Election Results Fallout

So the neoconservative Bush machine has managed to get itself reinstalled for another four years, and in the process has secured majorities in both houses of the Congress.  Furthermore, in a more thorough than ever detachment from reality (thanks to the sudden resignation of several of its cooler heads), it has managed to interpret Bush's slim victory margin in the popular vote as as a "landslide" and a "mandate."  This spin comes from President Bush's having received more total votes than any presidential candidate in history—conveniently ignoring that his challenger, Senator Kerry, also received more total votes than any presidential candidate in history.  It's a natural consequence of population growth, coupled with unprecedented electioneering on both sides, resulting in more total voters on both sides than at any time in history.  But don't bother those folks with facts; they're in the habit of spinning any happy bit of information any way they like and ignoring everything else.  (That in itself isn't too troublesome; it's what politicians do.  The worrisome thing is they've made it official government policy, and a majority of American voters are gullible enough to be bamboozled by it.)

Decorum decrees that we ought to congratulate the winners.  But at the same time, reality decrees that we must face facts.  In this case, celebration and reality would seem to be at odds.  For this is no mere game:  The real lives and fortunes of millions of people are at stake.  Considering the grim difficulties we are likely to confront (in light of those we have already endured during this administration—only a few of which have been anyone else's fault), even the most optimistic feelings we can muster are mixed.  On the one hand, we may count ourselves lucky that the liars and looters did not rob us of everything in their previous raid.  On the other hand, we must now brace ourselves for the next onslaught.  How many more will lose their livelihoods, their lives, or their loved ones in the next four years?  So perhaps we can be forgiven a shortage of enthusiasm for the prospects.

Should we congratulate the victors?  Perhaps; after all, to many—particularly those who have so far managed to escape or ignore any severe consequences of blind neoconservative idealism—politics is merely a kind of jolly game.  Should we cooperate whenever we have an opportunity to be constructive, to advance the true ideals of America's founders, patriots, and progressive visionaries?  Certainly!  Should we ignore the damage that has already been done and is yet intended, whether it be due to innocent ignorance or outright malice?  Never!

We are assured by pundits that, despite powerful pro-Kerry (or at least anti-Bush) positions on the real issues of the economy, war, and national security, the 2004 election was ultimately decided over values.  The problem is that we are hard pressed to guess just what these "values" might be, under the circumstances.  Whatever they are...

• those values have nothing to do with being honest with the public, since this administration has shown itself unable to face reality and unwilling even to be honest with itself;
• those values have nothing to do with adequately supporting education or maintaining a healthy environment for citizens;
• those values have nothing to do with ensuring that ordinary people receive fair treatment from energy, pharmaceutical, insurance, and other major industries;
• those values have nothing to do with helping families survive when unscrupulous employers are free to abuse employees, deprive them of just compensation, and ship their jobs overseas;
• those values have nothing to do with keeping faith with a booming population of seniors, who are only now about to tap into the federal systems, to which their taxes have been contributing for a lifetime, but which administration policy is calculated to bankrupt in fairly short order;
• those values have nothing to do with maintaining strong international alliances based on mutual cooperation, earned trust, and good faith;
• those values have nothing to do with equal treatment under the law for all law-abiding Americans—even the Vice President's own lesbian daughter;
• those values have nothing to do with compassion for those suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, diabetes, and other disorders potentially treatable through adequately funded stem cell research;
• those values have nothing to do with defending the domestic tranquility of peaceful, law-abiding people from those deranged enough to fancy they "need" assault weapons;
• those values have nothing to do with preventing venereal disease and unwanted pregnancy, but only with spreading misinformation and punishing the victims;
• those values have nothing to do with a "culture of life," ballyhooed by a president who sends American troops into a bloody grudge war on the basis of known faulty intelligence, not to mention an ex-governor of the state whose prison system boasts the most active death-row in the nation.

So, we frankly must wonder just what those values might be.  Are they real?  Or are they as illusory as the Bush administration's fractional "mandate," as insubstantial or fictitious as the bases for almost every scheme it has tried to foist upon us?  Happily, nearly half of the electorate refused to be fooled by the "values" smokescreen.  More voters than ever before had the integrity and presence of mind to hold the administration responsible, for the multiple problems it has created or exacerbated, and for its failure to develop credible and workable solutions.

But unhappily, "nearly half" isn't nearly enough.  Slightly more than half were persuaded to ignore reality and take the bait, to vote with their guts instead of their wits.  Surely, we might expect such from the unschooled and gullible inhabitants of some backward, third-world country, but certainly not from the world's only remaining superpower.  That would mean that Americans, on average, are no more civilized or rational than a rabble of tribal warlords, superstitious peasants, medieval mystics, and ignorant camel thieves.  That would mean that world leadership is on the brink of being surrendered to leveler heads.  Surely (most Americans must suppose, as surely as their Babylonian, Roman, Turkish, Spanish, British, and Soviet counterparts supposed in their days) despite the examples of history, this simply cannot be the case.  And perhaps it isn't—yet.

But just in case it is, let us hope that those leveler heads are up to the task.  Let us wish them the wisdom and the will, the strength and the compassion, to make a better and more lasting job of democracy and humanist ideals than we have.  Let us also hope that their first order of business—either of pacifying the crusading dragon, or (when that fails) of pulling neoconservatives' nuclear teeth before they can inflict irreparable damage upon the rest of civilization in a paranoid rage—will entail much greater success and much less misery than seems likely at the moment.

=SAJ=

Democratic Party

Democrats have typically drawn their support from the underdogs of society—the exploited, the oppressed, and the individualistic—labor, ethnic minorities, women, artists, educators. They became known as the party that presses for and defends civil rights, religious rights, and women's rights, over strong opposition from big business and reactionary populists. However, the rightward lurch of the American political spectrum in 1980 left a vacuum in the center, which moderate Democrats have attempted to fill. Yes, there are still genuine liberals among Democrats, but they wield little influence in this time of angry conservative frenzy.

www.democrats.org

John Kerry
U.S. Senator, MA
Democrat candidate for President

Born 1943; wife (Teresa), 5 children; Navy veteran; Vietnam Veterans against the War.

Main themes: economy and jobs, education, energy, environment, foreign policy, health care, minorities, security.

The early front-runner in the Democratic race, Senator Kerry encountered serious opposition but rebounded in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. Compared to other candidates, he exhibits a somewhat reserved personality. Though this does not reflect upon his ability to govern, a perceived lack of charisma could affect his electability.

On "Super Tuesday," 2 March, John Kerry effectively sewed up the Democratic nomination, sweeping all but one of the states with elections that day.

For a few weeks, Kerry has been running somewhat ahead of Republican incumbent Bush in national opinion polls.  However, this is a fairly typical pattern, in years when an incumbent faces no significant challenge from within his own party's ranks. As the Democratic focus narrows and the GOP fires up its own campaign, we will likely see shifts that narrow or broaden the gap, or even cause it to switch sides on occasion.

In July, John Kerry selected former rival John Edwards as his vice-presidential running mate.

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John Edwards
U.S. Senator, NC
Democrat candidate for Vice President

Wife (Elizabeth), 2 daughters, 2 sons (1 deceased).

Main themes: civil liberty, employment, environment, health care, public education, Social Security & Medicare, campaign finance reform.

www.johnkerry.com

Also-Rans

John Edwards
U.S. Senator, NC
Selected by John Kerry as his vice-presidential running mate.

Carol Moseley Braun
former Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa

Wesley Clark
former NATO Supreme Allied Commander

Howard Dean, M.D.
Governor, VT

Dick Gephardt
U.S. Representative, MO

Bob Graham
U.S. Senator, FL

Dennis Kucinich
U.S. Representative, OH

Joe Lieberman
U.S. Senator, CT

Al Sharpton
Celebrity Cleric

Thanks to all those who made the sacrifices necessary to mount a primary campaign, and congratulations in particular for a competition refreshingly characterized by civility, unity, and addressing of issues, rather than by in-fighting, divisiveness, and character assassination.

Green Party

The Green Party has exhibited a tendency to focus extensively on environmental, conservation, pacifist, and anti-corporate issues, often to the exclusion of other concerns.

www.gp.org

David Cobb
attorney
Green candidate for President

On 26 June, Green Party delegates nominated Cobb the party's official candidate in the 2004 presidential race, rather than endorse independent Ralph Nader or throw support behind Democrat John Kerry, the only credible challenger to the current administration.

Cobb immediately selected Pat LaMarche as his running mate. So who are David Cobb and Pat LaMarche? Maybe they're nice, well-meaning people. But like lots of nice, well-meaning people in today's world, they are not apt to make a thimbleful of difference. However, in the most unlikely event that they do, it will be only to siphon off (between Cobb and Nader) just enough liberal votes (Shades of 2000!) to ensure that the administration with the most anti-Green policies in history will remain in power for another four years. It gives cause to speculate about whose side these folks are really on.

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Pat LaMarche
Green candidate for Vice President

www.votecobb.org

Republican Party

Republicans are generally conservative, favoring the interests of large business and wealthy investors. In the main, they tend to be isolationist in matters of international cooperation, but globally aggressive where exploitation and marketing are concerned. Republican fiscal policy has been to grant tax breaks, mostly to the wealthy, even running a deficit to do so. Since 1980, the Republican Party has also very effectively pandered to fundamentalist Christian advocates as a means of attracting votes. Although Republican fiscal policies have actually tended to hurt the lower economic classes where fundamentalism holds its greatest sway, the party's trumpeting of what it calls "family values" (i.e., cultural conformity) is nevertheless immensely popular among the many single-issue voters who view diversity as dangerous.

www.gop.com

George W. Bush
incumbent U.S. President
former Governor of Texas

Born 1946; wife (Laura), 2 children; Air National Guard veteran.

In this election year, President Bush enjoys the "bully pulpit" of incumbency. However, he must also try to defend (or distort or obscure) a record that has contradicted most of his rosy rhetoric. Indeed, a pattern has emerged, in which the President gives a speech praising a particular group, and a few days or weeks later takes some action distinctly detrimental to that group. The obvious lesson: If you hear G.W.Bush singing your praises, you'd better protect your backside.

• Business: Though Bush claims his policies benefit small businesses, it is large corporations which have been the true beneficiaries, while small businesses—those responsible for hiring most American workers—have become increasingly strapped.

• Diplomacy: Protestations that "force is a last resort" notwithstanding, it now appears that at the commencement of his presidency George W. Bush was already determined to invade Iraq. Questionable intelligence had to be "cooked" to conjure an excuse to deploy allied troops to overthrow the Iraqi regime, which in fact posed little threat to U.S. interests. Now that billions of dollars and hundreds of allied lives have been expended, the outcome so far has been chaos in Iraq, growing enmity elsewhere in the Middle East, and erosion of American credibility everywhere.

• Economy: It would be unfair to blame Bush for precipitating a recession that had already begun almost a year before he took office. However, the most prolonged failure of the economy to rebound since the Great Depression can be traced to supply-side mistargeting and squandering of resources, which ultimately degraded the prosperity of nearly all Americans—including many of Bush's wealthy backers. Indeed, some of those millionaires who benefited candidly characterized the Bush policy as "looting the U.S. Treasury."

• Education: Bush praises public education, but signs legislation that cuts funding for it. His own "no child left behind" policy is critically underfunded in order to help pay for his tax cuts for the wealthy. Moreover, the voucher system urged by conservatives can only further undermine America's already beleaguered public education system, increase truancy, and reduce effectiveness of federal accreditation for increasingly burdened private schools.

• Employment: The Bush administration's legacy has been 2-3 million jobs lost, only a few thousand recovered (so far), replacement of full-time positions with part-time, a net reduction of 12% in wages on new jobs, and a reclassification of some workers to exclude them from overtime pay. Bush's only plan to increase manufacturing jobs is simply to reclassify fast-food preparers as skilled industrial workers.

• Energy: The Bush-Cheney energy strategy appears to have been drawn up behind closed doors by oil lobbies. It encourages oil production and consumption, with virtually no attention given to conservation or alternative fuels.

• Environment: Early on, Bush rejected the international Kyoto Accord on global warming as somehow "unfair" to American industry, and has since relaxed or dismantled environmental controls wherever possible. His environmental policy has been to delegate authority to "experts" in the logging, mining, drilling, and industrial sectors to decide what constitutes environmentally sound policy. It essentially puts the foxes in charge of the henhouse.

• Fiscal responsibility: Bush promised no deficit spending, yet even before the tragedy of 2001 he turned the first projected surplus in decades into the largest deficit in history, using supply-side philosophy as a pretext to broaden the gap between rich and poor and to place the burden upon the increasingly struggling middle and working classes.

• Foreign policy: A protectionist tariff on imported steel predictably backfired when the affected governments threatened retaliatory tariffs on American goods.

• Health care: Bush's policy to "give seniors a choice" actually makes their choices less palatable than ever, by engineering policies calculated to gut Medicare, by allowing HMOs to drop unprofitable clients, by encouraging abusive pricing by the pharmaceutical industry, and by scapegoating medical malpractice suits (which account for less than one percent of the nation's medical bill).

• Justice: Attorney General Ashcroft has used the threat of terrorism as an excuse for the greatest curtailment of Americans' constitutional rights since the McCarthy era. Anyone who looks even vaguely Middle-Eastern may be detained indefinitely on the flimsiest of excuses. While the average American may now be marginally safer from terrorism, increasingly his privacy is invaded and his freedom encroached upon.

• Military: Bush praises America's fighting men and women, but then his administration dishonors them by having fake letters, ostensibly from soldiers, mass produced and sent to hometown newspapers. His budget cuts funding for veterans in order to help pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

• Research: The result of Bush's knee-jerk ban on stem-cell research is that victims of many disorders will have to wait longer for treatments to be developed, and that that development must take place outside the U.S.

• Security: Bush exhibits a distinct lack of enthusiasm for investigating a leak that blew the cover of a federal agent whose spouse was known to be critical of the administration.

• Space: In mid-January, Mr. Bush proposed new manned missions to the Moon and Mars—to be paid for by discontinuing American participation in the International Space Station project. Inasmuch as support for Lunar and Martian expeditions is exceedingly unlikely, the net result is almost certain to be the axing of ISS with nothing in return—just the latest manifestation of the now predictable Bush hatchet strategy.

• Tax relief: About 90% of the Bush tax cut goes to the wealthiest 1% of Americans; none at all goes to the 30% who are too poor to pay income tax. Touted as stimulus for a slow economy, the Bush supply-side scheme provides a temporary respite to beleaguered investors, but does nothing to stimulate broad consumer demand needed to justify increases in production and hiring that would promote sustained growth. This is reflected in the "recovery" of the stock markets without significant reduction of unemployment.

• Veterans: The Bush budget cuts funding for veterans in order to help pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

The administration of George W. Bush has created a dismal record on which to run, but you can bet Republicans' well-paid spin doctors will paint the most cheerful face on it. As they have already demonstrated in their attacks on the popular grassroots action group "Move On," they will portray those who question their policies as deceitful, elitist, extremist, gullible, irresponsible, misguided, scheming liberals—in short, all those evils which characterize the Bush record itself, with the obvious exception of "liberal."

A critical summary of George W. Bush's record as President so far:

• He has squandered the credibility of the United States, as well as the good will of the world from the September 2001 tragedy, on what appears to have been a family vendetta against Saddam Hussein.

• His energy and environmental policies are being written by industrial interests, particularly the petroleum sector.

• Though trickle-down economics has been demonstrated counter-productive time and again, he adheres to supply-side dogma as if it were a religious creed.

• He exhibits utter incomprehension of such essential matters as fiscal policy, international relations, science, and the long-term importance of education to business.

• Though denouncing "big government," under his administration government has become both more secretive and more intrusive.

• His claim that he has the interests of average Americans at heart is belied by his record in business, education, economics, employment, energy, environment, health care, labor, scientific research, and tax relief, which has shortchanged ordinary people to pay off wealthy contributors.

• He exhibits a strong tendency to act on his prejudices and gut instincts, rather than on reliable information, critical evaluation, and thoughtful counsel.

• As commander in chief of the world's leading nuclear power, his often ill-considered and impulsive behavior is causing him to be viewed as a "loose cannon on deck."

By now it is evident that the Bush administration has serious problems with basic concepts of truth and reality. Secrecy, dishonesty, greed, demagoguery, misrepresentation, coercion, treachery, and abuse of everything from the economy and the environment to human rights are not mere transient aberrations, but essential policy and tools of this administration. While it may be true that G.W.Bush has not committed any unseemly acts with presidential aides, it would appear that the same cannot be said about how he has dealt with the rest of the American people, with America's allies, or with the world. As his supporters in 2004 will doubtless realize the futility of attempting to camouflage these abuses against public scrutiny, it is expected that Bush partisans will pander increasingly to the fanatical religious right, in an effort to bamboozle enough of the electorate to support him as their only "righteous" defense against "the evil liberals"—i.e., those of us with enough intelligence and ambition to study the issues and make up our minds independently of the sound bytes and commentary that pass for journalism on Faux News.

President Bush ran unopposed in the Republican Party primary. Barring an unexpected coup at the GOP convention, he will be his party's candidate in the 2004 general election.

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Richard Cheney
incumbent U.S. Vice President
former Haliburton executive

As George W. Bush's Vice President for the 2001-2004 term, Mr. Cheney has drawn considerable fire for his overweening allegiance to industry management.  His connections have been consistently reflected in the writing of national policy strongly favorable to the petroleum, pharmaceutical, and insurance industries, at the expense of environmental and consumer interests.  Further, the awarding of lucrative no-bid government contracts to Haliburton and its affiliates flagrantly disregards the principles of "free enterprise" to which this administration pays lip service.  Nevertheless, Bush affirms that Cheney will remain on the ticket in November—which probably should tell us something.

www.whitehouse.gov/president/

 

Independent Candidates

Ralph Nader
consumer rights advocate
independent candidate for President

On 22 February, Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency as an independent candidate.  In 2000, as we recall, Mr. Nader ran on the Green Party ticket, siphoning off tens of thousands of popular votes in Florida—many times the few hundred that swung that state's crucial electoral bloc from Al Gore to George W. Bush.

Now an independent, Mr. Nader no longer enjoys his former party's backing, and has selected Peter Camejo, a former Socialist Workers' Party candidate (1976), as his running mate.  Nader's main complaint is that Washington is in the pocket of corporate giants.  To most of us, that probably means Republicans and their supporters, which leads us to speculate about what effects a Nader candidacy is likely to bring to a potentially close race in November.  Consider:

• As an independent, Nader has no direct party support.*

• He has zero chance of winning the general election.

• He pipes a cynical theme (outdated since the Reagan era, but still popular), that there is no significant difference between America's two major political parties.

• With his consumerist and environmentalist leanings, it is unlikely that he would draw any support away from Republicans.

• While Nader may draw a trickle of otherwise disenchanted voters to the polls, it is also likely that he will draw many more votes away from the Democrat candidate—the only candidate with a realistic chance of defeating Bush.

• The only conceivable impact of a Nader candidacy in 2004, then, would be to make replacement of the Bush administration less, not more, likely.

So what are we to make of all this?  It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out who would be the beneficiaries of a Nader campaign: the same people whose policies have for the past three years cost millions of American jobs, robbed the working and middle classes of hope, victimized the elderly, short-changed education, trashed our environment, and looted the treasury on behalf of corporate greed.

It has been plausibly argued that Nader's candidacy four years ago had the unintended effect of handing the election to George W. Bush, whose policies have since trashed everything for which Greens, Democrats, and even responsible conservatives stand.  Clearly, election 2000 was a freak accident; it could not have been foreseen.  But are we to make the same mistake twice, now that we know the risks and the potential catastrophe, now that the vast differences between the Clinton boom and the Bush calamity are painfully evident?

Given these facts and probabilities, it is enough to cause one to wonder aloud, whether Republicans see a left-fringe spoiler as their best hope of stealing the November election—again.  As long as we are speculating, let us entertain the possibility that a Nader campaign in 2004 is no mistake, but a calculated maneuver.  Odd though it seems, is it possible that the GOP might be secretly funding Nader's campaign with a few dribblings from its immense $100,000,000 war chest?  Could the great crusader have been either duped or bought out?  It is difficult to imagine what might prompt a rational person in Mr. Nader's shoes to run otherwise.

Mr. Nader urges us once again to send a message to Washington.  But anyone old enough to be politically aware has witnessed the result of the last futile message sent on his behalf: smug indifference by a contemptuous conservative establishment.  Enough!  Now Democrats, Greens, and independents alike urge that it's time to open our eyes to the fact that our workforce, our businesses, our economy, our environment, our seniors, and our children cannot be put on hold for another four years, just so Mr. Nader can send another message to those who will pay it no heed.  Our nation and its people are in trouble now; we have no more time to squander on empty messages.  It is time to unite, to get our heads out of the clouds, and to do something that will actually make a positive difference.

*Though Nader has no direct party support, Republicans have expressed delight with his candidacy, and have even provided assistance in his effort to get on the Illinois ballot. Though clearly hostile toward every principle for which Nader and his supporters stand, the GOP is evidently hoping he will once again siphon off enough liberal votes from Democrats in battleground states to clinch another Republican victory in 2004.

Decisions:

On "Super Tuesday," 2 March, John Kerry became the only candidate still running a credible campaign in the Democratic primary. By the 15th, he had effectively sewed up the Democratic Party nomination, having secured a majority of convention delegates.

All candidates in the Democratic primary race deserve praise for refusing to indulge in negative campaign practices, for staying focused on issues, and for displaying unity in the overall objective of restoring responsibility, accountability, compassion, and rational thinking to the White House.

=SAJ=