Shows way out of lesser-evil trap
WWP campaign inspires struggle against war, racism
By Fred Goldstein
There is a standard saying in the "anybody but
Bush" movement that a third-party vote is a vote for Bush. This
is both an expression of panic and an attempt to intimidate or
scare into voting for John Kerry those who want to take an
independent course.
But a third-party vote should be viewed as a refusal to vote
for the establishment candidates, both of whom are for war and
occupation. A refusal to endorse colonial conquest is entirely
justified, without any qualification needed.
And a third-party vote can be even more meaningful if it is
a vote for a socialist ticket in which the candidates are not
just opposed to the war policies of both candidates, but are
opposed to the millionaires and billionaires behind the
big-business candidates and their parties. Exposing the
capitalist system which breeds war in the first place is a
vital way of using the present election campaign to undermine
the U.S. war drive and the occupation of Iraq.
It is for the purpose of carrying out an anti-capitalist,
anti-imperialist educational campaign of exposures, as well as
to fan the flames of mass anti-war resistance and to promote
the struggle against capitalist oppression and exploitation,
that candi dates John Parker and Teresa Gutierrez are running
for president and vice president, respectively, on the Workers
World Party ticket. They are joined by LeiLani Dowell, a member
of WWP who is running on the Peace and Freedom ticket in the
8th Congressional District in San Francisco. (Vote4Workers.org)
They are projecting as their main slogans "Bring the troops
home now. Money for jobs, not for war." And the general slogan
of their campaign is "People's needs before profits: for
socialism, against capitalism." Parker, Gutierrez and Dowell
also have a whole host of demands to meet the immediate,
day-to-day needs of the workers, poor communities, those
battling racism and national oppression, women, lesbian, gay,
bi and trans people and all who suffer under the profit
system.
Using the election campaign to expose capitalism and all the
politics championed by the big business media is a vital task
in the struggle against war and oppression. That is because
ideological and political hegemony over the workers in this
country is the greatest source of strength for the U.S. ruling
class. Racism and national chauvinism are pillars of
ideological domination.
For example, the indoctrination of the people with
super-patriotic chauvinism is what ultimately underlies the
power of the Pentagon. The workers from the U.S. who are
killing and being killed in Iraq are doing so not merely
because they are forced to do it. The fact is that they can be
forced to do something they wish they did not have to do only
because they believe in this system and/or they see no other
alternative. They lack a class understanding of capitalist
society.
At present most workers in this country do not recognize
that the same big corporations that are laying them off,
cutting their wages, taking away their health care, and
destroying all their social services are the real forces behind
the war and the occupation. If the soldiers were able to see
beyond the 24-hour-a-day universal propaganda machine financed
and run by big corporations that use the Pentagon to make the
world safe for U.S. capitalist investment, they would never
stand for it.
In truth, the U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who are mostly workers
in uniform and predominantly people of color, have far more in
common with the workers and poor of Iraq than they do with
corporate oil barons, the billionaire owners of the
transnational corporations, and the politicians and generals
who sent them over there. Once they understood this, they would
revolt against being put in the line of fire; they would rebel
against being forced to carry out war crimes. They would no
longer be passive and obedient to the brass. They would
organize. They would resist. That resistance would paralyze the
Pentagon. And that would be the beginning of the end of
Washington's ability to wage wars of conquest.
But the workers have had the world view of the imperialists
force-fed to them from the cradle on up. Before the war against
terrorism it was a war to make the U.S. safe; a war for
democracy; a war against dictatorship, etc., etc., ad
nauseum.
If all the working class families whose relatives have been
killed or maimed on the battlefield, or have been sent to
terrorize and brutalize the Iraqi people, could see that it is
the desire for vast profits that motivated the U.S. ruling
class to invade Iraq, they would turn on the greedy
war-makers.
Thus a vote for Parker and Gutierrez must not be viewed as a
vote for Bush. On the contrary, it is a refusal to vote for
sending 40,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq--a figure taken from
John Kerry's web site and from his speeches.
(johnkerry.com)
It is a refusal to vote for a candidate who wants to "stay
the course" in Iraq, who wants to find a way to pull in other
imperialist powers, through NATO, to help the Pentagon crush
the Iraqi resistance and train the puppet forces there--all to
keep Iraq, its oil, and its strategic locations astride the
Persian Gulf for U.S. imperialism.
Voting for the Workers World Party ticket represents a
refusal to vote for an "opposition" candidate who supports
Bush's "road map" to subdue the Pales tinian national movement.
It is a refusal to support a senator who voted for the Patriot
Act and the $400-billion military budget; who voted the
authorization for Bush to implement his preemptive strike
strategy against Iraq--and has tried to deny it.
What is wrong with refusing to vote for a candidate who
says, "It is up to Demo crats to understand and prepare for
Fourth Generation Warfare--fighting uncon ventional force
unconventional ways--so our nation can be better prepared to
wage and win the new war." Kerry wants "a modern military" with
more versatile equipment; better intelligence; advanced
communications; long-range air power; and highly mobile
forces." { See Kerry website.) In what way is Kerry's program
for the military different from Rumsfeld's "military
transformation"?
Vote for what you believe in
But more importantly, a vote for Parker and Gutierrez goes
way beyond a refusal to choose between a reactionary Repub
lican or a Democratic candidate. It is more than just a general
anti-establishment gesture. It is a statement that capitalism
is the cause of war and that the profit system must be replaced
by socialism--an economy owned and controlled by the working
class and operated for human need.
The WWP program is to "abolish the Pentagon" and use the
money for "housing, childcare and human needs, not occupations
in Iraq, Haiti, Palestine and Afghanistan." This is an
uncompromising anti-militarist, anti-imperialist position.
Parker, Gutierrez and Dowell demand full rights for immigrants,
the repeal of the Patriot Act and an end to the persecution of
Arabs and Muslims.
Parker and Gutierrez demand a minimum wage of $15 an hour
and jobs instead of jails for youth. Their program calls for
union jobs or guaranteed income. They are for universal health
care and full reproductive rights for women. They demand an end
to racism, police brutality and the death penalty; reparations
for people of color and colonized nations. They declare that
education is a right and that affirmative action must be
restored.
The Workers World Party ticket proudly affirms the right to
same-sex marriage, full equality for lesbians and gays, bi and
transgender people. They demand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal,
Leonard Peltier, the Cuban 5 and all political prisoners. And
they are for taxing the rich and making the corporate polluters
pay to clean up the environment.
But in addition to all these demands that they make upon the
capitalist class, they stand for the abolition of the
capitalist class itself, which is the bedrock of imperialism
and war and can only survive as a system by expanding
exploitation and plunder at home and abroad.
Compare this program and the record of these three people of
color, these working-class candidates--two of them lesbian
women--with the demagogy of the two white male
multi-millionaires running to get control of the capitalist
government. Parker, Gutierrez and Dowell have spent their
entire adult lives organizing, demonstrating and fighting in a
hundred ways for the interests of the workers and oppressed, in
this country and around the world.
The candidates have no illusions that voting for them will
bring about any significant changes for the better in the lives
of the people. On the contrary, they will carry the message
that any basic change in this society, with its vast poverty,
racism, oppression and militarism, will only come about by the
independent struggle of the workers and the oppressed.
The Democrats and the Republicans have been tied by a
thousand threads to the corporate rulers of this country--the
big oil and banking interests, the military-industrial complex,
and the 40,000 corporate lobbyists that have a lock on
Washington.
Parker, Gutierrez and Dowell will show that the only way to
break this stranglehold is through militant mass mobilization
and class combat. Explaining this to the workers and the
oppressed and fighting to bring it about is the only way out of
the electoral trap of the lesser-of-two-evils system of
capitalist politics that has dominated this country for two
centuries.
Reprinted from the July 29, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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