Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Voting for Kerry?
Tribune column, 27 August 2004
Does it matter who wins the US presidential election this autumn? There are some on the left, such as the 9/11 film-maker, Michael Moore, who seem to think that nothing matters so much as ousting George W Bush in November. There are others, such as the activist presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, and his supporters, who think the outcome of the election is secondary to building a new political movement outside the current two-party carve up. And there are others still, such as the journalist John Pilger and the historian Gabriel Kolko, whom Pilger quotes approvingly, who believe that Bush may actually be the lesser of two evils.
According to Kolko, John Kerry would differ from Bush as president principally in attempting to rebuild the US's damaged international alliances and reconstructing the multilateral approach to foreign policy that Bush has contrived to demolish. In contrast, Bush is "much more likely to continue the destruction of the alliance system that is so crucial to American power. One does not have to believe the worse the better, but we have to consider candidly the foreign policy consequences of a renewal of Bush's mandate . . . As dangerous as it is, Bush's re-election may be a lesser evil."
This is a dangerous analysis for dangerous times. In essence, it's saying give us imperialism red in tooth and claw because that way the world will see it unmasked and isolated. And despite Kolko's denial, it does indeed hark back to the old revolutionary notion that things must get worse before they improve – that the people will only rebel when they are faced with the iron fist, not cosseted with the velvet glove.
In the British context there are echoes here of the ultra-left illusion of the 1970s: the belief that it would be good for socialism if Margaret Thatcher's Tories came to power because it would somehow hasten the workers' revolt. It didn't advance the cause of the left then; and it's hard to see what benefits would arise from a second Bush victory now.
John Kerry, to be sure, is no standard bearer of the left. He is, as Noam Chomsky and other commentators of the American left have described him, "Bush-lite". He's a long way removed from the reforming Democratic presidents of the past century. There is nothing in his programme to match Kennedy's domestic radicalism, or Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programme or Roosevelt's New Deal. There is nothing even to compare with the health reform plan for which Bill Clinton campaigned so hard before seeing it diluted beyond all recognition in office.
Having chosen, moreover, to fight the election in no small part on his ability as a military commander, in an attempt to out-patriot the president, Kerry must also bear no small part of the responsibility for the way in which he is currently being hoist by his own petard on the issue of Vietnam. At the very least, he should have seen it coming. If George Bush's dirty campaigning department felt no qualms about turning its vitriol on a Republican ex-PoW like John McCain; if the draft-dodgers of the right could get Georgia senator Max Cleland kicked out of office for being "unpatriotic", even though he lost three limbs in Vietnam – then how much easier would they find it to target a man who left Vietnam with only some pieces of shrapnel in his body?
Kerry's decision to play the patriot card was an error of both tactics and principle. Having testified before a Senate foreign relations committee when he returned from Vietnma that America's war there was conducted "in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan", what exactly are the lessons from that war that he is promising to bring to the present one? His message is at best confused; to many, it sounds downright disingenuous.
There are many other criticisms that can be, and are being, laid at Kerry's door from the left. But there would still be a huge difference in outcome between the election of George W Bush and the one man who offers any kind of viable electoral alternative to him in November. To argue that it doesn't matter who wins, or worse that a Bush victory would be some sort of good thing, ignores the extent to which electoral victories in themselves help to shape the political landscape.
The left in Britain greatly underestimated the ideological, as well as the immediate practical, significance of Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979. It helped to shift the entire terms of the political debate rightwards, and not just in Britain but in the rest of the world too. Bush's stolen victory did much the same in the US in 2000; and a second victory in 2004 would have devastating consequences for the direction of opinion and policy on a whole range of issues, including the environment, development, civil liberties, race, religion, women's and gay rights, employment, taxation, public services and poverty as well as foreign policy and war.
Even where the differences between Kerry and Bush are small, the consequences of those differences can be big. As Noam Chomsky has put it, the scale of US power means that "small differences can translate into large outcomes". Progressives in the US face a bald choice, according to Chomsky: "Help elect Bush, or do something to try to prevent it."
Chomsky himself, together with thousands of other US activists, will be voting for Ralph Nader. There's no contradiction there: it's because his home state is Massachusetts – safe Kerry territority. In non-safe states, however, he is urging people to vote for Kerry. There is no progressive alternative.
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Tribune column, 27 August 2004
Does it matter who wins the US presidential election this autumn? There are some on the left, such as the 9/11 film-maker, Michael Moore, who seem to think that nothing matters so much as ousting George W Bush in November. There are others, such as the activist presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, and his supporters, who think the outcome of the election is secondary to building a new political movement outside the current two-party carve up. And there are others still, such as the journalist John Pilger and the historian Gabriel Kolko, whom Pilger quotes approvingly, who believe that Bush may actually be the lesser of two evils.
According to Kolko, John Kerry would differ from Bush as president principally in attempting to rebuild the US's damaged international alliances and reconstructing the multilateral approach to foreign policy that Bush has contrived to demolish. In contrast, Bush is "much more likely to continue the destruction of the alliance system that is so crucial to American power. One does not have to believe the worse the better, but we have to consider candidly the foreign policy consequences of a renewal of Bush's mandate . . . As dangerous as it is, Bush's re-election may be a lesser evil."
This is a dangerous analysis for dangerous times. In essence, it's saying give us imperialism red in tooth and claw because that way the world will see it unmasked and isolated. And despite Kolko's denial, it does indeed hark back to the old revolutionary notion that things must get worse before they improve – that the people will only rebel when they are faced with the iron fist, not cosseted with the velvet glove.
In the British context there are echoes here of the ultra-left illusion of the 1970s: the belief that it would be good for socialism if Margaret Thatcher's Tories came to power because it would somehow hasten the workers' revolt. It didn't advance the cause of the left then; and it's hard to see what benefits would arise from a second Bush victory now.
John Kerry, to be sure, is no standard bearer of the left. He is, as Noam Chomsky and other commentators of the American left have described him, "Bush-lite". He's a long way removed from the reforming Democratic presidents of the past century. There is nothing in his programme to match Kennedy's domestic radicalism, or Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programme or Roosevelt's New Deal. There is nothing even to compare with the health reform plan for which Bill Clinton campaigned so hard before seeing it diluted beyond all recognition in office.
Having chosen, moreover, to fight the election in no small part on his ability as a military commander, in an attempt to out-patriot the president, Kerry must also bear no small part of the responsibility for the way in which he is currently being hoist by his own petard on the issue of Vietnam. At the very least, he should have seen it coming. If George Bush's dirty campaigning department felt no qualms about turning its vitriol on a Republican ex-PoW like John McCain; if the draft-dodgers of the right could get Georgia senator Max Cleland kicked out of office for being "unpatriotic", even though he lost three limbs in Vietnam – then how much easier would they find it to target a man who left Vietnam with only some pieces of shrapnel in his body?
Kerry's decision to play the patriot card was an error of both tactics and principle. Having testified before a Senate foreign relations committee when he returned from Vietnma that America's war there was conducted "in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan", what exactly are the lessons from that war that he is promising to bring to the present one? His message is at best confused; to many, it sounds downright disingenuous.
There are many other criticisms that can be, and are being, laid at Kerry's door from the left. But there would still be a huge difference in outcome between the election of George W Bush and the one man who offers any kind of viable electoral alternative to him in November. To argue that it doesn't matter who wins, or worse that a Bush victory would be some sort of good thing, ignores the extent to which electoral victories in themselves help to shape the political landscape.
The left in Britain greatly underestimated the ideological, as well as the immediate practical, significance of Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979. It helped to shift the entire terms of the political debate rightwards, and not just in Britain but in the rest of the world too. Bush's stolen victory did much the same in the US in 2000; and a second victory in 2004 would have devastating consequences for the direction of opinion and policy on a whole range of issues, including the environment, development, civil liberties, race, religion, women's and gay rights, employment, taxation, public services and poverty as well as foreign policy and war.
Even where the differences between Kerry and Bush are small, the consequences of those differences can be big. As Noam Chomsky has put it, the scale of US power means that "small differences can translate into large outcomes". Progressives in the US face a bald choice, according to Chomsky: "Help elect Bush, or do something to try to prevent it."
Chomsky himself, together with thousands of other US activists, will be voting for Ralph Nader. There's no contradiction there: it's because his home state is Massachusetts – safe Kerry territority. In non-safe states, however, he is urging people to vote for Kerry. There is no progressive alternative.
