[Peace-discuss] Kerry

[C. G. Estabrook]

The point is, Chuck, Kerry isn't saying these things to get elected. He
and the people around him (and more importantly the people he's working
for) believe these things.  He's a liberal imperialist abroad and a DLC-er
at home.  Foreign policy is represented by Richard Clarke ("Kill more
Arabs, earlier!") and Rand Beers ("Kill more Colombians, faster!").  
Domestic policy, by Robert Rubin and the Clinton crowd that dismantled the
New Deal (welfare "reform") and brought us the Effective Death Penalty
Act.

A fairly good account of what the Bush administration was going to be like
was available in 2000 by noting the views of the people around him,
Reaganites and Neocons.  A similar account of Kerry's coming
administration (and I think it will) is available the same way now.  And
it doesn't inspire confidence.

But it's still better than Bush, perhaps more noticeably on domestic
issues.  We've concentrated on the Neocons' foreign policy, which was
never much condemned by liberals (with very few exceptions) until their
arrogant incompetence became evident in the occupation. The principled
condemnation of the Neocons' foreign policy came from the so-called Far
Right ("paleocons"), the most visible of whom was Pat Buchanan.  They
hated the Neocons and said why, correctly.

But it's on domestic policy that the Neocons are most radical.  They're
neither libertarians or conservatives, but reactionary statists.  They've
used the federal government during Bush II massively to transfer wealth
from the poor to the rich (as of course earlier administrations did, but
not at this rate.) I think Halliburton's their electoral albatross.
(That's one reason the new film The Corporation is so important.) Bush was
intuitively right to storm out of that news conference where the tame
reporters suddenly asked him about Ken Lay.

I think their greed will defeat them and prove James Carville right again
("It's the economy, stupid.")  People know what their real economic
circumstances are and will vote against the people who put them there.

Regards, Carl


On Fri, 30 Jul 2004, Chuck Minne wrote:

> 
> Kerry cannot win catering to us, a tiny minority very far to the left.
> 
>  
> 
> Kerry can only win if he gets the undecided voters. They do not want
> to hear that they have been supporting a mistaken war. Kerry knows
> that, you should know that.
> 
>  
> 
> The name of the game is winning. He is going the way he thinks he has
> the best chance to win, I agree; you may not.
> 
>  
> 
> If you have a hard time supporting Kerry, just think John Ashcroft.
> Dick Chaney. Paul Wolfowitz.
> 
>  
> 
> If any of you were in Kerry’s shoes, you would be doing the same
> thing. That is if you wanted to win.
>