political reflection
“If you judge it by the standards of Nuremburg it’s a war crime. It’s an act of aggression.” Said Noam Chomsky on Bill Maher’s HBO show Real Time, sending the conservative panelist into a tizzy calling Chomsky a liar and Soviet sympathizer. You see the truth will even force people to pull out the big red baiting card no matter how outlandish. That’s the political climate in which we live.
The truth is that the invasion of Iraq by the US, no matter how bad Saddam was is an unprovoked invasion - aggression - a war crime. But of course that’s outside of the bounds of commentary everywhere but at the fringes. The criticism of the Patriot Act is not as far out of bounds in this country fortunately, because even though people were scared into voting for Bush a lot of people are still not quite ready to hand over our civil liberties.
The majority in this country is in favor of so-called ”liberal” policies such as health care, education, and a social safety net and yet the Democrat presidential candidate for the party to the left of the far right party cannot even admit he is a liberal. So he lost. He can’t say that “preemptive” war is a war crime and wrong, he’s in favor of it. He voted for the funding of it as a political calculation that cost him the election. He can’t say that the Patriot act should be tossed out the window, he says it needs to be “tweaked.” He can’t call for nationalized health care no matter how well it works because it’s “socialism.” He wants to “fully fund” a horrible anti-teacher education policy based on meaningless testing and that is supposed to set him apart. He wanted to raise the minimum wage to $7 rather than advocate for a living wage that in our economy is closer to $17.
Kerry lost because he did not stand firm on values. He compromised. He played the “good cop” and lost. Sure we know a Kerry administration would make the lives of millions of people better, and I would never belittle that, but he was not advocating for the change that is needed. Maybe he couldn’t have been elected if he said the right things, but we know he didn’t get elected this way no matter the movies, the actors or life or death attitude his supporters had. Because although in some ways it is life or death, ways that affect a small minority, I would say it wasn’t life or death in enough ways.
This is why I always advocated for voting for Greens or Nader for president. I don’t think a liberal Democrat can win in this political climate. There’s never been such a polarization between candidates for so little substance. There was such an outpouring of sentiment in favor of Kerry; the and yet he didn’t come close to winning in the popular vote. If all that outpouring had gone towards a real left party or candidate think of the results. If Michael Moore included the Democrats in his movie, if rock star tours had criticize Kerry for supporting No Child Left Behind, if Bill Maher fought Democrats the same way he fought Republicans we might have a truly viable third party that represents, not a minority view, but the views of a large part of the population. And if that didn’t happen surely the Democrats would have been pulled to the left.
Am I disappointed that Kerry didn’t win? Sure, I am, but would I have been satisfied with a win? No. I am not satisfied now, nor will I be until the potential for this country is realized. It’s been said that the greatness of a democracy is measured by how it treats the minority and the powerless. Well we do not measure up in that way. And our foreign policy is not a force for democracy, but that of imperialism. Our history is clear. So, yes, I’m sorry Kerry lost, it will probably cost many people their lives, and that can’t be discounted, but a candidate that does not advocate for social and economic justice, peace as the best choice and human rights will never get my vote.