Election preamble

Okay, I've had it. I really, really have.

Just the other day, a blog I read regularly - which I won't name because the particular source is not relevant - posted an item about demonstrations at the national party conventions this summer and asked, in all seriousness, "why are there going to be protests at the Democratic Convention?" That was followed up by suggesting only "the usual loonies" and "the crazies" would do such a thing.

I mean, this is just beyond nonsense. The "Anybody But Bush" Brigade has turned into a slobbering "Democrats Uber Alles" Association (Sorry, can't do umlauts.) looking back with nostalgic sighs and misty eyes at the Clinton administration as the best of all possible worlds and shocked - just shocked - that anyone to the left of Bob Dole (except for "loonies and crazies") could find anything to be annoyed with the Dems about or, worse yet, criticize John Kerry for.

Well, I've had it. I really, really have.

John Kerry is no savior and I'm really fed up with hearing that he's something like the Second Coming. He'd be "better than Bush?" Hell, who wouldn't be? My memory of presidential elections goes back to 1956 and I'd be hard-put to declare a Republican nominee in that time as inferior to Boy George. But less egregious is not the same as good. It's one thing to argue, as a sign I saw on another blog recently declared, "Your stomach should be in knots if you vote for John Kerry. But think of how it will be if you don't." It's another to say, as too many seem to be doing now, that John Kerry is beyond reproach or at the very least must not be criticized.

But John Kerry is an opportunist. He is a flip-flopper. He is a centrist corporatist Democrat whose "jobs" program centers around cutting corporate taxes, whose trade policy endorses NAFTA and the WTO (how that squares with domestic job creation goes unexplained), and who is if anything to the right of Bush on Israel.

Kerry said he "completely" supported Bush's endorsement of a plan by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to hold on to lands seized in the 1967 Middle East War. Asked about Israel's assassination of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, leader of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, Kerry echoed the White House by expressing support for Israel's efforts to be secure.

He has gone out of his way to reassure corporate America that he is "not a redistribution Democrat," but rather a "fiscal conservative" who is "not somebody who wants to go back and make the mistakes of the Democratic Party of 20, 25 years ago."

He has even run away from his own history, indeed from the noblest part of it.

Senator John Kerry on Sunday distanced himself from contentious statements he made three decades ago after returning from the Vietnam War, saying his long-ago use of the word "atrocities" to describe his and others' actions was inappropriate and "a little bit excessive."

In the case of Iraq, his "strategy," if you can call it one, is a pastiche of centrist cliches amounting to "internationalize it while we stay in charge of the military." He has opposed the idea of a troop withdrawal as a "cut and run strategy" and says "security must come first," that is, before a democratic government - which as present circumstances clearly show, is an invitation for an open-ended US presence that is a military occupation de facto if not de jure. Indeed, he has said that early in his presidency he would increase the size of Army by 40,000 specifically to allow for more troops to be sent to Iraq, all but explicitly envisioning a large-scale US military presence well beyond the time when Iraq is supposed to have a functioning, self-determined government.

He's vague about how he would produce that increase, actually less than vague, he doesn't explain it at all, but he does propose a "National Service" plan, including making some sort of community service a requirement for high school graduation, calling it a "rite of passage." A leap from there to a draft is a short one indeed.

(Sidebar: The quote was "As President, John Kerry will ensure that every high school student in America performs community service as a requirement for graduation. This service will be a rite of passage for our nation's youth." It was here but now is gone. Perhaps they had second thoughts, which would be a good thing. Or maybe they were just afraid of getting the "youth vote" pissed at them.)

Just how much of wimpy centrist is he? When President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela suggested that a Kerry presidency could produce a better relationship between the US and Venezuela, Kerry responded with a blast straight out of the White House playbook:

Throughout his time in office, President Chavez has repeatedly undermined democratic institutions by using extra-legal means, including politically motivated incarcerations, to consolidate power. In fact, his close relationship with Fidel Castro has raised serious questions about his commitment to leading a truly democratic government.

Now, does anyone really think this was out of some deeply felt conviction about Venezuela, hardly a topic about which he's been vociferous either before or after this occasion, rather than just old line CYA to avoid being "associated" with the "leftist" Chavez?

If you're tempted at all to think the former, you might consider the Daily Kos incident.

Following the mutilation of the bodies of the four American security guards in Fallujah, there were many expressions of what a terrible tragedy it was. In the midst of that, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the operator of a popular website of news commentary called Daily Kos (rhymes with "rose") made what he later called an ill-considered comment on another site to the effect that he didn't feel anything for them. "Screw them," he said. (Zuniga, let it be noted, grew up in El Salvador in the 1970s during the civil war there. He knows what war and terrorism look like.)

He retracted the statement the next day, saying it was prompted by his anger that the deaths of what were in fact four $1000-a-day mercenaries had eclipsed all other recent tragedies in Iraq, including deaths of other Americans. That of course wasn't good enough; he was pilloried from the right and even from the left, including by several people who should have known better but perhaps felt they had reputations as members in good standing of the "pro-American left" to protect.

One of the things that happened in the wake of this is that the Kerry for President website pulled its link to Daily Kos.

Now, earlier, the Sludge Report had accused the Kerry campaign site of having links to material with obscenities. It was true enough in its way: The site included links to articles about Kerry (not all of them favorable, incidentally, which I have to admit is something that pleasantly surprised me, i.e., that they'd include such links) and the sites where those articles were in some cases had other articles that included obscenities. The Kerry campaign shrugged it off, saying it wasn't responsible for content on other sites. (A good attitude, since in the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon world of the internet, Matt Drudge himself is probably no more than a few clicks away from kiddie porn.)

In this case, however, no shrugging was allowed. Now, I suppose it's possible that arose out of some severe but misguided conviction that what Kos said was beyond the pale, but I strongly doubt it. I believe, rather, that it was out of fear that someone would try a cheap smear of Kerry by trying to connect him to Kos's words. That is, either they thought it was beyond the pale or they were afraid someone else would. In either case, the link was killed because of one remark not even on his own site as a result of either wrong-headed jingoism or political cowardice - neither of which I find acceptable in a president.

(It's worth noting in passing that the blog of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which did not pull the link to Daily Kos, has this statement at the bottom of its list of links: "Opinions expressed by these sites are not necessarily those held by us. So don't even try to blame us for things they say. It will just make you look lame. Seriously.")

Why will there be protests at the Democratic convention? Why in hell shouldn't there be?

Now, let's be clear: I'm not saying there is no difference between Shrub and Kerry. In fact, I expect Kerry would be better on some issues of importance to me, such as privacy and civil liberties. But let's not kid ourselves that this is the answer or that a Kerry administration will usher in an era of peace, international cooperation for economic justice, or economic security at home.

We keep falling for the slogans and keep getting screwed. We put our political faith in Jimmy Carter, in Bill Clinton, even more in the second-term Clinton (I remember in 1996 hearing it argued that if only Clinton would be re-elected, then without having to worry about a third term we'd see the "real" Clinton." We did, to discover we already had.). And we in each case spent the next four years feeling betrayed and let down. And yet, again, four years later we look back with nostalgia on the very things we complained about at the time. Again, this is not to say there is no difference, but it is to say, as I said at the top, less bad does not mean good.

And it also means that settling for "less bad," as we have repeatedly done, means at best that things get worse more slowly. And that is no longer good enough, if indeed it ever was.

I will be honest here: I live in a safe state. John Kerry is going to carry this state. If every voter in the state who feels like I do did as I intend to do, he'd still carry it, just by a clear instead of a large margin. So he'll carry it, but without my help. My vote is going elsewhere.

If I lived in a tossup state, I would be tempted to vote for him. I don't know that I would for certain, but I know I would be strongly tempted and probably would wind up doing it. I'd actually have to flip the lever with my tongue, because I'd be holding my nose with one hand and covering my eyes with the other. I'd be doing it in the hope to gain a pause in the decline with no expectation of thereby ending or reversing it; to try to gain some time, knowing this is no win - but, hopefully, it can be a sort of time out.

So this is what I advocate: If you live in a tossup state, go ahead, twist up your stomach, and vote for John Kerry. If you don't, if you live in a state that is safe either way - which means actually most of us - vote for the Greens if they're on the ballot. Vote for Nader. Vote for whatever progressive alternative you can find. But don't just add your vote to a meaningless total.

Some years ago, I exchanged a number of letters with a former student. In the summer of 1988, he asked my thoughts about Jesse Jackson's run for the presidency and the possibility of a Michael Dukakis presidency. What would be the role of the left during a Dukakis administration, he asked. I'd still stand by my answer, dated August 25, 1988.

The role of the left after the election will be the same as it's been all along: arguing, working, and campaigning for our ideas and ideals. Jesse Jackson didn't create the American left (indeed, it created him) and the left didn't cease to exist when the convention lights went off the evening after his speech. All the things we've talked about, disarmament, health care, housing, environmental clean-up and protection, decent jobs under decent conditions at decent wages, an end to sexism, racism, homophobia, and all the other -isms and -phobias to which we're heir, an economy controlled by all for the benefit of all instead of by the few for the benefit of the few, and a society that values cooperation above competition and public good above private greed, all of it still needs doing. And there will always be children to be educated instead of indoctrinated, communities to be cemented instead of walled off, and human freedoms to be protected by rigorous vigilance instead of proscribed by rightist vigilantes. That we've not had much success recently has a lot more to do with us than with the conceptually warped, logically vapid, morally bankrupt frothings of the right. We've failed to advocate our beliefs either strongly or openly and have tended to - pardon the cliche - hitch our wagons to the harness of the currently popular Democratic Party star, whoever that might be. It never seems to occur to us that when you hitch your wagon to someone else's team you spend your time following a horse's ass.

The fact is, no matter the outcome on November 2, the work doesn't end then. It begins.