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June
28, 2003
The Democratic Hopefuls
and Bush
You
Call This an Alternative?
By
ALAN MAASS
How can George Bush be stopped? Many people among
the millions who oppose Bush's wars abroad and at home are asking
that question. And even though Election Day is more than 16 months
away, a good number have already pinned their hopes on the 2004
presidential vote.
The urgency about stopping Bush is certainly
justified. Since stealing the White House in 2000, he has carried
out a hard-line right-wing agenda across the board--from the
warmongering Bush Doctrine for expanding U.S. power overseas,
to his take-no-prisoners domestic policies deliberately aimed
at making corporations more powerful and the rich richer.
Even more frightening to those who oppose
this agenda is the way that Bush is already considered--according
to the conventional wisdom in Washington anyway--the odds-on
favorite in 2004. Since the September 11 attacks two years ago,
Bush's job approval rating has remained consistently high compared
to past presidents. And with a series of mega-fundraisers in
the coming months, the Bush reelection drive is already on the
verge of breaking the campaign cash records it set last time
around.
So it's little wonder that the 2004 election
was, for example, an underlying issue at the United for Peace
and Justice national conference of antiwar activists in Chicago
in early June. Beating Bush at the ballot box was an even more
explicit theme a few days earlier, at the Take Back America conference
in Washington, D.C., organized by the liberal Campaign for America's
Future.
In contrast to much smaller gatherings
previously, this year's Take Back America conference drew some
1,600 people--and not only staffers for unions, liberal groups
and the Democratic Party, but grassroots activists, including
from the antiwar movement.
This was another symptom of the anger
with the Bush administration--and the desire to do something
about it. But what should be done? And can the Democrats be trusted
to do it?
*
* *
AFTER ALL, one major reason that the
Bush administration has gotten away with so much has been the
cowardly behavior of the Democrats. Especially since September
11, but even before, the Democratic leadership in Washington
has caved again and again to the White House, providing Republicans
with an often comfortable margin of victory on the resolution
authorizing war on Iraq, the USA PATRIOT Act, the misnamed "partial-birth"
abortion ban, and both of Bush's tax cut giveaways to the rich,
to name just a few examples.
At one level, this is nothing new. The
Democratic Party's claim to represent ordinary people has always
hidden a different reality. In any election, the Democrat is
likely to be to the left of the Republican. But the differences
between the two, important though they may be, are really quite
small compared to what they share--an agenda that puts the interests
of big business first, even if the two parties sometimes disagree
about how.
Ultimately, the Democrats are not a party
that represents the interests of working people. They represent
big business. Whenever its preferred choice, the Republicans,
becomes too discredited to win elections, Corporate America can
count on the Democrats, waiting in the wings with predictable
and non-threatening policies.
This is ultimately why the Democrats--to
the great frustration of many of their most dedicated supporters--usually
give up ground to the Republicans, and not the other way around.
But despite this record, the same appeal is made at every election--that
while the Democrats may not be perfect, at least they are the
"lesser of two evils."
In the 2000 election, discontent with
this Republican and Democratic "duopoly" over national
politics produced the most successful left-wing challenge in
half a century--the Green Party presidential campaign of Ralph
Nader, who won nearly 3 percent of the vote nationwide. Despite
the abuse he took from Democrats for supposedly throwing the
election to Bush--actually, Al Gore has only himself to blame
for the miserable campaign he ran in an election that was his
to lose--Nader was a lightning rod for millions of people fed
up with a system that offers so little choice.
The 2004 election will shape up very
differently. Already, many Nader supporters--even members of
the Green Party itself--are talking about supporting the Democratic
candidate in order to defeat Bush.
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Global Exchange
and the Green Party's candidate for U.S. Senate from California
in 2000, says that she is leaning toward a limited Green presidential
campaign that doesn't try to win votes in states which could
tip the balance for the Democrats in the Electoral College. "[The
Democrats are] shameful in terms of even calling themselves an
opposition party," Benjamin says. "But despite that,
I still think that we've got to get rid of Bush. He's too dangerous
for the globe, and too dangerous for any of the issues we stand
for."
Liberal Democrats themselves are even
more outspoken. At the Take Back America conference, Rep. Jan
Schakowsky (D-Ill.), one of the top liberals in the House of
Representatives, said that people who feel fed up with the Democrats
should "get over it."
"Like it or not, either George W.
Bush or the Democratic nominee, whoever he may be, will be our
next president," Schakowsky said. "We should, by all
means, be working to promote a progressive agenda with each and
every candidate and to make the nominee as progressive as possible.
But in the end, we are going to have to dedicate ourselves to
electing the Democrat. To do otherwise is a luxury we cannot
afford."
* * *
THE MESSAGE is clear: Any Democrat is
better than Bush. But is this true?
Just how big a difference is there between
Bush and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), one of the early frontrunners
for the 2004 presidential nomination? Lieberman, after all, loudly
supported the war on Iraq, demands that the White House spend
more money on homeland security, made his reputation as a Hollywood-bashing
cultural conservative, and regularly attacks other Democratic
presidential hopefuls for proposing "big government"
programs to fix the U.S. health care crisis.
The record of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.),
the most prominent liberal among the other leading candidates,
isn't that much better. And his appearance at the Take Back America
conference was a prime example of how Democrats snub their supporters
to appeal to the "center."
Kerry spent the final portion of his
speech lecturing the overwhelmingly antiwar crowd about why he
rejects "those who reflexively oppose any U.S. military
intervention anywhere, or who see U.S. power as a mostly malignant
force in the world, or who place a higher value on achieving
multilateral consensus than necessarily protecting vital interests
of our nation...If Democrats are not prepared to make America
safer, stronger and more secure, for all we care about all those
other issues, we will not win back the White House, and we won't
deserve to."
There are other candidates for the nomination
who are more willing to take a stand against the Bush agenda,
rather than adapt to it. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is trying
to stake out a position as the main left-wing candidate, challenged
by Rev. Al Sharpton, former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun and Rep.
Dennis Kucinich.
But Dean--who himself admits that it
is "pathetic" he's considered a left-winger--is a long
shot to win the nomination, and the rest aren't even that. Thus,
Kucinich gave the best-received speech among the seven candidates
who addressed the Take Back America conference--but afterward,
talk among attendees returned to whether they could tolerate
a more conservative Democrat.
"I think a lot of people now are
agonizing," says Barbara Ehrenreich, a Nader supporter in
2000 who spoke at the conference. "How far would they go
to get 'anything but Bush'? A lot of people I know say it stops
at Lieberman."
In fact, when the eventual nominee is
chosen, the Sharptons and Kucinichs will have a time-honored
role to play for the Democratic Party--to accept defeat and round
up their supporters behind whatever candidate did win, no matter
how conservative.
* * *
OPPONENTS OF the Republican agenda felt
the same urgency about retaking the White House in 1992--and
in 1984 and 1988 for that matter--when Ronald Reagan and George
Bush Sr. were on the rampage. The same argument--that another
four years of Reagan or Bush would be a disaster, and the left
therefore had to bury its criticisms and unite behind the Democrats--could
be heard everywhere.
But what we got after 12 years of Republican
rule in the White House was finally brought to an end wasn't
an end to the Republican agenda. Instead, the Clinton-Gore administration
carried through very similar policies.
Even worse, when Bill Clinton signed
into law outrages like welfare "reform"--which effectively
shredded the decades-old social safety net for the most vulnerable
people in the U.S.--the organizations that could be expected
to mobilize a response were silent. Their justification was explicit--opposition
to the Clinton administration might damage the Democrats' chances
in the 1996 election.
"This is a bad bill, but a good
strategy," said Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), explaining
why he would vote for the welfare bill he opposed. In order to
continue economic and social progress, we must keep Prsident
Clinton in office...Sometimes in order to make progress and move
ahead, you have to stand up and do the wrong thing."
To listen to today's discussion about
2004, it's as if Washington's attack on working and poor people
began in January 2001, when Bush took over the White House. For
example, at the Take Back America conference, Barbara Ehrenreich,
quoted Bush describing welfare "reform" as a "resounding
success." But this is precisely the opinion of Bill Clinton
and the Democratic Party leadership.
Likewise, other speakers referred to
the recent Federal Communications Commission vote on new rules
that will make it easier for right-wing press barons like Rupert
Murdoch to expand their media empires. But no one mentioned the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, shepherded through Congress by
Al Gore, which set the stage for today's media merger mania.
Leaders of organized labor criticized the Bush White House's
anti-union offensive. But they neglected to point out that the
Clinton White House championed the NAFTA free trade deal.
There are real differences, of course.
Bill Clinton vetoed several versions of legislation banning the
late-term abortion procedure misnamed "partial-birth"
abortion. Bush is about to sign the ban into law.
But these differences are no excuse for
amnesia when it comes to the Democrats' real record. And anyone
who is considering voting for a Democrat as the lesser evil in
2004 should think about how organized labor and mainstream liberal
organizations found themselves disarmed when they fell in line
behind the Clinton White House.
If Democrats know that they have the
support of those to their left safely in hand, they will always
pander to the right in the search for more votes. That's why
those who vote for the lesser evil usually get both the lesser
and the greater evil.
* * *
AN INDEPENDENT political alternative
that stands uncompromisingly against the two-party "duopoly"
in Washington is every bit as necessary today as in 2000. Ralph
Nader has not said yet whether he will run again in 2004, though
Green Party members say that he is inclined toward another campaign.
Another potential presidential candidate for the Greens is former
Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who lost her seat in Congress last year
after she was targeted by a right-wing crusade--and the national
Democratic Party abandoned her.
Whether a Green Party presidential campaign
can find an audience in the face of the massive "anybody
but Bush" climate is another question. Green Party supporters
will definitely find themselves in a much smaller minority this
time around. But that doesn't change the need for an independent
alternative.
Does all this mean that we supporters
of a third party challenge don't care about stopping Bush? Not
at all. We have to mobilize in every way against the Bush agenda,
around whatever issues where struggle develops--including those
that the Democrats find too inconvenient to take a stand.
These struggles from below, after all,
are the way that real social victories have been won in U.S.
history--not by relying on politicians, no matter how liberal.
Thus, the major pieces of civil rights legislation in 1964 and
1965 that marked the success of the struggle against Jim Crow
segregation came at the crest of a mass movement of African Americans
that was shaking the political power structure in the South and
the U.S. as a whole. Before that, Democrats--including the party's
northern liberal wing--resisted taking action in favor of civil
rights.
As Howard Zinn put it in an interview
with Socialist Worker right after George Bush took office, "There's
hardly anything more important that people can learn than the
fact that the really critical thing isn't who is sitting in the
White House, but who is sitting in--in the streets, in the cafeterias,
in the halls of government, in the factories. Who is protesting,
who is occupying offices and demonstrating--those are the things
that determine what happens."
If the Clinton-Gore record suddenly looks
rosier compared to the crimes of the Neandrathals occupying the
White House now, it shouldn't be forgotten that Clinton stands
out in many ways as more conservative than the presidents that
came before him--Republicans included. So, for example, Richard
Nixon launched more anti-discrimination and affirmative action
programs than Clinton. Obviously, that's not because Nixon was
more liberal on civil rights--on the contrary, he was a miserable
right winger. But Nixon was under pressure to act from the mass
social movements of the 1960s and early 1970s--something Clinton
didn't face, in part because organized labor and mainstream liberal
groups fell in line behind the White House during the 1990s on
the reasoning that the Democrats were the "lesser evil."
As long as Corporate America dominates
Washington and the most important votes are the dollars given
by the biggest campaign contributors, the U.S. political system
will remain out of touch with what working people want--and beyond
of their ability to exercise any real democratic control.
The job of defeating the Bush agenda
can't be left to an unaccountable Democrat, who will decide which
Republican policy to overturn, and which to keep. We need to
organize that struggle from below. And in the process, we can
build an alternative to a political system where the only real
choices come down to different versions of the status quo.
Alan Maass
is the editor of the Socialist
Worker. He can be reached at: alanmaass@sbcglobal.net
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