The election and misplaced hopes
Bush's win need not set back the movement
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.
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