Four More Years… Of What?
A Statement by Labor’s Militant Voice

We have just come through what was one of the most closely watched elections in recent history. Both at home and abroad, hundreds of millions of people were closely following what was happening, listening to the debates and discussing the election campaign. The majority was hoping that the simplistic, super aggressive imbecile Bush would be replaced. They were hoping that a President Kerry would be more reasonable, less murderous, and more concerned with the environment. They were hoping that a President Kerry would make the world a less dangerous and less endangered place in which to live.

What, however, was really at stake in these elections? To answer this, we should consider a bit of history.

Historical Context
Ever since the collapse of the old Soviet Union, Corporate America – the US capitalist class – has taken the position that nothing could stand in its way, that it could stride across the Earth, taking what it liked, rampaging and pillaging and nobody could stop it. Prior to that time, the existence of the Soviet Union and its system – Stalinism – held corporate America in check a little bit. Also, this conflict actually helped give a certain order to world relations.

Along with the collapse of Stalinism, there was the increased globalization of capital, the deregulation of capitalism itself, and the weakening of the workers’ organizations – the unions here in the US. This last has been due to the role of their leaders, who bow down before the altar of capital at every turn in events. As a result, there is very little organized resistance to the drive of Corporate America for what they call, “full spectrum domination,” that is total domination, at home and abroad.

Increased Arrogance
This situation has given rise to an increased arrogance on the part of the CEOs and major shareholders of the Corporate America, who make up the main elements of the US capitalist class. With practically no exceptions, they believe that they do not need any allies, that they do not need to consider the political situation anywhere in the world, that all that matters is US military might. They look to increasing their immediate short term profits without consideration of the needs and longer term stability of their system of capitalism. It is no accident that the oil industry is at the heart of this wing.

It is true that there is the odd voice such as billionaire George Soros who speaks about the dangers inherent in these policies, who looks to the longer term. However these voices are completely overwhelmed as US capitalism sees the opportunities that exist internationally and in their home base. Currently, US capitalism is basically agreed on these policies:

· US world domination, including over the US working class
· Continued globalization and increased competition between the workers of the world for who will work cheapest.
· Continued environmental destruction
· Ignore the warnings about peak oil
· Rely on the “free market” for all that happens in society

Even on the tactical and strategic issues, the Kerry and Bush campaigns were in agreement. Kerry expressed no differences over how the prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were being tortured. He expressed no difference over US support for the terrorist state of Israel. He would not support the Kyoto Accords (for very limited environmental protection). At home, he would not call for an increased minimum wage or other protections for workers. He would not campaign against state intervention in a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. He would not even raise Bush’s attempt to cut the pay of US soldiers in Iraq.

Mood
In other words, Corporate America, with its dominance over both parties, and its agreement on fundamental policies made sure that the Democrats fielded a very weak candidate. The reason for this? They are very aware of the potential anti-corporate mood that exists in the country. They shudder at the thought that any serious attacks on Bush or the raising of any sort of anti-corporate or populist ideas could set in motion things which could run out of control. As a result, Kerry was tailor-made to inspire nobody, and probably only a tiny handful of people actually voted for Kerry; the majority were voting against Bush.

At the same time, Bush was more able to speak to a certain mood which exists and which both he and Kerry have encouraged. Partly this was on the issue of so-called security and Iraq. There was no voice in this election explaining that the 9/11 attacks and the opposition to the US abroad was due to the policies of the US corporations abroad. There was no voice explaining the need to unite with working class people throughout the world to oppose the US and world corporations and their policies. There was no voice calling for a world in which people would have enough to eat and drink and live in peace and solidarity. There was no voice calling for an end to destruction of the planet’s environment. As a result, Bush was able to get a large base of support by saying that he was the man who would defend the US, he was the man who could do the job and keep all Americans safe.

Religious Vote
A large part of Bush’s base was the Christian fundamentalists and the bigots. These groups overlap, but they are not one and the same. They include those who are mobilized against the rights of women, people of color, gay people – anybody who does not fit into the image of white, Christian, English-speaking, fully employed Americans. Many in the Christian fundamentalist camp use religion as a cover for this bigotry.

However, there are also many others for whom their religion is something different. On the one hand, they seek some sort of all round explanation for what is happening in a very complex, confusing world. At least the fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible offers this, even if it is wrong. In addition, they are seeking a world that is more decent and just, a world where people live in peace with each other and care for each other. Millions of working class people in the US fit this description.

It would be laughable if it were not so tragic to hear Bush capture the “morality” issue. Here we have a president who has been responsible for the deaths of millions of babies and little children around the world. A president whose use of depleted uranium (the armor piercing shells) in Iraq has lead to a massive increase in horrific birth deformities. And yet people vote for him because he “cares about babies” (opposes abortion)!

In addition to the ideological attractions, there is a social attraction. US society may be the most alienated society in the world, certainly of the industrialized world. Millions of people are seeking some sort of sense of community, just a place to sit and socialize and feel safe with others. The church, in addition to often providing help in finding a job and housing, also provides this sense of community.

Corporate America & Religion
Corporate America has taken advantage of these powerful and positive desires and channeled them into a movement that is directly harmful to the very goals these religious people seek to attain. They are channeled into the populist right wing of the Republican Party.

This was a strategy that was originated under the former Republican Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. It was known as the Southern strategy. The Republicans would seek to capture the right wing racist vote in the South as a new base. Nixon, and then Reagan in particular continued to support the development of the Christian fundamentalist base. Right wing fundamentalist preachers and religious foundations were financed by such wealthy capitalists as the Hunts and Coors families. Many of the small time preachers who did not get the big bucks live in hopes of one day getting there. They too push the capitalist agenda and their followers vote as they are told by the preachers. This is an indication of the more negative aspect of religion itself: It is based not on reason and a scientific approach to the world, but on faith.

It should also be added that these two elements of the Christian fundamentalists are not totally separated. For instance, those who believe that abortion is the killing of a baby and vote accordingly are discouraged to consider the lives of babies round the world. Those who believe in the nuclear family are discouraged from thinking about how the economic policies of Bush and of Corporate America are destroying this very family.

The Christian fundamentalists played a role in this election above the number of the votes they cast. They were organized through their churches. Most of them who were not at work were organized to vote by absentee ballot and then spend all election day going door to door and bringing others to vote. This allowed the Republicans to equal the Democrats in the get out the vote struggle. The democrats with their support in the unions tended to have the advantage in this in the past.

Class View of World
It is ironic that the influence of Christian fundamentalist ideas would become so prominent within the working class and within US society. Under “normal” circumstances, this influence would be negligible. Under normal circumstances, it would be an entirely different sector of working class people who would be playing a much more leading role. It would be the sector of working class people who intuitively understand the class nature of society and who intuitively look at events from a class point of view. The sector that understands that you cannot trust the bosses and that all workers have powerful common interests and that we have to join together and fight for those interests.

It was this sector of working class people who organized the unions in this country in order to fight for the interests of all workers. However, these unions have been hijacked by a corporate minded political machine. This union leadership uses its control over the unions to repress any sort of class thinking and any sort of serious fight back against Corporate America. This leadership represses the more militant, class conscious workers and does everything in its power to prevent them from organizing. It is also ironic how this union leadership then stands and wrings its hands when the capitalist class takes advantage of this and encourages anti-union ideas and bitter opponents of unions like Bush get elected. What do the union leaders think will happen? If you repress your best fighters, the enemy will go on the offensive.

According to Harry Kelber, editor of Labor Talk, the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions had close to 5000 staff people campaigning for Kerry and the Democrats full time, mobilized some 200,000 union volunteers, knocked on the door of six million voters to discuss the issues and distributed more than 30 million flyers. The SEIU alone spent some $65 million.

Just imagine if this force had been used to organize workers to fight back; just imagine if it had been used to organize unions or to campaign for and build the campaign of a real workers’ candidate fighting for such issues as a $15.00 minimum wage, free health care at the point of use, free education or job training for all. With such an alternative the result would have been very different.

Neo Conservatives & Ideas
One additional element of Bush’s support must be considered, the neo-conservatives. Organized in think tanks and groups like the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), the neo-cons give the clearest expression to the ideas and goals of total US world domination. This gave Bush a further attraction. As the Wall Street Journal likes to say, “ideas matter”. However, it should be understood that the influence of the neo-conservatives and the Washington think-tanks exists because, for the moment, it coincides with the interests of US capitalism and its drive for world domination. It is not the other way around.

“Rigged” Election
Some of the more “left” supporters of Kerry are now focusing on the issue of a rigged election. They do not consider the reasons why a real opponent to Bush and the corporate politicians was not put forward and why Bush was not completely overwhelmed in the vote. They also fail to understand that all elections under capitalism are rigged. Just consider how the capitalist class controls access to ideas and information through their control over the media. They also fail to consider that even if a real working class leader were elected, that he or she would be totally undermined by the different wings of the government and the government bureaucracies, if he or she were not killed outright.

Instead, they focus on some 5-8% of the vote that was allegedly miscounted. This is giving the wrong emphasis to explaining what happened. Having said this, however, it does appear that there was a rigged vote count and this is not totally unimportant.

What has happened is that we have had the ultimate in privatization of public, government functions – the privatization of the counting of the ballots. This task has been given to the private, for-profit manufacturer of the different electronic voting machines. (The main companies are Diebold and ES&S – which are actually connected to each other.) It is prohibited for anybody, including government officials or news reporters to look into how these patented machines function, how their programs work. This is “proprietary information” you see.

It should come as no surprise that this election result was rigged, even by the capitalists’ own standards. After all, this is a hallowed tradition in the US. The Democrats rigged elections for years in the South by denying blacks the right to vote. JFK most likely beat Nixon through a fraudulent vote count in Chicago, which swung the state of Illinois to him. As for the Republicans, they got their man in the White House four years ago through a rigged election in Florida. They’ve had four years to work on it since then. Seeing what was coming, the Democrats tried to mandate that the electronic voting machines must also print out a paper trail. The Republicans defeated this. What possible reason would they have for opposing it if they were not going to rig the vote?

In one trial run, Republican Chuck Hagel pulled off a stunning electoral victory in his Senate race in Nebraska two years ago. The votes were “counted” by ES&S machines. Chuck’s position at the time? CEO of ES&S!

There has been a major discrepancy between the exit polls and the vote results in a number of states. These exit polls, questioning voters who they voted for as they leave the polling place, have long been considered the most reliable poll of all. Usually exit polls predict the outcome within a percentage point. In the states of Wisconsin, New Mexico, Minnesota and Nevada, Kerry was ahead in the exit polls. In Ohio he was in a dead heat. In all those states, Bush either ended up winning or else the ultimate vote count was significantly more favorable to him than the exit polls indicated. The outcome in the vote count varied from what the polls predicted by about 5%. The only two states where the polls were taken where they accurately predicted the outcome were the states of Maine and New Hampshire, where the results did not differ by a statistically significant amount (0.5% or less). These two states have a mandated paper trail. (In the case of Maine, they do not have electronic voting at all.)

This is not a mere coincidence. Beverly Harris, author of “Black Box Voting” reports that a week after the vote she still is not able to get the number of provisional ballots in the key state of Ohio. She said that she’s been told that the votes are “still coming in”. How can they be coming in after the election is over?

Kerry’s Concession
Yet despite all of this, even with the violations of the rules by which Kerry supposedly lives, he conceded before any of these valid issues even started to be cleared up. In fact, his concession seemed to be aimed at preventing another vote scandal and confusion such as what happened in 2000. “We are required now to work together for the good of our country,” he said. “We must join in common effort, without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor.” Once again, Kerry proved himself as a reliable representative of US capitalism. This statement alone shows the real reason that Kerry lost – it was that he did not inspire anybody, he could not and did not speak to the real concerns that huge masses of working class people have.

Capitalist Normality
Some on the left will now be saying that we face a military dictatorship or even fascism in the United States. This is clearly untrue. Capitalist democracy has always had its frauds, its repression, its ugly blood and gore and class warfare. It is true that something different is happening today, compared to 30 years ago, but this does not make it fascism (as arose before WW II). Fascism has a definite historical meaning. Clearly, what is happening in the US is fundamentally different from what happened in Nazi Germany. One can say, “this is a different form of fascism”, but that is like calling an alligator a tiger and then explaining that, yes, it is different, but it is a different form of tiger.

In fact, what is different, what is exceptional, is not the present situation, but the previous one, during the post-World War II economic upswing. Then, with the cold war and the massive economic expansion, the capitalist powers in the industrialized world had to make concessions to their working classes and could afford to do so. In addition, their various rivalries were held in check by the threat of Stalinism. Now, with that situation ended, we are returning to the more normal state of affairs under capitalism in the industrialized world – more open, naked class war and increased conflict between the imperialist rivals.

Perspectives
These rivalries will increase, especially as China develops into a major capitalist power. One of the main issues of contention will be access to the dwindling world oil supplies. An example of how these rivalries will be fought out is the following: When the US was openly attacking Venezuelan president Chavez, and he responded by threatening to refuse to send oil to the US, China stepped in and immediately offered to buy any oil Chavez did not send to the US.

Domestically, some terrible disaster for US capitalism, caused in part by the policies of Bush, cannot be ruled out. For instance, there are predictions of a world economic recession by the year 2006 due to the increased price of oil (now up to around $50 per barrel). This increased oil price is very possibly the first sign of the irreversible depletion of world oil supplies. There could also be overt environmental disasters, possibly caused by global warming. However, unless some such disaster occurs in the next four years, Bush will have the strongest backing of the dominant sectors of US capitalism. Opening up social security to the plunder of Wall Street, as well as his aggressive action in foreign policy will gain him support amongst much of the capitalist class who supported the Democrats this time. After all, Kerry lost, the Democrats are in a mess, Bush and the Republicans control both houses of congress. There is a world to win, and US capitalism is determined to win it.

In announcing his victory, Bush commented: “”Now is the time to get it done. We’ll reform our outdated tax system (meaning more and permanent tax cuts for the rich). We’ll strengthen Social Security for the next generation (meaning privatize the system for the plunder of Wall St.) We’ll make public schools all they can be (meaning privatize what is left of them and let the public schools for poor kids decay further). And we will uphold our deepest values of family and faith (meaning a further appeal to Christian fundamentalism).”

What can stand in his way? The Democrats are in a real mess. It is most likely that they will swing even further to the right. Already there is talk about the necessity of paying attention to the “cultural” issues of middle America. In any case, they have never been a bulwark against attacks on working class people.

A large scale military invasion of another country – Iran or Syria for instance – is highly unlikely as the US military has its hands full with Iraq and Afghanistan. However, other military adventures are very possible. This includes a possible “surgical strike” against Iranian nuclear facilities, although it is possible that Israel will conduct such a strike instead. The potential exists for further US intervention into Latin America, especially Colombia and possibly Venezuela. Overall, Corporate America and the Bush regime will continue to try to stamp their will on the world and on their rivals.

Prior to the election, many liberals focused on the abortion issue as a reason to support the Democrats. However, it is very unlikely that the new Bush administration will ban abortion outright. Even top Republican Senator Arlen Spector made that clear. Abortion will become increasingly less accessible, especially to young women and poor women. This was happening under Clinton too. There will be increased attacks on working class people right across the board.

Working Class Opposition to Capitalism
The only force that can hold back and reverse this attack of US and global capitalism would be an aroused working class. This would have to be expressed through a mass, fight to win movement. Instead of mere protests, it would have to take up the approach of the most courageous of the youth, those who went out onto the streets in the anti-globalization protests and again in the protests against the Iraq war and actually shut down the system. This example and these youth, linked with a sector of working class people, can halt and reverse these attacks.

Unfortunately, while the workers’ organizations – the unions – have been under the sway of the corporate minded leadership, a similar process has been under way in the youth movement. Through the non-profit groups, a more liberal leadership has arisen in much of the youth movement. Often, this leadership is actually linked with a wing of the union hierarchy. These non-profiteers have been working to prevent the more radicalized youth from influencing the rank and file of the unions. Many of them supported Kerry as the lesser evil.

During the election campaign, many working class people in the US became more interested in politics. Had there been a large scale left force present, this increased interest could have been mobilized to build a movement in the streets, in the working class communities, in the work places and unions. It is not too late to do so, even though the mood seems to have died down a bit. However, new attacks and new crises will develop. Now is the time to start building such a movement against the attacks of global capitalism.

It may well be that the next four years will be years of increasing and unrelenting attacks, both at home and abroad. This will not take the form of “fascism” or anything resembling it, but it may be a difficult time. However, at some point there will be a break in the situation. At some point, a mass movement will develop. In the meantime, whether this lasts four months or four years, there will always be pockets of resistance. There will always be local struggles where workers and young people are seeking a more bold and direct way of fighting for their interests. There will always be groups of union members who understand that a total transformation of their unions is necessary. The anti-capitalist forces must participate in these struggles and help to build them and learn from them. On this basis, these forces can grow and become a real force when a larger, more generalized movement develops.

Without this, and without the downfall of US and global capitalism, it is not only the other life forms on Earth, but in fact the human species too, that faces its most devastating crisis ever, up to and including its possible elimination at some point in the further future.