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The Michigan Socialist | Features |
In-Depth
First as tragedy ... second as farce
The political
significance of the Kerry-Edwards ticket
By MARTIN SCHREADER
Editor, the Michigan Socialist
 IT
WAS A LOT of fanfare, a little secrecy and probably the most
anti-climactic moment of the 2004 election season so far.
On July 6, Democratic Presidential nominee,
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, chose his colleague, N. Carolina
Senator John Edwards, to be their candidate for Vice President.
Edwards, who had been Kerry’s competitor for the
Democratic nomination only a few months before, was chosen by his
counterpart because, in the eyes of those to whom the Democrats
appeal, he is meant to represent “hope and optimism.”
The announcement, initially made by e-mail and
later followed by a joint appearance in Pittsburgh, Penna., touted
Edwards as the “son of a mill worker” with a history of “standing up
for American values and ordinary people.”
The point of this exercise, of course, was to
reinforce the mistaken belief that the candidates of the Democratic
Party and the party itself represent working people and their
“values.”
Edwards’ chief angle, talking about the “two
Americas,” is meant to show that Democrats are “concerned” about
“those who are struggling to make it from day to day.”
This message was reinforced throughout the
Democratic National Convention, which made Edwards’ slogan, “hope is
on the way,” a key part of its public rhetoric.
However, the selection of Edwards begs the
question: “Hope” for whom?
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| Two of a
kind: John Kerry (right) and John Edwards campaign together in
Ohio. |
JOHN EDWARDS was chosen in an attempt to offset
the inevitable criticisms from the Republican Party that the
Democrats were fielding a “Massachusetts liberal” (sic!) that did
not understand “average Americans.”
Leaving aside the torturous irony contained in
such a statement, the Republicans’ charge that the Democratic
national ticket is “out of touch” with “average Americans” has some
merit — but not for the reasons they state.
The Kerry-Edwards ticket is one of the wealthiest
seen in recent American political history. Kerry, son a lifelong
diplomat and husband of Teresa Heinz Kerry (heir to the Heinz
ketchup fortune), is worth billions of dollars and is, in fact,
wealthier than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney combined.
Edwards, before entering the Senate in 1998, had
been a well-known malpractice and personal injury attorney.
That is, he was a legal predator, exploiting for
personal gain the suffering and misery of poor and working people
who were sacrificed on the altar of profit.
In the process, he became a multimillionaire off
the fees he charged his cash-strapped and disabled clients.
As members of the Senate, both Kerry and Edwards
represented the conservative, neoliberal wing of the Democratic
Party.
As supporters of the rightwing Democratic
Leadership Council, Kerry and Edwards cemented their commitment to
removing the curbs placed on capitalist exploitation won through
mass struggle.
But it goes further than that. The Kerry-Edwards
ticket represents, in many respects, the broad consensus that has
been reached among members of the capitalist class over the last
period.
Both Kerry and Edwards have been staunch
supporters of the so-called “war on terror,” including voting for
the anti-democratic USA-PATRIOT Act and related legislation that
strips people of their basic Constitutional rights. In fact, Edwards
helped to draft parts of the PATRIOT Act.
Both of them voted for the Congressional joint
resolution that gave the Bush regime a blank check for the invasion
and occupation of Iraq.
Even after it has been definitively shown that all
the reasons provided by the White House and its propagandists for
invading Iraq were false, both Kerry and Edwards have defended their
votes and said they would “do it again” if necessary.
Kerry and Edwards are both longtime supporters of
tax cuts, incentives and breaks for the wealthy.
Their differences with the Republicans on this
issue are over the form this corporate welfare should take, not
whether the capitalists should receive it.
EVIDENCE OF this consensus can also be seen in the
recently released platform for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, Our
Plan for America.
In the overview published on their campaign
website, the Kerry-Edwards campaign responds to the Bush regime’s
unilateralism, encapsulated in the slogan, “Coalition of the
Willing,” by counterposing their alternative, the “Coalition of the
Able.”
Are they serious? Yes.
This exchange of words is seen as a major
difference by those supporting Kerry-Edwards, because this formula
for more imperialist aggression is couched in phrases about
“multilateralism” and cultivating “allies.”
Behind all the rhetoric about a “new era of
alliances,” and the petty quibbling about the advantages of “able”
over “willing,” is an enduring commitment to seeing that the wishes
of the Anglo-American imperialist cartel are fulfilled.
One genuine difference that can be found between
the two competing capitalist campaigns is over the question of the
military. But it is not the kind that most people would immediately
think about.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign has put forward on many
occasions their support for the expansion of the Armed Forces,
including the addition of 40,000 soldiers to the active duty
military roster and the creation of mandatory “national service”
programs.
In other words, the Democratic Party —
inexplicably, the home for a large proportion of those who have
opposed the militarism of the Bush regime — is advocating, though
its national ticket, expanding the material basis for maintaining
the recent wave of militarism started by the Bush regime.
OF COURSE, this is not the only area where we find
Kerry-Edwards walking in lockstep with the Bush regime.
On education, Kerry-Edwards both advocate
strengthening the provisions of the so-called “No Child Left Behind”
legislation developed by the Bush regime.
In Our Plan for America, they are explicit
about this: “[W]e also believe that No Child Left Behind is only the
beginning. That is why we have offered a plan to finish the job of
education reform.” (p. 92)
No Child Left Behind was meant by the Bush regime
as a way to legalize the privatization of the education system in
America. So, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a longtime
politician to know what “finish[ing] the job” means.
A large part of the campaign rhetoric of
Kerry-Edwards is about health care.
In speech after speech, they have shed buckets of
crocodile tears for the tens of millions of working people in the
U.S. who have been denied the right to medical treatment.
And what are they proposing?
Far from anything remotely resembling a national
health care system, they want to expand Medicare coverage to poor
and working people.
That is, they want to give the poor access to a
substandard, underfunded system that will be gutted over the coming
years through privatization.
(For more information on what will be happening to
Medicare over the next few years, see “Democracy
flatlines,” the Michigan Socialist, Vol. 2, No. 1,
January-February 2004)
On virtually every international policy question —
Iraq, Israel/Palestine, North Korea, Cuba, Latin America, etc. —
Our Plan for America reads like the Bush regime’s plan for
America.
This is especially true in the area of expanding
the power of the government to use the CIA to spy on American
citizens, both here and overseas.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign has echoed the calls of
the Bush regime and the phony “9/11 Commission” for a Director of
National Intelligence — a “spy czar,” responsible for coordinating
domestic and international spying operations. (p. 13)
In fact, Kerry-Edwards has even called for this
new Director to be a Cabinet-level position and have power over
personnel and budgets, which puts them at odds with their
Congressional colleagues ... and firmly in the camp of the Bush
regime.
 |
| Rebel
without a clue: John Kerry rides around on a police motorcycle.
Honestly, Michael Dukakis looked better in the tank. |
THIS IS THE “choice” that working people are being
offered: a choice between two teams supporting virtually the same
proposals.
This is the capitalist consensus in sharp focus.
Many Democratic activists want to portray the
November election as something equivalent to a referendum on the
policies of the Bush regime, especially since the attacks of
September 11, 2001.
However, the reality is that this election is a
contest between two management teams.
That is, the “differences” between Bush and Kerry
are over who can do a better job of managing the affairs of the
ruling class while moderating or suppressing domestic dissent.
This is why Kerry-Edwards’ Our Plan for America
is littered with phrases about how “ Bush’s actions against
terrorism have fallen far short” (p. 11), “the Bush administration
has no coherent plan for domestic defense” (p. 38) and “Bush
promised the American people that he would be a uniter, not a
divider — but he has been nothing of the sort.” (p. 121)
And that’s the real issue at stake, isn’t it? Bush
was unable to manage the affairs of capitalism effectively; he has
polarized the country and brought millions of people into the
streets in protest.
The Kerry-Edwards ticket is offering the
capitalists an opportunity to diffuse the protests, silence the
protestors and get back to business.
They are offering the capitalist class domestic
peace and passivity (and “order” in the streets through more police
[p. 41-42]), and continuation of the imperial project around the
world.
Is this a choice for working people? Clearly not.
And that should not be surprising.
Working people are not those whom the two main
candidates are lobbying for votes. That privilege belongs to the
so-called “center:” the petty producers and yuppie professionals
that make up the “middle class.”
The race between the Republican and Democratic
candidates is race to see who will be the executive committee of the
ruling capitalist class — who will be the overseers in capitalism’s
wage-slave system.
“HEGEL REMARKS somewhere that all great
world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He
forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
(Marx,
18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon)
The more and more we look at the Kerry-Edwards
campaign, the more we can understand what Marx meant when he wrote
this statement over 150 years ago.
Almost four years ago, the U.S. was pulled kicking
and screaming into a nightmare of rampant capitalist brigandage.
It began with the blatant theft of an election,
continued with an all-sided attack on the rights and livelihoods of
working people, and marches on to the drumbeat of war for profit.
Now we are being given a “choice” of whether to
extend the tragedy that has been the Bush regime, or engage in farce
by choosing the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
Regardless of which of capitalism’s two candidates
wins in November, it will be working people who will lose.
We will lose our rights to the “war on terror;” we
will lose our livelihoods to maintaining capitalist
“competitiveness;” we will lose our lives in wars for profit.
While it would be nice to think that even the
victory of the Socialist ticket in the upcoming election would
radically alter that situation, the best it could produce is a
regime of crisis, where the forces of the state (still led by the
capitalists) would be in a virtual state of war with the elected
government, with the attacks taking place through “unofficial”
channels.
This is why it is more important than ever for
working people to begin organizing and mobilizing in its own name
for its own interests.
The upcoming Million Worker March should only be
the first in a series of mass actions by working people in defense
of our common interests against our common enemy.
But we need more. We need a mass movement of
working people fighting for democratic socialism, and organized into
a mass political party of working people.
This is what the Socialist Party of Michigan, as
an affiliate of the Socialist Party USA, is fighting for — in our
workplaces, our communities and even at the ballot box (as long as
that is possible).
But we cannot do it without you. “Someone else”
will not build a movement like this. You have to make it happen if
you want it to happen. Join in. Get involved. Represent yourself! |
