[Peace-discuss] Pretend Politics

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Good reflections on primaries and a possible Kerry presidency. (And I
think the author voted today in the church where I was married.)  --CGE]

February 10, 2004
Pretend Politics

By Mark Hand

I'm not a member of the Democratic Party nor do I have any desire to join
the party, given its long history of scandalous and despicable behavior.
But I pretended to be one this morning in the party's presidential primary
in Virginia when I used the new touch-screen voting machines here in
Arlington County to cast my support for Dennis Kucinich.

Actually, there was no need for false pretenses on my part because the
politicians and regulators in Richmond, who have full police authority
over how the Democratic and Republican political parties in the
commonwealth choose their candidates, told the party it must permit any
registered voter in the state, not just Democratic Party members, to
participate in the Democratic presidential selection process.

Strangely, in a country that touts its election process as the freest and
fairest in the world, we have federal, state and local governments in all
states across the land telling the political parties how they must choose
their candidates. Democratic and Republican officials, however, don't seem
to mind the interference, owing to the fact that it was their members who
drew up the rules in the first place. The two parties indeed welcome the
government's regulation of their nominating selection processes because
the oversight essentially serves as an official seal of approval of their
monopoly and entrenched status.

This regulation of the Democratic and Republican nominating process is
only one example in a long list of ways that the current U.S. election
process is unfair and undemocratic. We have laws that make it extremely
difficult for non-monopolists to get their candidates' names on the
ballots in general elections. We have a media that ignores all activities
of the non-monopolistic political parties. And, of course, we have the
always controversial exclusion of non-monopolists from the nationally
broadcast presidential debates.

Because of the Republicrats' control of the election market, I typically
don't vote in federal elections or primaries unless there's someone on the
ballot who clearly champions both a rollback in the repressive features of
the federal government and an increase in public access to
decision-making. If not for Dennis Kucinich's participation in the
Virginia primary, I would not have bothered showing up today at the local
St. Something Catholic Church, which serves as my neighborhood polling
station.

Kucinich is the most appealing candidate to have entered a race for the
Democratic presidential nomination in the 20 years that I've been eligible
to vote. That's not saying much, however, given that his strongest
competition for the title of most dynamic Democrat is missing-in-action
Jesse Jackson and chameleon Jerry Brown.

As for the nominating process, political parties should be able to set
their own rules for how they choose their candidates, pass resolutions,
and conduct general party business. No taxpayer money should be used in
any fashion to oversee or regulate their activities. The government should
get involved only at the final stage of the process -- the general
election. At the same time, government authorities and the two major
parties must relinquish their totalitarian control of who gets on the
ballot in the general election.

When I voted this morning, I noticed a John Kerry supporter standing
outside the polling station. It was the same guy who during last
November's local elections was collecting signatures to get Kerry on the
primary ballot and was creating a nuisance by haranguing passers-by about
how it was their duty to participate in the election because U.S. soldiers
had died for their right to vote. He asked me to sign his petition to get
Kerry on the primary ballot, but I told him "no thanks" because I found
his rhetoric foolish and insulting.

During our brief conversation, the Kerry supporter, a 50-something Robert
Duvall look-alike, said some of his friends had died in Vietnam for my
right to vote and that his stint in the army in West Germany during the
Vietnam War era also protected my freedom to vote (by thwarting an attack
of the Russkies into Western Europe and across the Atlantic that would
culminate in a Soviet occupation of Arlington County, I presume). I told
him that his comrades' killings in Vietnam had nothing to do with our
right to vote here at home and everything to do with the desire of the
ruling elite in the United States to hold political and economic control
over Southeast Asia.

As I was walking away, in an apparent attempt to defend his abrasiveness
behavior toward passers-by, he yelled in my direction, "Free speech, man!"

I ignored the guy this morning. But seeing him reminded me of last
November's encounter and reinforced my opinion of John Kerry and his
supporters as people who would do absolutely nothing to roll back the U.S.
military presence around the world if the Massachusetts senator were
elected president. The rhetoric of the Robert Duvall look-alike symbolized
how a Kerry administration would continue to glorify the warrior class.
His words signified how a President Kerry would perpetuate the myth of the
U.S. military as a noble savior of oppressed people the world over and
protector of our freedom here at home, as opposed to its real record as a
mass-murdering tool of the ruling elite.

I'm not a fan of growing the federal bureaucracy, but Dennis Kucinich's
plan for a Department of Peace has a poetic appeal in these unimaginative
times.

Copyright © 2002-2004, Mark Hand, www.pressaction.com
Press Action
Editor
Mark Hand
mark at pressaction.com

Press Action publishes investigative news and commentary from a
libertarian point of view. Press Action Editor Mark Hand began publishing
investigative newsletter Big Forehead Express in March 1990. BFE morphed
into Incite Information in 1991 and was published on a regular basis
through the summer of 1993. Contributors to BFE/II included Todd Mason,
Richard Kostelanetz, Mickey Z., Mumia Abu Jamal, John Dingell III and Kenn
Thomas. Hand launched Press Action in November 2002 in an attempt to carry
on the tradition of BFE and II. Press Action welcomes submissions of
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