Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Mostly I'd just like to say what Eli said.
It is easy to get wrapped up in the hyperbole surrounding this election and forget that Kerry's defeat is a matter of corporate candidate A edging out corporate candidate B. Yes, there are a few issues that might be up for grabs given four more years of retard -- safe, legal access to abortions, to name one, and BushCo's bloodlust for foreign wars was a notch above anything I've ever seen before -- but there are many imporant issues that President Kerry would have engaged in a very similar way to President Bush.
1. The situation in Iraq over the next four years would have been much the same under Kerry, who had every opportunity to call for an immediate total withdrawal of US forces and never did.
2. Kerry wouldn't have shined a spotlight on Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bucca, and the other camps, because it wouldn't have played well; if you doubt this statement, then ask yourself why candidate Kerry didn't mention the issue of the illegal secret detention of foreign nationals more often.
3. I don't believe Kerry would have done anything significant to prevent climate change due to global warming, although here he probably would have thrown us a few bones. A few minor initiatives are not going to turn back the clock on a hundred years of industrialization.
4. Kerry certainly wouldn't have fought to revoke NAFTA or to stop the FTAA -- this is obvious from his voting record.
The roots of both Bush's and Kerry's positions on issues like the above lie not in Republican or Democratic ideology but in the age-old motor of colonialism and corporatism throughout history, capitalism itself, and thus on such issues President Kerry would have been a more pleasing and eloquent version of President Bush.
The most dangerous element of this victory is that it will be used as a mandate to ratchet up the regressiveness of BushCo's policies; therefore, the next several months are going to be very important. Someone on DailyKos recently quoted Joe Hill's famous words from death row "Don't Mourn. Organize!" and that's probably the best advice on offer right now, although unlike the Kos poster I think that the organizing that needs to be done has very little to do with the Democratic party.
It is easy to get wrapped up in the hyperbole surrounding this election and forget that Kerry's defeat is a matter of corporate candidate A edging out corporate candidate B. Yes, there are a few issues that might be up for grabs given four more years of retard -- safe, legal access to abortions, to name one, and BushCo's bloodlust for foreign wars was a notch above anything I've ever seen before -- but there are many imporant issues that President Kerry would have engaged in a very similar way to President Bush.
1. The situation in Iraq over the next four years would have been much the same under Kerry, who had every opportunity to call for an immediate total withdrawal of US forces and never did.
2. Kerry wouldn't have shined a spotlight on Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bucca, and the other camps, because it wouldn't have played well; if you doubt this statement, then ask yourself why candidate Kerry didn't mention the issue of the illegal secret detention of foreign nationals more often.
3. I don't believe Kerry would have done anything significant to prevent climate change due to global warming, although here he probably would have thrown us a few bones. A few minor initiatives are not going to turn back the clock on a hundred years of industrialization.
4. Kerry certainly wouldn't have fought to revoke NAFTA or to stop the FTAA -- this is obvious from his voting record.
The roots of both Bush's and Kerry's positions on issues like the above lie not in Republican or Democratic ideology but in the age-old motor of colonialism and corporatism throughout history, capitalism itself, and thus on such issues President Kerry would have been a more pleasing and eloquent version of President Bush.
The most dangerous element of this victory is that it will be used as a mandate to ratchet up the regressiveness of BushCo's policies; therefore, the next several months are going to be very important. Someone on DailyKos recently quoted Joe Hill's famous words from death row "Don't Mourn. Organize!" and that's probably the best advice on offer right now, although unlike the Kos poster I think that the organizing that needs to be done has very little to do with the Democratic party.
