Mumia Abu-Jamal from death row
Voting for empire
For millions of people, there exists in their
minds, in their hearts a hunger for change.
That hunger is becoming a driving force in the upcoming
elections, and is being expressed in a way that can best be
summed up: "Anybody But Bush."
President Bush's cowboy-style diplomacy, and the slick way
he promised to govern one way only to actually govern another,
has grated on people, until many just want to see him quietly
pass into retirement. Moreover, the nature of the U.S. economy,
with its growing outsourcing and capital flight abroad, also
plays into this growing trend.
I find it utterly understandable, and even quite a good
thing, but it has its problems.
What that means in Summer 2004 is an embrace of
Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic nominee for
U.S. president.
But Kerry, no matter his positive features or his faults,
isn't the real reason why Democrats gathered in rapture in
Boston recently. They applauded him because they hunger for the
political demise of George W. Bush.
One of Kerry's selling points is his plan to appeal to
Europe to give a hand to the American colonial project in Iraq,
instead of the cold shoulder which the Bush regime has received
since the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
But plans are one thing; obstacles, another. Nations don't
deal with other nations because they like or dislike a nation's
leader. They deal with others based on the guiding light of
self-interest. As the British Viscount Palmerston (H.J. Temple,
1784-1865) intoned in the British House of Commons in 1848: "We
have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our
interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests, it is
our duty to follow."
When, or if, a President Kerry speaks softly and perhaps in
French, to Europeans, seeking an infusion of European troops
into the rolling ruins of a burning Iraq, he will hear a polite
yet firm response: "Pardon! Monsieur Kerry--mais non!" ("Sorry,
Mr. Kerry--but no!")
That's because few European leaders can withstand the floods
of popular discontent that will accompany the use of their
nation's troops in America's imperial exercise in Iraq.
They see it as America's problem--not theirs--and they will
be hard-pressed to make it theirs.
Ultimately, what does it matter if Americans change the face
of international policies, when it's the same basic policy?
While both France and Germany will no doubt lust for entree
into the Iraqi oil fields, they cannot ignore the lessons of
Spain and Britain.
Tony Blair's Labor Party is riding low these days, and Brits
are not keen to continue sending their fathers and sons to
Iraq. It's clear that Blair can't buy a new term.
Kerry's promise to "stay the course" in Iraq, one drawn for
him by neocons from the oil-funded think tanks in Washington,
does not endear him to many Democrats, who want to see Iraq off
their front pages.
While Kerry's "stay the course" is an attempt to attract a
thin slice of undecided, independent voters to his card, he
also runs the risk of alienating a growing anti-war segment
that may choose to sit out the election, feeling it really
makes no difference.
What the nation needs is not a new face, but a new
policy--an anti-imperialist policy.
It does not have that option before it in either of the two
corporate parties.
If that deep, unsatisfied yearning continues to grow, it can
only feed even more alienation from the established political
system, and perhaps from the voting process itself.
Or else Kerry will be but another politician, promising
peace, yet delivering the horrors and loss of war.
Reprinted from the Aug. 26, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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