Friday, September 17, 2004
(9:46 AM) | Anonymous:
Regardless of who wins...
Ok, ok so we are all really worried about the Bush/Cheney "We're Fucking Crazy" administration winning in November. We all want to believe Kerry/Edwards "We're Fucking Boring" will do a lot better job. And likely their whole neo-liberal world order would operate a lot smoother with the current global market than the neo-conservative imperialistic ideology the Bush/Cheney administration employs. Neither of these options are liberating or emancipating and neither camps are going to do much in the way of stopping war (though Kerry would at least certainly go about wars 'more intelligently' if such a thing can be said) or the onslaught of Capital (both are Billionaires caught up in Big Business).Regardless of who "win's" in November the Left has to organize and step up its efforts in actually doing something. My former theory used to be that Kerry would be the best person to act as catalyst because during times of repressive Democratic governments (i.e. the 1960's and the Clinton years) the Radical Left has grown in power and had a larger voice. I thought this might be because when you the economy is doing well and you don't have to argue over what actually constitutes torture people focus on more important issues. After Bush (like after 9/11) I don't know if this can be said anymore. If Kerry is elected I fear we will all heave a large sigh of relief (and rightly so!) and let our defenses down because we'll have someone a little less insane running America. This may cause us to forget that the Democratic Party is not going to save us and that they have constantly drifted further away from Socialist and Communist ideals of universal health care, workers rights, diplomacy, etc. To think that we have somehow moved forward by electing Kerry could possibly be the worst thing for the Left in America.
The other side is Bush wins and we fall into crippling despair over the lack of effectiveness to fight even the weakest of enemies. Obviously we have failed, for many reasons, to counter the Bush propaganda machine after it was strengthened on 9/11. Partly, again, this is due to our hope and naivety that the liberals in the Democratic Party were our allies and that they would use their power to fight things like the Patriot Act and the Iraq war. They didn't - in fact they didn't even fight to retain their own power!
I've said it before; Ralph Nader (who has also gone fucking crazy) did not lose the election for Al Gore. Americans lost it by allowing the Supreme Court to hijack further the election process. By giving into the fear over what would happen if, heaven forbid, we didn't have a President for a month or two while we figured out what happened in Florida. We believed that representational government would save us; that belief paralyzed us to realizing our power for direct action.
I am not suggesting that we shouldn't vote for Kerry, it seems the most sensible option, but we have to be somewhat Protestant or secular about it. Voting in America is a symbolic act with nothing lying behind it. We need to realize that we are not really partaking of government in this act. Regardless of who wins in November the Left (which I hope means you and I) has to formulate a plan for whomever comes into power so that we don't slip into passivity or despair.
