US political elite engineers a Kerry-Bush election

[IndianaGreen]

US political elite engineers a Kerry-Bush election
By the Editorial Board
4 March 2004

The Democratic presidential primary campaign has provided a textbook example of how a genuine movement of popular protest against the policies of the ruling elite—the mass opposition to Bush’s invasion of Iraq—could be channeled within the two-party system and politically emasculated.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts won nine of ten state primaries and caucuses held March 2, taking an insurmountable lead in convention delegates and impelling his last major rival, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, to quit the race for the Democratic nomination.

The stage is now set for a presidential election contest between two representatives of the American political establishment, Kerry and George W. Bush, who have no fundamental differences. In a country of nearly 300 million people, with a complex and increasingly polarized social structure, the political choice offered in November will be to decide which Yale-educated scion of a wealthy family will govern the country.

On the most burning issue, the war in Iraq, Kerry’s differences with Bush are purely tactical. He opposes demands for the withdrawal of American troops from the occupied country and calls for the commitment of whatever military forces and resources are required to crush the Iraqi resistance.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/kerr-m04.shtml

[Skittles]

1. Kerry and Bush have no fundamental differences ???

BULLSHIT

[MrSoundAndVision]

2. I thought I'd seen that headline somewhere...

wsws.

[fearnobush]

3. At least a Kerry Admin would be more influenced by the

left. Its a start, but Bush will just have you killed off like Aristide's supporters. It only starts with Kerry. Nader will only kill us off quicker with all those votes going to Bush. Unite or face the BFEE Bush dance.

[efhmc]

4. People who write this junk live with all the amenities of life: a good

job, clean air, a peaceful existence with other nations, good education for their children, protection of their basic liberties. No, they don't, well maybe that's because there is a horrible, nasty repuke in office and they are so blind that they can't tell the difference between day and night. There is, was and will always be a difference between those that love and devote themselves to big business and those that understand the basic needs and desires of regular people who think that their government should have their best interest in mind when they make their decisions.

[Kenneth ken]

5. that article voices

about the same level of cynicism I have.

For clarification, I would say, the elite wield the two-party system like a puppet. When the masses get too agitated and threaten the system, play up the left, yield some minor concessions, pacify; then play up the right to ratchet up the pressure and squeeze the profits a little harder, till the next time the victim, we the masses scream so loud we start to wake up.

If one reads old literature about how technology will change the future, automation will always make life easier, workers will toil less and have more wealth. Well, productivity keeps climbing, workers are not working shorter hours, leisure time isn't increasing. One could argue that part of the reason for that is that consumption continues to increase. Gee, that also helps the elite; dangle the pretty beads in front of the savages, and they won't notice much that you're taking their land, water, air, lives.

Thanks IG.

[cyr330]

6. No fundamental differences?

I've heard that bullshit before, and it referred to Gore, and it was uttered by the Greens who wasted their votes on Nader and got us stuck with this fucker we have now. No difference? That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. John Pilger on "What would Gore have done."

A question that New Democrats like to ask is: "What would Al Gore have done if he had not been cheated of the presidency by Bush?" Gore's top adviser was the arch-hawk Leon Fuerth, who said the US should "destroy the Iraqi regime, root and branch". Joseph Lieberman, Gore's running mate in 2000, helped to get Bush's war resolution on Iraq through Congress. In 2002, Gore himself declared that an invasion of Iraq "was not essential in the short term" but "nevertheless, all Americans should acknowledge that Iraq does, indeed, pose a serious threat". Like Blair, what Gore wanted was an "international coalition" to cover long-laid plans for the takeover of the Middle East. His complaint against Bush was that, by going it alone, Washington could "weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century".

Collusion between the Bush and Gore camps was common. During the 2000 election, Richard Holbrooke, who probably would have become Gore's secretary of state, conspired with Paul Wolfowitz to ensure their respective candidates said nothing about US policy towards Indonesia's blood-soaked role in south-east Asia. "Paul and I have been in frequent touch," said Holbrooke, "to make sure we keep out of the presidential campaign, where it would do no good to American or Indonesian interests." The same can be said of Israel's ruthless, illegal expansion, of which not a word was and is said: it is a crime with the full support of both Republicans and Democrats.

John Kerry supported the removal of millions of poor Americans from welfare rolls and backed extending the death penalty. The "hero" of a war that is documented as an atrocity launched his presidential campaign in front of a moored aircraft carrier. He has attacked Bush for not providing sufficient funding to the National Endowment for Democracy, which, wrote the historian William Blum, "was set up by the CIA, literally, and for 20 years has been destabilising governments, progressive movements, labour unions and anyone else on Washington's hit list". Like Bush - and all those who prepared the way for Bush, from Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton - Kerry promotes the mystical "values of American power" and what the writer Ariel Dorfman has called "the plague of victimhood... Nothing more dangerous: a giant who is afraid."

People who are aware of such danger, yet support its proponents in a form they find agreeable, think they can have it both ways. They can't. Michael Moore, the film-maker, should know this better than anyone; yet he backed the Nato bomber Wesley Clark as Democratic candidate. The effect of this is to reinforce the danger to all of us, because it says it is OK to bomb and kill, then to speak of peace. Like the Bush regime, the New Democrats fear truly opposing voices and popular movements: that is, genuine democracy, at home and abroad. The colonial theft of Iraq is a case in point. "If you move too fast," says Noah Feldman, a former legal adviser to the US regime in Baghdad, "the wrong people could get elected." Tony Blair has said as much in his inimitable way: "We can't end up having an inquiry into whether the war was right or wrong. That is something that we have got to decide. We are the politicians."

http://pilger.carlton.com/print

[starroute]

8. So first elect Kerry, then hold his feet to the fire

Sometimes I feel as though we're all in a tape loop that has been going on since about 1972. Or a game with a few simple rules:

1. Under Republican presidents, things get worse quickly. Under Democratic presidents, things still get worse, just a little more slowly.

2. Only two kinds of Democrats get to run for president. When the Establishment wants a Republican to win, they see to it that a liberal Democrat is nominated, and then make him look weak and wishy-washy. When the Republicans have driven the country into the group, the Establishment sees to it that a moderate Democrat who won't rock the boat gets nominated and elected.

3. All the resources of the media, buzzwords, propaganda, and the like are used to reinforce public perceptions about "liberals" and "moderates" and keep this merry-go-round spinning.

Well, guys, guess what -- they've got our asses in the same old crack, and we're going to be forced to vote for Kerry whether we like it or not. Since we don't seem to have any options about the election at this point, we have to focus on what happens after the election. That is, we'll have to keep steady pressure on a Kerry administration from the left -- something that never really happened under Clinton -- and stop worrying about giving ammunition to the Republicans by doing so.

I can see several possible focal points for a genuine progressive movement. Kucinich is one. Whatever liberals are presently in Congress, or might get elected next fall, could be another, if they would get their act together.

But probably the most viable focus at this point isn't in government at all -- it's us, and people like us. Committed, informed, and results-oriented progressives, with the skills to get the word out and form coalitions over particular issues:

- With the retirees and near-retirees over Social Security

- With the gays over civil liberties and equality issues

- With the techies over intellectual property and fair use issues

- With the libertarians over free speech and privacy issues

- With what's left of the unions over worker and job issues

- With the teachers and librarians over right-wing mind control

- With small business people over economic growth issues

With all due respect, what's passed for the left over the last decade or two has become something of a joke -- pupper-wielding, drum-playing hippies out in the streets with signs supporting a thousand different feel-good causes. ("Free fuzzy defenseless small animals!") Their hearts may be good, but they don't have a clue about what it takes to bring about real social change.

The Revolution is not going to take place from the top down, but it's not going to take place in the streets, either. It's going to start at the grass roots, in a thousand little meeting rooms and offices, with people like us talking to (or becoming) the people with the power to make decisions. That's where we can have a real effect, and that's where we can eventually (and maybe faster than we think) get the leverage we need to take on the power of the Establishment.