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The arguments in favor of support to the
capitalist "lesser evil" are endless, the latest version of
which was recently presented by playwright/political activist Amiri
Baraka, who likened the coming election between Obama and McCain to the
1933 coming to power of Adolph Hitler.
In an article entitled, "Obama and The
Tragic Errors of the Weimar Republic," Baraka poses an analogy
between the failure of the socialist left to unite against Hitler, thus
bringing him to power, and the same result, a divided "left"
being responsible for the coming of fascism in America today.
Baraka writes: "It is this split between
the Left and Near Left, that is being exploited by the Right with War
& Depression threatening to dump this whole nation on its head, so
that Obama will be defeated, McCain elected and with the McCain opening
plummet the country headlong into the far right. Bush 2 has already
obviously set the stage for this. Those elections were stolen out of
desperation. The fact that Gore & Kerry were such weak liberals,
tied clearly and obviously to the ruling class of this imperialist
state allowed that theft to take place with minimum real
struggle."
Baraka continues: "So that is the real
struggle unfolding before us. First, to oppose the empty idealism on
which elitists base their claim to represent the masses but actually have
as little to do with them as possible. Allowing seemingly intelligent
people to throw their votes away on McKinney or even the racial
chauvinist, Nader, thus formalizing a hole in an actual progressive
constituency which allowed Bush 2 to seize power in 2000."
Baraka’s argument, in a thousand variations,
has been the stock and trade of lesser-evilists of all stripes for
decades, from the Stalinist Communist Party and its modern day heirs,
to the Maoist-oriented Revolutionary Communist Party, to America’s
liberal/progressive establishment more generally. "Better the good
liberal Democrat than the Republicans, who will usher in American
reaction or fascism!"
U.S. radicals or progressives have sounded
the same alarm in different forms. Noam Chomsky argues that while the
differences between Democrats and Republicans are small, in truth, even
small differences in this or that piece of legislation, can effect
millions of people. Howard Zinn, another lifelong social activist,
argues that one should spend not more than one minute on this election
farce, but that minute should be spent on election day, casting a vote
for the Democrats, while the rest of the year social activists should
be in the streets protesting.
Zinn and Chomsky, both well-meaning fighters
for human and democratic rights, urged a vote for Ralph Nader in 2004,
except in those states where the election was too close to call. In
these contested states they urged, in a statement published on Nader’s
2004 campaign website, a vote for Democrat Kerry.
The "Obamamania" effect is no doubt
a reality in U.S. politics today, driven forward by the horrific
policies of the Bush administration, bipartisan policies, and by the
fact that Obama appears to have beaten the odds and crashed the racist
barriers that have previously relegated the chances of a Black
politician seriously challenging for the presidency to zero.
There is little doubt that for millions of
Blacks a vote for Obama is viewed as a vote against the racist America
that has denied them the opportunities and rights that are the norm for
whites in virtually every arena of public life. But Obama’s candidacy
cannot be considered the property of the nation’s most oppressed and
exploited. Not only has he rejected any notion that his objective is
the freedom and liberation of Black America from capitalism’s
institutionalized racism, he is today the leading representative, or
the public face, of the very system that requires racism to continue
its domination of all working people.
Bill Fletcher, editor of Black Commentator, a
former AFL-CIO functionary, and founder of Progressives for Obama, sums
up the views of many who advocate voting for the lesser-evil: "My
conclusion, and I offer this with great caution," he says,
"is that critical support for Obama is the correct approach to
take. Yet this really does mean critical support. It means, among other
things, that Senator Obama needs to be challenged on his views
regarding the Middle East; he must be pushed beyond his relatively pale
position on Cuba to denounce the blockade; he must be pushed to advance
a genuinely progressive view on the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast and
the right of return for the Katrina evacuees; and he must be pushed to
support single payer health care."
Fletcher concludes: "As I emphasized in
an earlier commentary, it is up to the grassroots to keep the
candidates honest. Silence, in the name of unity, is a recipe for
betrayal."
Keeping a capitalist candidate "honest
"is an oxymoron, if there ever was one. The Obama who yesterday
posed as an advocate of vague and conditioned Iraq withdrawal schemes
meets today with U.S. generals in Baghdad to solicit their opinions, as
if these professional butchers are capable of independent judgments
regarding U.S. policy in Iraq.
The same Obama meets with and reassures
neo-fascist advocates and practitioners of terror against revolutionary
Cuba in Miami while praising, if not exceeding the worst views of
Zionist Israel’s terrorist government regarding their effort to
virtually exterminate the persecuted and oppressed Palestinian people.
Obama, as the preferred choice of today’s beleaguered capitalism, will
not be pressured to keep it honest, it will be employed to advance its
interests.
Ruling-class duplicity
If it suited the needs of the U.S. ruling
class they would run a socialist for president—not a reform socialist
but a genuine revolutionary socialist, even a Black or Latino
revolutionary socialist.
They would run Lenin for president (if he were
alive and hypothetically amenable) or Leon Trotsky or the Black
revolutionary, Malcolm X—conditioned only on these individuals having a
mass following among the working class and the oppressed at a time of
capitalist crisis and that they run as candidates of one of the
capitalist parties.
On the other hand, if the capitalist
electoral process proved insufficient to again corral the radicalizing
masses into the graveyard of capitalist electoral politics, the ruling
rich would have few options other than resorting to Jack London’s
"Iron Heel," or fascism, and attempting, death-squad style,
to destroy any and all organizations of the working class.
With this in mind, let’s suppose that Barack
Obama were not spouting right-wing rhetoric today as he takes for
granted his "left" supporters and moves to capture votes from
everyone a hair to the left of John McCain.
Let’s suppose that instead of rejecting
immediate withdrawal from Iraq, threatening war on Iran and advocating
more troops to Afghanistan, he espoused the opposite. Let’s suppose
that he renounced the U.S. slaughter of 1.5 million Iraqis instead of
condemning Bush for not prosecuting the war with sufficient
intelligence and vigor.
Let’s suppose he hadn’t denounced his
minister, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., for telling the truth
about U.S. imperialism’s genocide and racism, that he fired his
right-wing campaign advisers from previous Bush, Clinton, and Nixon
administrations, and that he appeared at antiwar rallies and demanded
"Out Now!"
Let’s suppose he was for normalization of
relations with Cuba and Venezuela instead of threats of war against
them. And let’s suppose he threw in a good measure of socialist
rhetoric to boot. Let’s suppose, in addition, that he had an overall
progressive social agenda and that he advocated "money for human
needs, not war."
Let’s suppose that he properly denounced the
racist primary campaign run against him by Hillary Clinton and by the
general corporate media. And last and certainly not least, that he
denounced the deep-seated capitalist-promoted institutional racism that
has inevitably permeated the consciousness of millions and convinced
too many that a Black candidate should not get a truly fair hearing.
Would socialists and progressive activists
urge a vote for Obama or Lenin, Trotsky, or Malcolm—if they ran as
candidates of the Democrats or other capitalist parties? My answer,
without a nano-second of hesitation and while simultaneously denouncing
an electoral and social system riddled with racist bias, would be a
resounding "No!"
For the record, Lenin and his Bolshevik
comrades were offered high positions in the post-Tsarist coalition
capitalist government of Alexander Kerensky in February 1917. Some,
like Stalin, hesitated for a short time, but under the influence of
Lenin and Trotsky, the Bolsheviks declined the offer, preferring to
overthrow capitalism rather than re-enforce it.
Communist Party members of the Stalinist
variety did take leading government posts in capitalist governments,
such as the vice presidency in post-World War II France. Maurice
Thorez, the general secretary of the French CP, served as rightist
Charles de Gaulle’s V.P.
In pre-Franco Spain, Socialists, Communists,
and anarchists—again of the reformist variety—joined the 1936-39 capitalist
government and even had a majority in it. They were welcomed for a time
by a frightened bourgeoisie, fearing that a real revolution was in the
air. When revolution indeed threatened, the capitalists turned to
Franco’s fascism, with the support of Hitler and Mussolini, and the
slaughter ensued.
More recently, in 1971, the Chilean
bourgeoisie in their majority supported Salvador Allende’s bid for the
presidency. A self-proclaimed Marxist, Allende headed Chile’s
capitalist government until 1973, when he was murdered in the course of
a neo-fascist coup that took the lives of tens of thousands.
In today’s Brazil, the bourgeoisie have made
their peace with Worker’s Party leader and "socialist" Luis
Inacio "Lula" da Silva, who now hold the nation’s presidency.
So the proposition that capitalists in crisis
can and will call on "socialists "and "communists,"
not to mention left-sounding Democrats, to help bail them out, is not
so preposterous as it might seem.
Capitalist reformers: McKinney and Nader
Ralph Nader, the advocate of a kinder,
gentler capitalism—the imaginary capitalism of 19th-century America,
where small farmers, small-scale businessmen, and workers allegedly
lived in harmony—aims at ballot status in 45 states. He is running
again as an "independent," as opposed to being the candidate
of the pro-capitalist Green Party, his 2000 choice.
On Aug. 2, Nader won the presidential
nomination and ballot spot of the California Peace and Freedom Party
(PFP). Although Nader formally and demonstrably eschewed Peace and
Freedom’s vaguely socialist label, he was selected in a four-way
contest, defeating the openly socialist candidates for the Peace and
Freedom Party ballot spot—Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and
Liberation and Brian Moore of the Socialist Party. In the end, the 100 or so PFP
delegates attending the Sacramento state gathering preferred the
"famous" name and “vote-getter” Nader despite his rejection
of the "S" word, not to mention his reactionary
positions on immigrant rights and abortion.
They were spurred on by the demagogy of
Nader’s last vice presidential running-mate and Green Party leader,
Peter Camejo, who told those who needed a solid "left" reason
to vote for a capitalist candidate that "the ruling class wants
you to choose anyone but Nader."
Camejo continued, "Just because he
doesn’t use a certain word [socialism], listen to the content. It’s the
essence that counts, not the form." Unfortunately, for Nader and
Camejo, the essence is lesser evilism, or a vote for Democrats, when
they need it.
In both 2000 and 2004, Nader, like all
capitalist reformers, made it clear that in contested states—that is,
in states where the Democrats were running in close races—his
preference was the Democrats.
This is the same Ralph Nader who accepted in
2004 the ballot status in seven states of the Reform Party of
right-wing neo-fascist Patrick Buchanan. As this newspaper pointed out
at that time, the agreement reached with Buchanan revealed Nader’s
"essence" was far from the supposedly radical agenda that he
espoused.
Nader’s running mate today, former Democrat
and then Green Party San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Matt
Gonzalez, told the assembled PFP delegates that their choice not to
seek the Green Party nomination again was a concession to the fact that
former Democrat Cynthia McKinney was seeking the nomination.
McKinney’s campaign for the PFP party ballot
spot was for the record only. She received six votes to Nader’s 46,
with La Riva and Moore receiving 27 and 10 respectively.
McKinney was another PFP presidential
candidate who declined to use the "S" word. But neither this
nor her national Green Party nomination for the presidency have
deterred some socialist groups—including Socialist Organizer, Workers
World Party, Solidarity, and the Workers International League—from
supporting her candidacy. Socialist Alternative is supporting Nader in
the election, while the International Socialist Organization so far has
adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward both Nader and McKinney,
depending on whether the ISO views them as candidates who would offer a
real alternative.
ISO leader and 2006 California Green Party
candidate for the U.S. Senate Todd Chretien, in a Jan. 25, 2008,
article in the Socialist Worker, put it this way: "This
will be a very tough year for independent, left-wing candidates.
Whether they recognize this and use their campaigns to help build up
the meager forces of a left committed to fighting oppression, war and
exploitation or they succumb to the pressure to chase imaginary
shortcuts will determine their value."
The ISO expectation that either capitalist
reformer Nader or former Democratic Party Congresswoman McKinney will
lead any fight against the systemic problems inherent in capitalist
society is a gross illusion. McKinney, as a Georgia Democratic Party
congresswoman in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, voted to authorize the
bipartisan war on Afghanistan, and in May 2005 voted in favor of the
Homeland Security budget. She is today the presidential candidate of
the Green Party, a largely electoral vehicle for disillusioned middle
class reformers who seek the conversion of today’s rapacious capitalism
into a milder, gentler form. Green Party affiliates across the country,
as a matter of course, support “liberal” Democrats in local, state and
national races while simultaneously declining to enter their own
candidates.
The U.S. socialist left, loosely defined at
best, stands at a low point with regard to clarity on the fundamental
principles of working-class politics or working-class independence.
However, there are a few groups who have
entered the 2008 presidential race with a socialist platform and have
refused to endorse the candidates and parties of capital. These are the
Party of Socialism and Liberation, the Socialist Workers Party, and the
Socialist Party. They are all seeking formal ballot status in 12 to 20
states.
Despite important disagreements we have with
the program and practices of all three parties, we recognize that they
stand against capitalist exploitation and oppression and offer working
people a principled alternative. Socialist Action urges our readers to
"Vote Socialist" wherever the candidates of these parties
appear on the ballot or to write in the names of their candidates when
they don’t.
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