Re: [A-List] US Elections: Bush triumphs?

["bon moun" <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>]

Yes, the election post-mortems abound these days, but at least two things
are not accounted for by the talking heads here.  One, there is no longer
an election in this country that we cannot question the validity of.
Evidence is already accumulating of sophisticated strategic fraud,
committed with new voting technology installed by companies and often
elections boards that are suspect, and with the continued selective
disfranchisement, legally and illegally, of Black voters.  A right-wing
judge in North Carolina single-handedly - after a lawsuit by Republicans
threw the issue into a stacked court - and eliminated Democrat
advantages... but more importantly, he wiped out as many Black majority
districts as he could find, a point overlooked by so-called white
progressives.  This brings me to #2.  Race.  Apologize for the caps that
follow, it was to distinguish this from another piece, not to yell, but it
sort of summarizes where the race piece fits in:

A NEW RULING CONSENSUS IS IN THE OFFING.  WE ARE TRANSITIONING FROM THE
PURSUIT OF HEGEMONY TO THE DEFENSE OF HEGEMONY... THIS SHOW OF MILITARY
STRENGHTH IS AN INDICATION OF PROFOUND STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS, AND THAT IS
PRECISELY WHY WE ARE NOW ON THE PATH OF A THOROUGHGOING INTERNATIONAL
RE-STRUCTURING STRATEGY... WHICH INCLUDES ABANDONMENT OF MULTILATERALISM,
AND WITH IT NEOLIBERALISM AS A CONCRETE FORM OF IMPERIALISM.  THERE IS
RESISTANCE FROM THE OLD ESTABLISHMENT, BUT THE YOUNG TURKS OF THE BUSH
JUNTA HAVE DEMONSTRATED THAT THEY CAN RUN TWO CONSECUTIVE FRAUDULENT
ELECTIONS - THEREIN ABANDONING EVEN A MODICUM OF BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY - THAT
THEY CAN UNILATERALLY ATTACK ANY NATION THEY WANT (THOUGH THIS IS NOT YET
ESTABLISHED, AND IS OUR CURRENT FRONT LINE), AND THAT THEY CAN TEAR UP
EVERY ACCEPTED STANDARD OF JURISPRUDENCE, INTERNATIONALLY AND DOMESTICALLY.

IF WE ARE TO RESIST IN THE US, WE HAVE TO COME TO TERMS WITH THE MASS
CONSCIOUSNESS OF US WORKERS - THAT THEY ARE NOT YET PREPARED TO LET GO THE
SKIRTS OF CAPITAL, FOR TWO REASONS.  FIRST, THEY HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED
ENOUGH PAIN YET, AND STILL ENJOY A STANDARD OF LIVING (IN THE MAIN) THAT IS
AN IMPERIAL PRIVILEGE.  SECOND, THEY HAVE BEEN BOMBARDED WITH THE
AFFIRMATION AND LEGITIMATION OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA FOR EVERY STEP OF THE
BUSH JUNTA.

IF WE ALLOW THE US WORKING CLASS TO SINK INTO DESPERATION WITHOUT FIRST
DELEGITIMIZING THE ESTABLISHMENT, WITHOUT ENGAGING IN A DIRECT AND
AGGRESSIVE IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE, GIVEN THE INTRACTIBLE RACISM AND
XENOPHOBIA OF US CULTURE, THE RIGHT WING HAS POSITIONED ITSELF BETTER THAN
US TO APPEAL TO THE DEEPLY FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE AMERICAN WORKER.

ESPECIALLY THE AMERICAN WHITE WORKER.  THE LEFT MUST FOCUS ON STRENGTHENING
THE LEFT AMONG OPPRESSED NATIONALITIES, PARTICULARLY AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN
THE SOUTH, AND OF EMPHASIZING SELF-DETERMINATION AS THE PRIME POLITICAL
PROJECT, & ACKNOWLEDGE THE PIVOTAL AND POWERFUL ROLE OF RACE IN EVERY
AMERICAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT...  AND THE CONTINUING STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE
OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH.

THERE ARE VERY CREDIBLE INDICATIONS THAT THE DEFEAT OF DEMOCRAT GOVERNOR
ROY BARNES IN GEORGIA WAS BASED ON AN UNUSUALLY HIGH TURNOUT OF WHITE,
ESPECIALLY RURAL WHITE, VOTERS.  THEIR PRINCIPLE GRIEVANCE WAS THAT BARNES
HAS ASKED THAT THE CONFEDERATE BATTLE FLAG BE REMOVED FROM THE GEORGIA
STATE FLAG.

WE MUST NOT LOOK AWAY FROM THE GLARING FACT THAT THE SUBSTANTIAL POPULAR
(NOT FINANCIAL) BASE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ARE WHITE WORKING CLASS PEOPLE
WHO ARE ALREADY ATTRACTED TO THE IDEAS OF A RACIAL-THEOCRATIC FASCISM.
THIS IS THE VERY BASIS OF THE DISPLACEMENT OF THE PRECEEDING ORDER OF
MULTI-LATERAL, POST WWII TECHNOCRATS BY THIS WHITE NATIONALIST
RIGHT-WING... AND THE NEW RULING CONSENSUS THAT IS EMERGING AS THEY HAVE
DECISIVELY SIEZED POLITICAL POWER.  PANDERED TO AS A STRATEGIC CONNIVANCE
DURING THE NIXON YEARS, THEY HAVE INSINUATED THEMSELVES MORE AND MORE
FIRMLY INTO THE REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANDED THEIR POPULAR BASE
WITH OVERT AND COVERT APPEALS TO RACISM, INVESTING THE LAST THREE DECADES
IN AN UNPRECEDENTED IDEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT APPARATUS, AND DEVELOPING THEIR
PRESSURE GROUP WITHIN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY INTO A DOMINANT FACTION THAT
CAPITAL NOW DEPENDS UPON UTTERLY TO STEER IT OUT OF AN EQUALLY
UNPRECEDENTED PROFITS CRISIS.  THE PARALLELS TO WIEMAR GERMANY ARE
CHILLING.  BUT THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.  NO
USSR, FOR EXAMPLE, AND NO DEVELOPED LEFT HERE IN THE USA, AND LET'S NOT
FORGET THE PRE-EXISTING MILITARY DOMINANCE OF THE US WHICH MEANS THERE IS
NO NEED FOR A LONG MILITARY BUILD-UP.

I DON'T THINK IT IS ALARMIST TO SAY THAT COMMUNITIES OF OPPRESSED
NATIONALITIES IN THIS COUNTRY NEED TO COMBINE THE DEVELOPMENT OF STRATEGIES
FOR SELF-DETERMINATION WITH DIFFERENT FORMS OF WORK, THAT INCLUDE HIGHER
LEVELS OF SECURITY, AND EVEN SELF-DEFENSE... WITHIN THE LAW... AND, IN
FACT, ALL OF US ON THE LEFT, MAY NEED TO HABITUATE OURSELVES TO BOTH OPEN
AND MORE SECURE METHODS.

And we need to be clear what this election means.  Accelerated class war
from above.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2002 10:45 PM
Subject: US Elections: Bush triumphs?


Bush triumphs

Nov 7th 2002
>From The Economist Global Agenda


The Republicans have regained control of the Senate and increased
their majority in the House of Representatives after mid-term
elections seen as an endorsement of George Bush's presidency. The
victory will strengthen his hand as he looks towards his own
re-election campaign in two years' time, while leaving the
Democrats in disarray

FOR the Democrats, the post-mortem has already begun. Having lost
control of the Senate, and lost further ground in the House of
Representatives, they have been left licking their wounds in one
of the most closely fought mid-term elections in years. The
infighting has already started: some senior Democrats, including
Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York, and Robert Reich,
labour secretary under Bill Clinton, have said that the Democrats
failed to have a clear message to put to the voters.

For President George Bush, the election result was, as his
spokesman said, " a great victory". Mr Bush can now claim to have
the political legitimacy denied him by the deadlock at the end of
the presidential election in 2000. He can look forward to the
second half of his term knowing that, with his party in control
of both houses of Congress, it should be possible to clear the
blockages that have stalled much of his domestic agenda this
year; and, in turn, it should enable him to go to the voters in
2004 as a president able to deliver on his promises.

The race had been tight from the outset, with the Democrats
thinking they had a reasonable chance of retaining control of the
Senate, held by a majority of one since a Republican senator,
James Jeffords, became an independent in the summer of 2001.
After all, the Republicans were defending 20 of the Senate seats
up for election, while the Democrats had only 14 to worry about.

By the time Walter Mondale conceded defeat in Minnesota, though,
it was all over for the Democrats. Mr Mondale, former
vice-president to Jimmy Carter, had stepped in at the last minute
after the death of the incumbent, Paul Wellstone, in a plane
crash on October 25th. The hoped-for sympathy vote did not
prevent the Republicans from capturing the state and
consolidating their victory in the Senate. Long before then, the
Republicans had snatched Missouri to win their 50th Senate seat,
thus depriving the Democrats of their narrow majority.

The Democrats failed to win any of the three most vulnerable
Republican seats, in New Hampshire, Colorado and North Carolina,
where Elizabeth Dole held on to the seat which for so long had
been the property of the retiring Jesse Helms. The only upset the
Democrats managed was in Arkansas, where their challenger beat a
Republican incumbent in trouble over a messy divorce and
remarriage to his much younger assistant. The only other real
victory for the Democrats was to hold on to New Jersey,
vulnerable because of a last-minute candidate substitution, made
necessary when the incumbent senator ran into trouble for ethics
violations. In Georgia, meanwhile, the Republicans, against
expectations, defeated the Democratic senator standing for
re-election.

It was the same story writ larger in the House. The Republicans
already had a majority of six, and few thought that the Democrats
would be able to overturn that. But it looks as though the
Republicans have strengthened their position.

Only in the state governors' races have the Democrats made any
headway, picking up new governorships in ten states, while the
Republicans managed six (including, surprisingly, Georgia and
Maryland, where Robert Kennedy's daughter was defeated).
Crucially, Democrat Gray Davis held on to California-a state Mr
Bush would dearly love to carry in 2004. But it was a big
psychological blow for the Democrats when the president's
brother, Jeb Bush, easily saw off his challenger in Florida. The
Democrats are still sore from their experience there in the
presidential election two years ago: after a six-week run-off
involving bitter legal wrangles, the result in Florida tipped the
balance in favour of Mr Bush. Democrats-including former
president, Bill Clinton-have been queuing up to campaign in the
state-all to no avail.

Mr Bush has also been active in Florida, visiting the state 11
times in recent weeks to campaign on his brother's behalf. But
the president didn't confine himself to Florida. He put as much
energy into these elections as any of the candidates, endlessly
criss-crossing the country in support of the Republican cause,
more active than any recent president during mid-term elections.
By associating himself so closely with the congressional races,
Mr Bush was taking a gamble. If the Republicans had done badly,
he would have got some of the blame.

The gamble has paid off, though. Mr Bush, more than anyone, will
benefit from the Republican victories. The Republicans can have
no doubt he is now their best asset. And more importantly,
control of both houses gives the president the chance to push
forward with his domestic agenda. He is in a much stronger
position to press on with his tax-cutting plans-making the cuts
enacted in 2001 permanent after 2010 and, possibly, pushing for
fresh cuts. The Democrats will now find it much harder to block
the president's ambition to free up oil and gas reserves in
Alaska and other sensitive areas. Nor will they any longer be
able to delay approval of his judicial nominees. Mr Bush made
clear on the stump that recent hold-ups had irritated him
greatly.

But there are potential hazards ahead for the president. Perhaps
the greatest is the current weakness of the economy. Recovery has
been much slower and much more uneven than most forecasts had
suggested at the beginning of this year, and opinion polls during
the election showed that economic worries at home preoccupy
Americans more than the prospect of war with Iraq. That might
have helped the Democrats. Their problem, though, is that they
have failed to come up with a coherent alternative to White House
policy-at least, not one that appeals to the voters.

Now, however, the ball is in Mr Bush's court. He will no longer
be able to blame Democratic intransigence for economic-policy
shortcomings. A deteriorating economic outlook, or even a
double-dip recession, would have potentially serious consequences
for Mr Bush as he heads towards 2004. He need only recall the
experience of his father, who failed to win re-election in 1992,
after what voters perceived as an inadequate response to the
recession of 1991.

Mr Bush will also need to bear in mind one other striking feature
of these mid-term elections. In spite of concerns about national
issues, such as the economy, most of the races were decided on
local issues-many involved bitter personal fights. The end
result, though, is a reminder that modern America remains split
down the middle when it comes to political allegiances. With 77m
votes cast on November 5th, only 41,000, in two states,
determined who ultimately gained control of the Senate. The
Republican victory is significant, but the majorities are still
small. The next race for the presidency could be just as close as
the last one.