What’s happening here? Candidates, Candidates
Top 12 reasons to vote socialist in ‘08
Freedom Socialist • Vol. 29, No. 1 • February-March 2008
| Thanks to immigration, the United States is remarkably diverse in culture, religion, ethnicity, politics. You name it, we got it. And, in the current race to the White House, there are some historic breakthroughs in representing that diversity. The path-blazing candidacies of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson are engendering reactions from many voters that range from mildly hopeful to ecstatic. And the buzz is all about “change.”If only the candidates who are generating such enthusiasm were worthy of it! But, where it counts - in political program and which side of the class line they stand on - this season’s bumper crop of presidential wannabes offers nothing new.Heading into the Iowa primary, 12 aspirants were on the stump. Religious rapturist, liberal with no chance of success, Rambo tough guy, town sheriff or flip-flopper: all are Democrats or Republicans, which means they carry Corporate America’s water. Only two are not millionaires, Mike Huckabee and Dennis Kucinich. Anyone inclined toward meaningful improvement should not look to these guys-and-a-gal for leadership. The best choice is still to vote socialist as a protest against this lousy system! In a later issue this year, the FS will survey anti-capitalist candidates and make recommendations, so stay tuned.This review of the candidates is arranged alphabetically. |
Reason 1. Hillary Clinton (D) Hillary Clinton, like hubby Bill, is a heavyweight in the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the think tank that is leading the Democratic Party’s march ever rightward. Its agenda (and hers) is pro-big business, pro-profit, pro-war. A darling of Wall Street, Clinton is scooping up the contributions from big bankers. She’s also a favorite of the drug and healthcare companies - hardly a good sign for the millions without medical coverage. Clinton is a steadfast booster for the U.S. empire and its neoliberal “free trade” policies. About the Iraq war, she is positively wiggly. She backs the Patriot Act and the death penalty.Despite the fact that she’s an honorary member of the old boys’ club, her viable presence in the race is a feminist milestone. And her candidacy has become target practice for every sexist Neanderthal who believes a woman’s place is in the home, ironing their brown shirts! On this score, Clinton deserves defense from feminists - but not their votes.
Reason 2. Chris Dodd (D)Dodd voted for the war but now, of course, he’s against it. His campaign is heavily funded by the financial services industry. And who happens to chair Senate committees that regulate that industry? Gosh, golly - it’s Dodd!
Reason 3. John Edwards (D)Remember when Edwards was a senator? As a well-informed member of the Select Intelligence Committee, he voted to invade Iraq and support the Patriot Act. He says he’s seen the light now. (Sense a Democratic Party theme?)Edwards shakes workers’ hands and spins a good pro-labor line. He sells himself as the struggling person’s best friend. But talk is cheap, and this multimillionaire lawyer, “free enterprise” cheerleader and tax-loophole opportunist doesn’t walk his talk.
Reason 4. Rudy Giuliani (R) When it suits him, Rudy the chameleon can sound downright liberal on issues such as gay rights and abortion. But his tirade about how “Peddlers, panhandlers and prostitutes, all need to be cleaned out” shows his true colors. During his stint as Big Apple mayor, police brutality soared - and civil rights for poor people and communities of color took a nose dive.His “leadership” around the 9/11 tragedy is shameless, baseless hype. And like other former public officeholders, Hizzoner owns a “consulting” firm that thrives off his political connections to get lucrative government contracts for clients.On foreign policy? Giuliani’s motto is Wars ‘R’ Us!
Reason 5. Mike Huckabee (R)Pundits call Huckabee a “conservative populist.” This only proves how far right the major parties have traveled. A Bible-thumping Christian fundamentalist and Baptist preacher, he is loved by home-schooling Evangelicals. He is anti-gay, anti-abortion, and really believes that Eve came from Adam’s rib.On immigration, he flipped from a relatively tolerant stance while governor of Arkansas. Now he calls for mass deportation of undocumented workers. This opportunistic switcharoo earned him kudos from Jim Gilchrist, the xenophobe who organized gun-toting border vigilantes into the Minuteman Project.Evidently, Huckabee’s god is a real hawk. Iraq is a war “we cannot afford to lose” and Iran looks good for military intervention too.
Reason 6. Dennis Kucinich (D) Kucinich is the only Democrat listed here who isn’t a millionaire. He’s against the Iraq war (but voted to put us in Afghanistan) and was one of the lonely six who voted no to the new “anti-terror” crackdown against domestic radicals in the House (see cover story). His voting record is mostly progressive. No wonder the powers-that-be exclude him from the debates!So why on earth is he in the Democratic Party? Whatever he may say, his function with the Dems is to keep potential rebels adhering to a capitalist party by providing progressive cover for the “other” party of greed and war-making. Surely Kucinich knows better.He also must know who Ron Paul really is. Yet in November Kucinich actually said he’d consider having Paul as his running mate if he got the nomination. Maybe he was joking. And maybe not.
Reason 7. John McCain (R) Despite the reputation as a maverick that earns him repeat appearances on Jon Stewart’s show, Navy career man and ex-POW McCain is a loyal Republican conservative. He loves war, charter schools, chain-link fences along the border, and the anti-Cuba embargo. He hates teachers’ unions, Castro, and immigrants without papers. Of Iraq, he says, “Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war.” Well, excuse us.
Reason 8. Barack Obama (D) Given the significance of past and present racism in the U.S., Obama’s candidacy is another groundbreaking event. KKKers in suits like Rush Limbaugh are foaming at the prospect of a Black president, while large numbers of race liberationists are excited about seeing an African American make the long journey to the front door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Imagine Obama wielding his presidential power to aid workingclass Blacks in New Orleans, or to go after pharmaceutical profits and predatory lenders. It’s a nice dream, but only that - because it would mean making a fundamental break with the corporate structure. And that’s not on Obama’s agenda.Another top recipient of Wall Street donations, Obama voted for the Patriot Act and is gung-ho to fight the “war on terror.” He wants to pull troops from Iraq - and send them to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and maybe Iran.Heck, yes, it would be great to see a woman or an African American (or both!) win the White House - but let them be challengers rather than defenders of the same old racist, sexist status quo.
Reason 9. Ron Paul (R) Paul follows in that slimy, sleazy tradition of consummate pols who appear to be all things to all people: he’s a rightwinger, but he’s against the Iraq war. He’s also a bigot: “Only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.” A zealous libertarian, Paul thinks “liberty means free-market capitalism.” Oh, sorry, his libertarianism doesn’t extend to women who want abortions. Also scorned are poor families, veterans, and anyone who favors Social Security or good public education. As for those tempest-tost huddled masses yearning to breathe free? Paul just may team up with Giuliani and whisk that pesky Statue of Liberty away, right along with the prostitutes and panhandlers.
Reason 10. Bill Richardson (D) The Latino governor of New Mexico (yet another millionaire - yawn) is anti-abortion, tight with the DLC, and staunch in “securing the border” with National Guard troops.Here’s an interesting tidbit you won’t see in his publicity: 43 percent of New Mexico’s prisoners languish in privatized prisons, and GEO Group runs most of them. In 2006, Richardson got more money from GEO than any other state politician running.
Reason 11. Mitt Romney (R) Mirror, mirror, on the wall: who’s the richest of them all? Senator Mitt, who is so anti-immigrant he actually sent out a mailer with a chain-link fence on the cover! He’s also pro-war, anti-abortion, and endorsed by Tom Tancredo, hero to white supremacists everywhere.
Reason 12. Fred Thompson (R) Shades of Ronald Reagan! A former attorney turned actor turned pundit turned politician, Law and Order vet Thompson plays a grouchy reactionary on screen and off. He lobbied for decades for gigantic companies including General Electric and Westinghouse. He favors misery-inducing “free trade” agreements and backs any foreign policy that’s good for business.Long story short, Thompson is like all the other “viable” candidates: rich, well-connected, ready to stay the course, and a darn good reason to vote socialist.
**Many thanks to the Freedom Socialist , the voice of revolutionary feminism for the above. The Freedom Socialist newspaper can be found on line at www.socialism.com.
The Socialist Party USA is working to get on the ballot in Connecticut. In the coming weeks QWB will ask them to do an article about their candidates Brian Moore who is running for President and Stewart Alexander who is running for vice president. They can be found at at. www.socialistpartyct.org. Connecticut needs 7,500 signatures for ballot access. To help in this important effort contact party chair Todd Vachon at: dj_mayday@hotmail.com. Brian Moore is also running on the Peace And Freedom Party in California. For Brian Moore’s site see, www.votebrianmoore.com/index.htm.
From QWB.
**Let’s do it again this year so the choice isn’t between one millionaire or another. I like how Kevin on the Undercurrent site put it, “a new face on an old empire.” Let’s try like hell to change the old empire. We don’t have to agree all the time with this candidate or this party but at least we will have a chance to vote for someone other than another master or a new mistress, that is if we are so inclined to vote. I would love to hear from our fellow QWB’ers who are Anarchists on this subject.
***QWB invites everyones thoughts on this election year so post us your ideas. No thought turned away. The more the merrier. Long or short it doesn’t matter. Stir us up, shake us out, get our blood moving. Push us in another direction, one idea invents another.***
2 comments
I don’t know, when at a march in boston, I and some folks marched with the ISO folks and they kept trying to force me to march in line and lock step with the rest of them. For some reason I just couldn’t do it and got pissed at them and walked outside their lines (a heretical act I think). Perhaps I was just in the socialist lemming line? I like many of the socialist principles but when they get in the hands of humans they seem to get corrupt, as with so many ideologies. Perhaps anarchy is a better path for me.
I do encourage folks interested in the political charades of 2008 to check out Cynthia McKinney’s bid for el presidente at http://www.runcynthiarun.org
Their draft manifesto by the Reconstruction Party looks pretty powerful, of which Cynthia was a crafter! Check it out at http://www.runcynthiarun.org/ReconstructionManifesto
A very heretical act indeed!
Thanks Jeri for the site for Cynthia Mc Kinney’s bid for president. As stated in the post the more the merrier. I think QWB must be one of the sites that promote the *Others*. I hope someone in CT. will be working to get her on the ballot. We need all the alternatives we can get. For those who vote. For those that need a real choice and real change. Change that is not on the suface but goes deep to the bone of americka.
I am of two different ideas here.
When young I watched people getting beat, fire hosed, made fools of,killed just for the right to vote. I would never not go into a voting booth on any election day in humble honor of those who suffered so much. Back in the day when many of my generation were “getting clean for Gene” or going *ga* *ga* over Bobby Kennedy, I was voting for Gus Hall and Angela Davis. When voting by the machines if I found no one to vote for I simply never put any of the pointers in the “down”. Just an open and close of the curtian. Someone was here but didn’t vote. None of the Above! I need to find out how to do likewise with these paper ballots.
The candidates of today which are being put forth by the demonrats, and republicats do not interest me in the least. As the above states, they are not challengers but defenders of the racist, sexist, may I add, homophobic status quo. I can not still understand how any of us, poor, working poor progressives or even the middle class,would ever vote for any millionaire. Will they save us? Will they have our intrests at heart? They claim they will, talk a good soothing talk and have masses of people believing in them but leave a lot to be desired as far as real change. It makes me laugh when I hear that Mr. Obama is uniting people and will unite America. Okay, do I really want to be united with the homophobic preacher Donnie Mc Clurkin?. Or those who claim god on their side and queers are sinners who will never be any good unless we stop being who we are and repent and join the jump for jesus crowd. NO! This latest round of the lesser of the evils coming down the road makes me realize that for real change I must vote, Socialist,Communist,labor,or any other left party. (Greens are all a little iffy, as I don’t think that we can have a kinder and gentler Capitalism.)
ISO does bother me too in some ways. But I would never not sign a petition to put them on the ballot if they were running. This is also to say that I would not march with them just because of the stay in line. I also noticed that they will only chant their chants. When we marched near them in Hartford and New Haven they suddenly held their noise when we chanted our Queer chants. But I want challengers and I want others to have challengers to vote for. And if they are the only challengers on the ballot I will vote for them. That is just the short story of hand one.
On the other hand I do not believe in this system at all. I live on the edge each and every day. I have rebelled since I was a child when I realized that I was on the outside for being a queer. But on one hand I was glad, for at an early age and being poor, when everyone else seemed to be going up the ladder I saw what the status quo was like. I saw how the weathly or the *up theres* treated us the working poor, the white trash, the ones on the other side of the railroad tracks. But I also saw their dirty secrets. I saw how “nice” white people treated my best friend Eddie because he was black. I saw how these ladies and gents treated the working class who were fond of drink and went to bars and the package store, where they had all their booze delivered to their back door. Who needs to go on and on get the drift?
I disliked it then and I dislike it now.
I see the same attitude in this system, in those who sit on the throne,those who carry their water and those who are beholden to the corporate elite. In those who destroy our neighborhoods, those who pollute the earth, those who are greedy, to those who destroy Iraq and murder and maim, to those who deny our people and many others their rights. I see the illusions of those who claim to be the outsiders when they stand with some of the biggest blowhard insiders. Those who are going to fix everything in site and build a paradise in a united capitalist americka. Sorry I hope we “Won’t get fooled again.” AMEN.
Leave a Comment