PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Our Dreams Cannot Fit Inside Their Ballot Boxes
by David Meieran Sunday, Sep. 26, 2004 at 10:20 PM
david@indypgh.org (email address validated)

<p>Bringing about progressive social change requires more than voting for Kerry.</p>

Anybody but Bush?

Concerning the 2004 presidential election, enough ink has been spilled to drown an elephant. From MoveON to RockTheVote to PunkVoter to thousands of voter registration drives, we have been deluged with such messages as "your vote counts," "voting is the most important right you have," and the ubiquitous "anybody but Bush."

A few days ago I received an email. "For people seeking progressive social change in the United States," it read, "removing George W. Bush from office should be the top priority." The message, which urged people to vote for Kerry in swing states, was signed by a number of high-profile individuals who were once part of the "Nader 2000 Citizens Committee." I was puzzled to see Chomsky's name on that list.

Even more surprising than Chomsky's recommendation that I should vote for Kerry is that the statement he signed omitted any explanation of why defeating Bush should be the "top priority" for progressives.

Perhaps Chomsky thought the argument would be obvious. Since he assumed office, George Bush has wrought huge devastation to people, democracy and the planet. Kerry, if elected, and flawed though he may be, would cause less harm than another four years of Bush (or so the story goes). We currently live in a two party system in which only a Democrat could defeat Bush. After Kerry is elected, then progressives can go back to work on changing the system.

Alas, that argument begs several important questions. Is Kerry the lesser of two evils? How does voting for Kerry—whatever his politics—advance progressive social change? How might voting be part of a larger progressive strategy?

There's no doubt that Bush is a monster. But while Kerry may be marginally better than Bush in regards to the "culture war" and worker's rights, they have nearly identical views on foreign policy and many domestic issues.

Militarism/War on Terror. A Kerry fact sheet lays out his plan to further militarize the U.S., perhaps even more than Bush would do. He wants to expand the U.S. armed forces by adding 40,000 troops to active duty, double the U.S. special forces capability, increase funding for high-tech weaponry (including "directed energy weapons"), and make "homeland security the primary mission of the national guard." Kerry says "bring the troops home" but in reality he wants to send more troops to Iraq by re-building a coalition of occupying forces. While Bush's cowboy diplomacy has undermined American power abroad, Kerry would attempt consolidate world support behind US imperialism through the UN, NATO, and the WTO. Hence, it would be easier for Kerry to not only continue the occupation of Iraq but to fight new wars as well. Indeed, Kerry has said, "I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the war on terror. I believe he's done too little." and "Every nation has the right to act preemptively if it faces an imminent and grave threat."

Corporate Globalization. Kerry supported NAFTA. He supports the WTO, World Bank and IMF. It is true that Kerry made some concessions to the AFL-CIO with his proposed "Buy American" guidelines for defense and homeland security, tax credits to businesses that create jobs in the U.S., as well as his promise that new treaties (FTAA and CAFTA) will include environmental and labor standards. But that won't wash with Kerry's top campaign financiers, many of which are the same as Bush's—Bank of America, Time Warner, CitiGroup, Goldman Sachs, to name a few. He has also received more contributions from lobbyists than any other senator in the last 15 years. (Yet Kerry, whose family is worth $747 million, could be the third richest president ever. His colonial estate in Fox Chapel, worth $3.7 million, is the least valued of his five different homes.) In the end, Kerry, the consummate multilateralist, wants to keep the existing trade deals in place and use the WTO, etc., to enforce those agreements to the benefit the corporations that get him elected.

So, contra Chomsky, and as Gabriel Kolko (Another Century of War?) argues, Bush's reelection may actually be a lesser evil because he is more likely to continue the destruction of the "alliance system" on which American power and global capitalism ultimately depends.

There's more.

Israel. Kerry is one of Sharon's greatest supporters, perhaps more so than Bush. He endorsed the assassination of Hamas leader Rantissi. He backs Israel's construction of a 425-mile-long Apartheid wall separating Israel and the Palestinian territories. According to Kerry's own website, he "has built a record of support for Israel in the US Senate that is second to none." Palestinians would have little cause for celebration with Kerry as President.

Cuba Embargo, Plan Colombia, Venezuela. Kerry supports the Cuba embargo and taking a hard line against Castro. Kerry voted for the 1996 Helms-Burton bill that tightened sanctions. Little change would be likely in the war on drugs in a Kerry administration, because Bush has essentially adopted the Kerry's Plan Colombia. (In addition to providing military and economic aid to fight leftist guerrillas, the plan has stationed in Colombia numerous U.S. military advisers and special forces troops along with hundreds of employees of U.S. private military firms.) Kerry exceeded Bush in his bashing of Venezuela's progressive president, Hugo Chavez, when he charged the latter with subverting democratic institutions, "allowing Venezuela to become a haven for narco-terrorists" and supporting guerrillas in Colombia.

USA PATRIOT Act. Kerry is not so far from Bush in his views on the Patriot Act. Although the DNC platform calls for the elimination of certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act (e.g., the data collection of library data—which, in fact, was never really enforced by the Bush/Ashcroft administration), it leaves many of the Act's contents intact as well as the dangerous affronts to civil liberties contained in the Homeland Security Act, the Intelligence Gathering Act, and numerous executive orders. And at the Democratic National Convention, Kerry remained silent as the Boston police and Homeland Security criminalized dissent with subway searches, massive surveillance and the construction of protest pit laced with razorwire.

Environment. Kerry has withdrawn his support Kyoto agreement. He claims he wants to protect the environment because he's opposed to drilling for oil at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But he favors continuing and expanding drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, where even a small oil spill could cause massive environmental impacts, much more so than in Alaska. Moreover, he's promised teamster president Jimmy Hoffa that he will support drilling all over the United States.

Health Care. Kerry might parrot the phrase "universal health care" in his speeches—but the fact remains that he does not support a single-payer system in which health care would be universally accessible to anyone regardless of their ability to pay. In fact, Kerry supports only a few minor reforms to the U.S. health care system (e.g., by offering government subsidies to the insurance industry in the case of catastrophic illness, offering tax credits to small businesses, etc.). His plan leaves intact the existing medical industrial complex: under Kerry's leadership, the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry would continue to reap huge profits at the expense of human suffering and millions would continue to fall through the cracks. In addition, under Kerry, who supports the Doha Agreement and the WTO's genocidal AIDS policies, people living with AIDS would fare no better.

Death Penalty. It is true that Kerry opposes the death penalty in most cases. But he supports the death penalty in certain federal cases (e.g., "terrorists") and says that in the end it's up to the states to decide. He also voted for the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which makes it harder for individuals on death row to appeal their cases.

Same-Sex Marriage. Kerry opposes legalizing same-sex marriage. In March, he endorsed an amendment to the Massachusetts state Constitution banning same-sex marriages (even though though he voted against Bush's similar Federal amendment). He might support civil unions—but without "equal" access to state-sanctioned marriage, many gay men and lesbians feel that Kerry treats them as second class citizens (of course, some queers, myself included, think that the quest for "marriage equality" is misguided, but the point is that Kerry isn't entirely homo-friendly).

"Pro-Life" Judges. Kerry voted for Antonin Scalia. He has recently stated that he would be open to nominating anti-abortion judges.

The Prison Industrial Complex. Kerry vows to put 100,000 cops on the streets and fund the "coordinated regional effort at cracking down on drug trafficking." That, combined with Kerry's support for the Welfare Reform Act and his opposition to a living wage, means a young black man will face a far better chance of getting locked up than of getting a job under a Kerry administration.

Whoever you regard as lesser of the two evils, there are other aspects of the anybody-but-Bush argument that progressives should find troubling. One is its explicitly utilitarian logic. To say that "removing Bush should be the top priority" without further elaboration leaves mysterious just what sort of compromises progressives should make in order to meet that goal.

If progressives are truly committed to making the defeat of Bush their top priority, it follows that—in addition to voting for Kerry—they should do nothing else that might jeopardize the outcome. So we ought not throw cold water on Kerry, either by educating folks about his similarity to Bush, outright protesting him, complaining that the U.S. electoral system is a sham, or anything else that might deter people from voting. A similar argument can be made (and has been) concerning the allocation of resources for progressive activities that take away from the Kerry campaign. For individuals to participate in "extra-curricular" stuff—grassroots organizing and public eduction—is actually more of a potential spoiler than not voting. That's because one person can potentially sway more than one voter but can herself only vote once.

Some might complain that nobody, and certainly not Chomsky, is arguing that progressives shouldn't challenge Kerry and the System before November 2. But one need only review the comments on the www.vote2stopbush.com petition—which contains the statement that Chomsky signed—to see that I'm not exaggerating. For example, Nettie Fowler from CA writes, "We (progressives) need to get off our high falutin' horses and present a unified front for Kerry. Doing anything else in this election is unconscionable." That's the attitude that led to, for example, a small showing of resistance at the DNC, the AFL-CIO's not getting behind the Million Worker March, as well as the scare allocation of resources for public education and grassroots organizing about the war on Iraq, the FTAA, or any one of a number of issues that concern progressives.

But let's flip this argument around: Voting is least efficient way to express political power. Progressives ought to recognize that if social changes are the desired goods, direct action gets it. Historical examples abound; here is a salient one. Four years of lobbying Senators with neck ties or voting for liberal candidates did nothing to combat AIDS profiteering, bureaucratic skulduggery and government indifference. Only when AIDS activists seized the FDA, stormed the NIH, interrupted trading on the NYSE and threw ashes of their loved ones on the White House lawn did AIDS policies begin to change. Even more direct and effective was when people living with AIDS began to smuggle potentially life-saving drugs from abroad or procure scattered-site housing for the homeless.

More than the re-election of GWB, the greater threat to progressive social change is progressives' myopic pre-occupation with the 2004 election. It masks questions we ought to be asking of Kerry and the Democrats, it reinvests people with a false sense that voting leads to real change, and it fails to take advantage of an opportunity to educate and organize.

Election 2004 is an unprecedented opportunity. Instead of pathologizing Bush, progressives could be pointing out the similarities between the two candidates and questioning why electoral politics is considered the defining feature of democracy. Instead of allocating millions of dollars and volunteer hours to voter registration, progressives could focus on building social movements that can change the system. Do we really wish to remain prisoners of a two-party, corporate-owned, duopoly? Our dreams cannot fit into their ballot boxes.

This article will appear in the October issue of TheNewPeople.

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