ITS NOT ABOUT FURTHERING OUR AGENDA
By Joe Uris
[This article was published in The Portland Alliance, October 2004. Joe Uris is a writer and Talk Radio Host on KBOO-FM, 91.7, http://www.kboo.fm.]
John Kerry must be supported in his effort to oust Bush and Cheney from the White House. This is the overwhelming reality of our election. Yes, John Kerry and the modern Democratic party are not the same odd FDR coalition that created social security and favorable opportunities for labor to organize in the ‘30s. Yes, they are not the same Democrats who gave us strong civil rights legislation (which destroyed the odd coalitions southern white base) and Medicare.
Today’s Democratic Party occupies the center of an imaginary left to right political spectrum. It, and the national liberal establishment it represents, needs to find a base that is progressive in the European social democratic sense. Kerry is weaker than Edwards on these issues and can not be seen as a significant agent of change in the direction most progressives would like to see the country go.
Having said that, any reasonable analysis short of an apocalyptic approach which argues that things must get much worse before they can or will get better, must recognize the clear and present danger that Bush and his band of neo-cons and religious end-time thinkers represent:
While the Democrats may be ideologically wondering and weak, Bush and his bunch are not.
· They are potentially fascist – that is they will merge the state and the corporations into a seamless and cooperating ruling entity.
· The Bush Republican Party is serious about endless wars of an imperial nature.
· They would do away with civil rights, insisting that any resistance to their agenda is treason.
· They are more interested in power than management.
· They will render the government unable to ever fund health care, decent schools or any other badly needed program to make America a modern caring state.
· Bush and his buddies intend to whither away the state’s role in serving the people in almost every other aspect – no trains, no water management, no air quality controls.
· At the same time they will squander public monies on foolish war machines and repressive policing capabilities.
· The current leadership and following of the Republican Party will pillage our natur4al resources.
· The Bushites will transfer all wealth into the hands of the top 1 or 2 percent of the people.
· They will confabulate patriotism, religion, and nationalism into a totalitarian state system sealed in blood.
I would love to find people on the left (or the right for that matter) who will disagree with the above.
Finally, sadly, this election is not about furthering a progressive agenda. It is about pulling power from the hands of a minority of fascist dreamers who on the one hand desire the end of the world for religious reasons and seek to dominate the world and its resources on the other.
For these reasons we must make sure Bush is not re-elected. The only way to do that is to make sure Kerry and the Democrats gain control of the White House and the Congress.
And things DO have to get worse in order to kick the sleeping herd in this narcotized land into mobilization. The people are awakening from their warm comfort as the situation turns to poverty and desperation for even more of our misled people. We used to be a nation of the people and now we are a nation of the corporations. That is fascism. Sad and terrible times are over the horizon without any doubt. You can either stand with your brothers and sisters or be led where the media has determined we should be led. Into slavery...
The sad truth is that it is highly unlikely that real political progress will be made in this country until a massive economic collapse like that of the thirties or a war with truly horrendous casualty counts forces people out of their narcotized lethargy. This does not mean that I am hoping for such disasters; it just means that I believe that they are inevitable under capitalism and that the opportunies they offer for abolishing capitalism once and for all must be taken advangage of.
Time to change the record.
Things are getting worse and worse, and people are getting pretty upset. These elections aren't drawing people out because they generally feel that the issues brought up are not relevant to their lives.
The vast majority of people are working class, and the majority of registered voters in many LA cities is Democrat, but the local election turnouts tend to have a healthy fraction of Republicans. I think it's the issues.
Tax cuts, or new taxes, work to bring out rich people. They pay more taxes, and stand to gain more from cuts. So rich Republicans turn out to vote for these things, and then end up voting in their candidates too.
Solid working class issues, like education and health care, should bring out more working class voters. The problem is, these benefits-fueled initiatives are nice, but don't necessarily translate well at the local level for progressive candidates.