|
The Michigan Socialist | Feature |
In-Depth
The anointed one
The political
significance of John Kerry
By L. MEYERS
The Michigan Socialist
 BARRING
SOME major catastrophe, it is obvious that the Democratic candidate
for president will be Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.
When the race for the Democratic nomination began,
Kerry was seen as someone with little chance of winning. Indeed,
until the Iowa caucuses in January, it looked like the junior
senator was ready to pack up and go home.
But then, something happened.
As the situation in Iraq began to worsen for the
American ruling class, millions of angry citizens began flocking to
the perceived “outsider” candidates in the race — specifically
former Governor Howard Dean and retired General Wesley Clark.
The capitalists watched in worried fascination at
the grassroots network built by Dean’s populist movement.
They really began sweating when Dean increasingly
took an antiwar line.
Meanwhile, the more “hawkish” candidates —
senators Joe Lieberman and John Edwards — were languishing in the
polls. Something had to be done to offset the success of the
“outsiders.”
Enter John Kerry ... and the ruling faction of the
Democrats, the
Democratic Leadership Council.
Together with their friends in the media industry,
the DLC began spinning the line that Kerry was the most “electable”
candidate.
That is, he was the one who could defeat George W.
Bush and his Republican regime in the 2004 election.
That line tapped into a more generalized sentiment
among many Americans, regardless of political affiliation.
Coupled with the DLC-contrived “Anybody But Bush”
movement among Democratic activists, the tide began to shift.
The anger and resentment (and fear!) millions of
Americans feel toward the Bush regime, combined with a media smear
job on “unacceptable” Democratic candidates, tipped the scales back
in favor of the DLC and its stable of candidates.
The end of Iowa caucuses saw Kerry as the
“comeback kid” (a line made famous by another DLC creature, Bill
Clinton).
By “Super Tuesday,” it was already clear that he
would go into the 2004 Democratic National Convention with the
majority of delegates.
The job is done. Kerry is the Democratic nominee.
But what does this mean for the election?
More importantly, what does Kerry’s selection mean
for working people looking for an end to the Bush regime?
 |
| Not a
representative, but a member: John Kerry with his wife, Teresa
Heinz Kerry, heiress to the Heinz Co. fortune. |
THE BEST PLACE to start in answering those
questions is with Kerry himself. Who is he? Why did the DLC
leadership do everything it could to make sure he won the
nomination?
Kerry first came to public attention in the early
1970s, when he became a leading voice for antiwar veterans of the
Vietnam War.
As a founding member of
Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, Kerry was featured at rallies and
demonstrations calling for the unconditional withdrawal of all U.S.
forces from Southeast Asia.
But this is only one part of Kerry’s history — a
side he has all but repudiated recently. To know the real John
Kerry, it is necessary to look at what happened before and after
this period in his life.
John Kerry is, quite literally, a child of the
capitalist machine.
His father, Richard Kerry, was a longtime
government operative, working for the State Department in Europe
during the post-WWII years under the tutelage of such icons in the
capitalist foreign policy milieu as George Kennan and George Ball.
John Kerry grew up for the most part in European
boarding schools, and later attended Yale University.
During his time at Yale, Kerry was a member of
both the Young Democrats (in his freshman year) and Young
Republicans (in his senior year).
He was also a member of the secret, tight-knit
fraternity known as “Skull and Bones.” One of Kerry’s more famous
fraternity “brothers” is George W. Bush, his alleged opponent in the
November election.
After graduating from Yale, Kerry volunteered to
command a Navy Swift Boat in Vietnam and earned a number of medals
and decorations for his service, including three Purple Hearts for
being wounded in combat.
When he returned home, Kerry, at the urging of his
father, became an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War.
As a leader of VVAW, he addressed a Congressional
hearing about the conditions of soldiers in the region.
After the end of the Vietnam antiwar movement,
Kerry graduated from law school and became a district attorney.
In 1982, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of
Massachusetts; two years later, Kerry was elected to the U.S.
Senate.
Kerry could quite rightly be described as one of
the first neoliberals to be elected to Congress.
During his 16 years in the Senate, Kerry was well
known for breaking with his party caucus and voting with Republicans
on a number of issues.
Kerry was one of the first to embrace the DLC/“New
Democrat” agenda of fiscal conservatism and “welfare reform,”
foreshadowing the Clinton years.
During the 1990s, Kerry voted for a number of
bills aimed at destroying the social safety net, strengthening the
prison industry and eroding public education.
In January 2001, when Congress had the ability to
place the systematic disenfranchisement of African American voters
in Florida under the microscope, potentially affecting the outcome
of the presidential election, Kerry chose to not support his
colleagues from the House who were calling for a Congressional
review.
After the events of September 11, 2001, Kerry —
following the lead of the capitalist class — moved increasingly to
the right, voting for the USA-PATRIOT Act, the Dept. of Homeland
Security and the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq.
THE DEVELOPMENT of John Kerry closely parallels
that of a key section of the middle class, which entered into the
New Left and now resides in the New Right.
Like many, Kerry participated in the relatively
moderate wing of the antiwar movement. After the ebb in political
struggle that took place in the 1970s, he, like so many others, made
peace with capitalism and entered the Democratic Party.
At this point, his class background and relative
closeness to the state apparatus began moving him closer and closer
politically to the views of a section of the ruling class looking
for a way out of the stalemate between the U.S. and the former
Soviet Union.
Even while Kerry was visiting Sandinista
government officials in Nicaragua and being critical of
then-President Reagan’s imperialist adventure in Latin America, he
was favoring measures that would accomplish the same ends that the
Republicans sought — albeit with different means.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end
of the Cold War, Kerry became one of the more outspoken “New
Democrats,” acting as a solid supporter of Clinton’s DLC-approved
agenda of “ending welfare as we know it,” expanding the death
penalty and restricting democratic rights.
This development as a neoliberal was a parallel to
what many saw in the rise of the neoconservative movement, which
took place at the same time (see
related article).
As the neoconservatives won control of the
Republican Party in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so too did the
neoliberals — sometimes in alliance with old conservatives who
defected — take over the Democratic Party, edging the old
liberal/social-democratic alliance out of leadership.
As the 21st century opened, these two central
currents of capitalist political thought began to draw ever closer.
What Bush then called “a difference of opinion, not principle” is
now even less than that.
Today, the differences between Bush and Kerry are
mere matters of method — the means to reach shared goals.
This is a reflection of the developing consensus
among the capitalist class that they can no longer go on governing
in the old, formally democratic way.
 |
| Birds of
a feather...: John Kerry and Sen. Joe Lieberman campaign
together in Florida. Kerry’s open embrace of the capitalists’
agenda of endless war and repression, which Lieberman campaigned
on during the primaries, has strengthened the bond between them. |
ON MATTERS OF international policy, Bush and Kerry
are virtually indistinguishable. The differences that one attempts
to see between them are either “spin” or illusion.
For example, supporters are quick to point out
that Kerry is openly calling for a “multilateral” occupation of
Iraq, via the United Nations, as opposed to Bush’s relatively
unilateral stance.
However, this ignores the fact that the Bush
regime has been negotiating a new UN Security Council resolution
that would provide for precisely the kind of “multilateralism” that
Kerry advocates — including the continued presence of U.S.
occupation troops.
On the situation in Israel/Palestine, both Kerry
and Bush have lent their support for Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement”
and illegal land grab in the West Bank, which will cut in half the
territory of the bantustan “Palestinian Authority” and leave Israel
in possession of all vital natural resources in the region.
Both Bush and Kerry have supported the ongoing
attempts by Venezuelan capitalists to overthrow the
democratically-elected Bolivarian government of Hugo Chavez.
As well, Kerry supported the U.S.-imposed “regime
change” in Haiti last February.
It is only in regards to relations with the
European Union where any divergence between Bush and Kerry can be
seen. Kerry is not as bellicose toward Europe as Bush has been; but
that seems to have more to do with Kerry’s upbringing than anything
related to policy.
Domestically, there has also been a growing
convergence between Bush and Kerry.
Both of them strongly support the use of tax cuts
for the rich — billed as being for the “middle class” — and the
shifting of the tax burden on to the backs of working people.
Both of them support the extension of the
USA-PATRIOT Act, which has systematically stripped American citizens
of their democratic rights, and the Dept. of Homeland Security.
One area where Kerry makes Bush seem more
“moderate” is on the question of mandatory service — the draft.
Kerry has openly supported mandatory service, while Bush has
remained relatively silent.
Two major areas where Kerry supporters like to
point out that their candidate is different from Bush are on the
issues of abortion rights and federal judges.
On abortion, Kerry says he is pro-choice. However,
on those issues where anti-choice forces have been staging their
struggle to eliminate a woman’s right, he has generally sided with
them — in spirit, if not in fact.
For example, when the Senate voted on the
so-called “partial birth abortion” ban in 2003, Kerry skipped the
vote and then later stated that his only opposition was that it did
not allow for exceptions in the case of the woman’s life being in
danger.
Kerry has gone on record saying he will only
appoint federal judges. However, unless he has a Democratic Senate,
the chances of him making good on his word is slim.
One of the major issues so far this year has been
the question of gay marriage.
Both Bush and Kerry oppose extending the rights
guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to
same-sex couples.
Unlike Bush, but like many Republicans in
Congress, Kerry does support civil unions (which hold no weight and
may or may not be honored).
SO WHERE DOES all of this leave us, the American
voter?
The two major candidates are virtually identical
in their political positions. While the tone and form may differ,
the fact and content remains frighteningly the same.
The only real motivation the people have to vote
for John Kerry is the fact that he is not George W. Bush.
However, on all the issues that are most important
to people — especially working people — at this time, they are
almost indistinguishable.
This brings us back to the ugly truth behind the
concept of “Anybody But Bush.”
The reality is that, as long as the capitalists
have a tight grip on the political system, it will be their desires
that are fulfilled — their interests that are represented.
The reason that U.S. soldiers are occupying Iraq
today is not simply because of Bush, Cheney or even the
Project
for the New American Century.
Rather, they are acting in the interests of the
capitalists, and cannot do otherwise.
Should Kerry be selected to be president in
November, he too will maintain troops overseas, invade and occupy
relatively defenseless countries, suppress democratic rights at home
and wage his own “class warfare” against working people.
“Anybody But Bush” may be a good slogan to use for
rallying the Democratic faithful, and those scared or angry at the
Bush regime, but it does nothing to affect the underlying cause —
capitalism.
To put it another way: this country’s present
belligerence toward the rest of the world does not reflect the views
of some “evil” occupants of the White House and Congress; it
reflects the nature of capitalism and its desire to exploit the
world.
THIS IS WHY THE Socialist Party chooses to run its
own candidates, on its own anti-capitalist platform, in elections.
We seek to offer a voice for those who are locked
out of the two-party system, and wish to see a better world emerge
from the wreckage we call our modern society.
After all, why should working people, who make up
nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population, be coerced into
continuously electing members of the capitalist class (which is less
than 5 percent of the population) and its agents?
This November, we are being offered the chance to
vote for either a billionaire capitalist or a billionaire capitalist
— a pro-war, pro-occupation hawk or a pro-war, pro-occupation hawk —
a sneering opponent of democratic rights or a smirking opponent of
democratic rights.
Because of this, many people will “vote with their
feet” and stay home, feeling that no real choice is being offered.
But, there is another way. There is another
option. |
