To begin this column with a topic other than the elections would be to ignore an elephant — correction — two elephants in the room. That is, Bush and Kerry share a frightening pro-war, anti-gay-marriage, corporate agenda.
Kerry says he will wage a stronger war on terror (i.e. more invasions, troops, and spending on the military). Just ask him. “I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the war on terror,” Kerry insists, according to CNN.com. “I believe he’s done too little.”
Last month Missouri changed its state constitution to ban gay marriages. The Kerry-Edwards response, as noted in the Free Republic: “No Objection.”
Regarding abortion, Kerry told the Telegraph Herald of Dubuque, Iowa, “I oppose abortion, personally. I don’t like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception.” Personally, he’s abhorrent, how about politically? “I will not appoint somebody with a 5-4 court who’s about to undo Roe v. Wade …,“ Kerry told The Associated Press. “But that doesn’t mean that if that’s not the balance of the court, I wouldn’t be prepared ultimately to appoint somebody to some court who has a different point of view.“ Thanks, John.
On affirmative action, the Boston Globe notes Kerry as saying, “The truth is that affirmative action has kept America thinking in racial terms.” Newsflash: When racism is rampant, thinking “in racial terms” is a good thing.
How about the current resistance to neo-liberalism and mass privatization in South America? “We can’t sit by and watch as mob violence drives a president from office, like what happened in Bolivia or Argentina.“ Actually, Senator, you better just sit by. America’s backyard pillage has gone on too long.
The only good things that Kerry could hold up about his record, he publicly regrets. He says he went overboard in his opposition to the Vietnam War, Reagan’s invasion of Grenada, and Papa Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
In liberal Madison, Kerry’s actual platform is about as popular as a Toby Keith concert in Fallujah. Even still, Madison will vote for Kerry just because he isn’t Bush. “Anybody’s better than Bush,” the argument goes. But we deserve more than a maybe on abortion, textbook bigotry on gay marriage and George Bush saber waving in an “opposition” candidate. This fall we have a responsibility to do more than vote against Bush. We need to vote against the two-party system. Part of that is a conscious rejection of the logic of lesser-evilism.
Bill Clinton campaigned in 1992 for a Freedom of Choice Act to guarantee abortion rights to women, yet he never mentioned it after his inauguration. Eight years later abortion access reaches a new low — only available to women in less than 10 percent of U.S. counties. Under Clinton, income inequality increased tenfold. And prison populations doubled while implementation of the death penalty skyrocketed — disproportionately for blacks and Latinos.
Protests won us Roe v. Wade, civil-rights legislation, unionization rights, the eight-hour day, the weekend, and the list goes on. And peace signs were banned from the Democratic National Convention.
How will we ever reclaim the victories that are slipping away, let alone win new ones if we continue to accept the logic that shifts the U.S. political spectrum right-ward every election — that is: the logic of lesser evilism?
It goes like this: either the Democrat or Republican will win. And you know you don’t want the Republican. So the Democrats can take you for granted, and pander rightward. If the Democrat wins then you get to relax for the next four years, right? Well you don’t have much of a choice, because even if you want to protest the Democrat for upholding sanctions in Iraq, or purging gays from the military (to use two Clinton accomplishments as examples) the liberal establishment is committed to defending the Democrats before protesting him.
It would be bad enough if they just scared us into voting for them, but they actually hurt the movements that could otherwise bring change. Imagine the millions of dollars spent on Democrats that the AFL-CIO could put into organizing Wal-Mart workers. That’s not to mention the explicit co-option waged by the Democratic Party every time we fight for real change. FDR told striking workers to cool it, JFK and LBJ tried to silence the civil-rights movement, and the Kerry campaign has unleashed its local leaderships to blunt any attempt to actually win gay-marriage rights — from Massachusetts to Madison, the story is the same.
What we need is an alternative to Democratics, because they’re as loyal to their corporate base as a dog to the hand that feeds it. Every four years they tell us, “Wait, this year is too important.” Yes, this year is too important — too important to waste our vote on a party that isn’t listening. Turn this fall’s election into a referendum on the two-party system. Vote “No” by voting for the only candidate calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq, for a 10-dollar minimum wage, for an end to the death penalty, and most importantly who is running against the ill logic of lesser evilism.
Vote Nader.
Christopher Dols ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in civil engineering.