Gary Younge (Guardian Utd): We cannot vote Labour

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Monday February 21

We cannot vote Labour
To support a government that has brought tens of thousands of deaths to Iraq is to abandon hope of change
By Gary Younge

The closest the Bush administration ever got to expressing regret for invading Iraq on false pretenses was a comment from the former US secretary of state, Colin Powell. "The absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus," he said. "It changes the answer you get." Assuming that President George Bush's question was "Colin, what pretext should we adopt for bombing a sovereign, oil-rich nation so that we can steal its resources and humiliate its people", then Powell may have a point. Coming from Bush, the political representative of global capital, armed to the teeth and unfettered by international law, this would be a reasonable line of questioning. It is not to the tastes of most of the international community. But it is in keeping with the traditions that give his party and his platform meaning.

From Tony Blair, however, one might have expected something different. As the political representative of a movement founded on the principles of international solidarity and equality, a Labour leader might have chosen a different path. Sadly, Blair's political calculus was faulty long before the first shot was fired. He decided that since the US was hellbent on having a fight and would undoubtedly win, the best thing Britain could do was not try to stop it but offer to hold its coat. He calculated that the security council would authorise the invasion; that the invaders would be greeted warmly; that they would find weapons of mass destruction; that all military opposition would be crushed quickly; and that he would emerge unambiguously victorious.

In whatever mathematical model employed, he forgot one crucial component - principle. With hindsight we can see just how much each bad decision would amplify that basic error. In crude, strategic terms he might have been proven right at any stage. But, in moral terms, he was simply crude. Sadly, not least for tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, Blair got his sums wrong.

As the election approaches it is time for those of us who identify with Labour but find ourselves somewhere between disillusionment and disgust with the party to weigh strategy and morality and hopefully get our sums right. If the polls are right, the Labour party's numbers in parliament are set to be depleted considerably in May. As progressive, left-leaning voters we need to decide what role we want to play in that, if any, and be clear about why.

Read more.

[Wat_Tyler]

1. First week in May is it? Barring disasters, Blair will still be PM.

It'll be a considerably reduced majority, and Brown will replace him in a year, I imagine.

[Briar]

2. The smaller the majority the better

That's the only way "old Labour" MPs will have the opportunity (and the guts) to oppose his neo-Thatcherite policies.

[struggle4progress]

3. kick

[Dirk39]

4. I love this quote:

"Those progressives who have always and will always vote Labour, regardless of what it does or to whom, please turn the page. There is a word that covers uncritical support, non-negotiable loyalty and blind faith. It is called fundamentalism. The rest of us have some hard thinking to do."

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[KoKo]

5. Reading this reminds me of what we Dems faced in our own last

election where we had the DNC/DLC Candidate who supported Iraq,against the wishes of the Anti-Iraq Invasion wing who is also in many cases the Progressive Wing of the Dem Party. Greens and Nader supporters were urged to abandon their great differences from the DLC and join with anti Iraq Invasion folks to carry Kerry/Edwards to victory. The opposite is true with Blair with Lefties trying to find some way to vote their convinctions rather than support Blair. Anything but voting Torry..

In the end...we ended up with a Bush for four more years. I don't think Blair comes close to being Bush, but he seems to have the same "pig-headed" tendencies and a disregard for the Left in his party.

It will be interesting to see how it comes out. I was surprised in the article about the Liberal Dems, though. I thought Charles Kennedy was violently opposed to the Iraq Invasion. This article portrays the lib Dems as very status quo in support of Free Trade and War that didn't make sense to me. But, given the different factions of Libs in GB maybe I got it confused. :eyes:

:hi: Dirk..Nice to see you here. Haven't seen you posting much. H

[Dirk39]

6. Hi!

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the term "liberal" between Europe and Northamerica.
Even after decades; I have problems to understand that liberals are progressives in the USA. And I cannot remember, how many times I tried to explain to other Europeans, that "liberal" means something else in the USA.
In the USA, the labour movement and the left was destroyed pretty soon, completely different from Europe.

In Europe, on the other hand, liberals were always hardcore defenders of "free-trade" and capitalism, while on the other hand, at least in the past, they did defend civil rights. Seemed to be a bit of a herritage from the past, when capitalism, free trade and civil rights seemed to be the same in the fight against feudalism.

During the last twenty-five years at least, they gave up on civil rights completely. The only remaining civil right, they defend, is the right to sell everything to everyone everytime...

Although I don't know much about the Liberal Dems in GB, I think the completely different meaning of "liberalism" in Europe and the USA might be a source of this misunderstanding.

I don't have much hope that someone better might replace Blair, if he will be replaced at all, but - and that's pretty much the same in the USA as it is in Europe: nothing is paralyzing any opposition as much as a labour party or democatic-party government, doing nothing but representing corporate interests.


Dirk

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. The Lib Dems did oppose the war before it started

once it was under way, they kept quiet for a bit (the "don't criticise the war when your troops are under fire" move - a pragmatic political move, rather than principled). After the initial invasion was over, they took a "we broke it, we have to fix it" position.

The Lib Dems are in favour of Free Trade (they argue it should be Fair Trade too, but their principle is to remove barriers to trade everywhere). Until Blair came along, they were seen as centrist. It's only with him in charge of the country that policies of theirs, like raising the top rate of income tax for earning of over £100,000 to 50%, have come to seem left wing.

[BBradley]

8. Many DUers could take something from this quote I feel.