Re: [Marxism] Tariq Ali on the US election

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Marvin Gandall wrote:
> TA: As you know, I travel a great deal, and everywhere I go there is growing
> anger and if one can be totally blunt real hatred of this administration
> because of what it did in Iraq - the war it waged, the civilians it killed,
> the mess it's made, and its inability to understand the scale of what it's
> done. And from that point of view, if the American population were to vote
> Bush out of office, the impact globally would be tremendous.

Almost as big an impact as the landslide victory of LBJ in 1964.

> TA: We're talking about the government which took the United States to war.
> Had Gore been elected, he would have gone to war in Afghanistan, but I doubt
> he would have gone to war in Iraq. This is very much a neocon agenda,
> dominated by the need to get the oil and appease the Israelis. This war in
> Iraq is very much something this administration went for. The defeat of this
> administration would be a defeat of the war party.

Yes, it would be an enormous relief for the Palestinian people to get
Kerry elected. No more appeasement of the Israelis.

> This is an argument you can have from the luxury from your sitting room or
> kitchen in the United States, but this particular regime has taken the lives
> of at least 37,000 civilians in Iraq, not counting the old army.

Pathetic demagoguery. If I had a nickle for every time I've heard over
the years about you have to support some Democrat because it will
relieve "suffering" of the masses, I'd be a rich man. The plain truth is
that over 500,000 children died in Iraq because of Clinton-backed UN
sanctions. Diarrhea will kill you just as quick as a bullet.

> For them
> it's not an abstract question. So a defeat of Bush would be regarded in many
> parts of the world as a small victory. This doesn't mean one has any
> illusions about Kerry. I certainly don't. I'm pretty disgusted by the
> militarism at the Democratic convention.... But despite all that - and we
> know what the Democrats are, we know the wars they've waged - our options at
> the moment are limited.

I guess that Tariq Ali doesn't have Peter Camejo in his rolodex anymore.

> TA: I don't buy that. If you believe that's all there is to it, then you can
> give up politics. Just wait at home for the big catastrophe. This is not the
> way you mobilize public opinion, or engage in debates to win people over.
> For me, that's a dead argument, because it means you don't have to win
> people over. The only way you win people to your side is to go out in the
> streets, you argue, you talk.

Some debate. I can't imagine how I'd tell a disgruntled worker to vote
in 2004, if Nader wasn't on the ballot. "Well, you see there's this guy
John Kerry who really will get us out of Iraq even if he says that he is
for sending in more troops because Michael Moore backs him and he was
against the Vietnam war 35 years ago even though his biography makes the
case that the war was a noble effort against the dirty commies." Talk
about cognitive dissonance. I can't blame the worker for staying home on
election day.

> Whatever Kerry says, most people who vote for him, will do so because they
> don't like what Bush has done in Iraq, they don't like the way the economy's
> being handled, they don't like the way the environment is being dealt with.
> When Kerry is in power, if he carries on in the same way, it would be much
> easier to build a bigger movement against him.

Kerry will not carry on in the same way. He will carry on like Clinton.
When Clinton bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days straight, you could barely
muster 30,000 people in Washington for a protest. That's what the ruling
class wants, a "consensus" oriented politician who will make the world
safe for George Soros's profits.


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