their description of a more cautious and diplomatic imperialist politician who would rebuild relations with other imperialist powers and slow down the drift toward provoking a struggle at home. Kerry's defeat does not signify a turn to the right in this country. In fact, it was impossible to measure the relative strength of the progressive forces that could be mobilized against right-wing and conservative forces because of the way both sides ran their campaign. Bush ran a right-wing campaign calculated to mobilize his base. But Kerry ran a campaign that was in most respects an attempt to mimic the Bush campaign while nibbling around the edges with a vague, anemic and non-credible economic program, consisting mainly of various tax breaks for the bosses. It is a testament to the energy of all the activists who worked to register people and get them to the polls that Kerry got 55.9 million votes. Despite his lackluster, uninspiring and conservative campaign, they voted out of fear and hatred for Bush. It shows the latent possibilities for fighting against reaction. But those latent possibilities can only be measured outside the framework of electoral politics. Those whose disappointment over Kerry's loss is leading them to try to find a way to fix the Democratic Party or embark on some new electoral road should think again, and make their analysis from a working-class point of view. The real strength of the 55.9 million who voted for Kerry, to the extent that they want to fight Bush, does not lie in the electoral arena. Directing political strategic thought along those lines would completely undermine the movement's potential--as revealed by the turnout at the polls--for a high degree of organization, commitment, energy and fund raising. However, to keep the movement confined within this narrow and illusory framework would be self-defeating. Ruling class only lukewarm for Kerry There are many who feel that the vote was stolen by the Bush forces, particularly in the states of Florida and Ohio. More and more evidence is coming out about the wholesale fixing of the vote--missing ballots, absentee ballots not received, provisional ballots not counted, racist intimidation, threats of arrest at the polls of those with traffic and other minor violations, peo ple being sent to the wrong polls, insufficient numbers of voting machines resulting in lines up to nine hours long, and so on. The discrepancy between the exit polls, which had Kerry winning, and Bush's official victory raises enormous questions about the legitimacy of the vote. The simple question, "Who did you vote for?," when asked enough times to enough people, gives a fairly accurate representation of what happened. The use of electronic voting was an invitation to steal votes. The fact that African Americans were many times more likely to be the victims of voter suppression than whites smacks of a rerun of the racist 2000 campaign in Florida. But the Kerry forces never raised the issue early on and the capitalist media regarded the most outrageous offenses prior to election day as minor items. The exclu sion of 10,000 voters in Florida because they did not check off a box about being citizens, even though on the same form they signed an affidavit to that effect, was minor. The failure of 58,000 absentee ballots to reach their destination after having been mailed was regarded as a small matter. When the attorney general of Ohio rejected ballots because they were on the wrong thickness paper--he was later overruled--it was just another news item. To say nothing of the armies of "challengers" assembled by the Repub licans to intimidate and harass mostly Black and Latin@ voters. In other words, the bourgeoisie knew well in advance that the Bush forces were planning to take the election, one way or another, and basically folded their hands, letting Jeb Bush and the rest of the Bush machine get away with murder. This signified that the ruling class was only lukewarm about Kerry in the first place and would not go to the wall for him. Kerry got the message and played it cool so as not to raise a scandal and rock the boat. The ruling class knew that Kerry could not solve their problems in Iraq. They wanted to give Bush and the Pentagon a chance to solve it by a great blood-letting in Falluja. In any case, for all Bush's reactionary measures, the big capitalists were by and large doing fine. The stock market was looking forward with glee to Bush's program to turn part of the multi-trillion-dollar Social Security fund over to the speculators. It is no accident that the Dow Jones went up 177 points, the largest one-day gain in over a year, after Bush announced his intention to privatize Social Security in a post-victory press conference. The Bush administration is already preparing to open up an attack on Social Security and the progressive income tax. He is deepening his attacks on lesbian, gay, bi and trans people under the guise of promoting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. He will undoubtedly try to further undermine, if not overturn, Roe v. Wade. He also intends to deepen his attack on the environment and further cut social services to pay for his tax cuts for the rich. Bush has not elaborated on his foreign policy, but the brutal attempt to overcome the resistance and enforce the occupation of Iraq is bound to continue, as well as stepped up U.S. pressure against Iran. But the Kerry campaign should serve as a reminder to the movement that it was not just Kerry, his "stiff" personality, his alleged bad advice, or any other superficial defects that resulted in his defeat or his failure to contest the Bush methods and the election results. Once the post-Vietnam War era ended, the ruling class began a determined and relentless shift to the right. Not one single Democratic candidate or campaign has attempted to buck that right-wing tide. They have all tried to ride it. Jimmy Carter came into office as the "anti-establishment" candidate in 1976. By the end of his presidency he had declared "Life is unfair" and opened up an attack on welfare. He started a major military build-up, which Reagan later extended. Carter tried to defend the Shah of Iran against the revolutionary people and sent a mission to try to overthrow the newly independent Iranian government. He started the anti-labor offensive with plans to break the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Org anization (PATCO). Rea gan carried it out. He tried to save his presidency by moving to the right, but the ruling class wanted a more complete sweep. When Michael Dukakis ran against George Bush senior, he tried to overcome his reputation of being a liberal by having himself photographed in a tank, signifying he was going to take care of the military. When Bill Clinton finally got into office, he did so by vowing to "end welfare as we know it," while promising a jobs program, healthcare for all, and some lesbian and gay rights. As soon as he got in, the ruling class told him to drop the jobs program and become a deficit hawk, which he promptly did. He teamed up with Newt Gingrich to overturn welfare--a product of the New Deal and the most important program for assisting poor people and single mothers, many of them African American women and their children. Clinton made war on Yugo sla via--a totally unprovoked war, a la Bush--and actually gave the military more money than it asked for. When Gore was cheated out of the election in 2000 by scandalously racist methods and a fascist raid on the Miami/Dade County election board--which aborted a recount of the vote--Gore "played by the rules" and refused to rock the boat, even though it cost him an election he had won by popular vote. The Democratic Party leadership is loyal first of all to the ruling class, to capitalist stability, and to improving the system. In this context, Kerry's campaign and his failure to challenge Republican vote-rigging early on seems quite in character. It flows from the class orientation of doing the bidding of the financiers and industrialists first. Kerry never appealed to the millions of workers and oppressed when their votes were stolen, asking them if he should keep up the fight. Instead, he asked his millionaire ruling-class advisers. The misplacement of faith and resources by the official labor movement and by millions of progressives who really want to fight reaction should be abandoned in favor of independent class struggle and mass mobilization. Indeed, if the hundreds of millions of dollars and enormous energy had been spent on mobilizing for struggle, then the capitalist government would have been on the defensive and the outcome of the elections would not have been such a serious matter. In fact, it is ironic that the only real chance Kerry had to get elected was if the workers and the oppressed, the LGBT communities, women, immigrants and all those who suffer oppression and exploitation had been in motion. Then, and only then, would the ruling class have felt the necessity to put in Kerry so he could try to put out the fire. Only the struggle has ever made any official in the capitalist government lift a finger on behalf of concessions to the masses. As Clarence Thomas of the Million Worker March noted on Oct. 17 in Washington, D.C., "We did not get the vote by voting. We got it in the streets." This same unassailable argument holds for every other concession that has ever been won. And this is the only road to combating the Bush reaction. Reprinted from the Nov. 18, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License. Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/BRUplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> *************************************************************************** Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. 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