[Peace-discuss] John Pilger's article on Kerry

[Morton K.Brussel]

Carl,

I’ve reviewed the Pilger piece on Znet. Although I am sympathetic with 
his sentiments and agree with most of what he says, I am struck by his 
lack of nuance and balance. He too often sounds as Manichean as the 
fundamentalist right: Is that just journalistic license? Consider the 
paragraph below from his article:


“The truth is that Clinton was little different from Bush, a 
crypto-fascist. During the Clinton years, the principal welfare safety 
nets were taken away and poverty in America increased sharply; a 
multibillion-dollar missile "defense" system known as Star Wars II was 
instigated; the biggest war and arms budget in history was approved; 
biological weapons verification was rejected, along with a 
comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, the establishment of an 
international criminal court and a worldwide ban on landmines. Contrary 
to a myth that places the blame on Bush, the Clinton administration in 
effect destroyed the movement to combat global warming.”


First, I would not agree that Clinton was little different from Bush, 
although I have (always had) less than a liking for Clinton and his 
destructive policies, foreign and domestic. Nonetheless, the 
differences that exist between Bush and Clinton administrations are not 
negligible. Compare: Ashcroft and the justice department, the court 
appointments—guys like Pryor and Pickering wouldn’t have been nominated 
by Clinton, women’s and minority rights, “faith based” initiatives, 
environmental records and appointments (Clinton’s was not exemplary, 
but was far better than Bush’s), general appointments to government 
agencies, even military programs.

Star Wars ideas came on stage in the Reagan administration, not 
Clinton’s. Clinton unfortunately did not suppress budgeting for them, 
but took a middling, compromising, position, very different from what 
we are now confronting.

It is not true that “the biggest war and arms budget in history was 
approved” in the Clinton years (Source: CDI-The Defense Monitor, XXXII 
#5); it was higher in the Reagan and Bush II years. Pilger is just 
wrong on this.
Biological weapons verification, renunciation of the international 
court of justice, the Kyoto global warming protocol, were not rejected 
by Clinton, although he was not proactive in supporting these. There 
was a lot of opposition from the Congress here which he did not seek to 
fight. This is in contrast to the Bush administration positions on 
these issues.

To be effective, criticisms from the left have to be reliable as well 
as passionate, and Pilger unfortunately doesn’t always meet the 
challenge.

Another statement: “the Democratic party has left a larger trail of 
blood… theft and subjugation than the Republicans”. Pilger is not 
serious, as the French say, in view now of events in Iraq, Afghanistan, 
and what is to come. True, Vietnam can be ascribed to Kennedy, Johnson 
et al, but carried on by Nixon and Kissinger, during whose reign, most 
of the deaths occurred. Similarly, Pilger tends to identify the 
Democrats as synonymous with former Senator Jackson (WA) and others on 
the right wing of the party. Although the left-right political spectra 
of  Dems and Repubs do overlap considerably, there is no doubt that the 
centroids of the distributions are quite different. There were/are no 
equivalent Morses, Fullbrights, McCarthys, McGoverns, even Durbins, 
Wellstones, Kucinichs, Leahys, Black Caucus, in the Republican 
spectrum. Someone who is blind to these distinctions cannot be taken 
seriously.

Pilger in this article is polemical in the extreme. This might be good 
to arouse passion, but subtracts from  his reliability. It ought to be 
realized by Pilger that the core of the right wing in the USA is in the 
Republican camp. He doesn’t seem to.  There is enough that is wrong 
about Kerry and his foreign policy positions to criticize without going 
overboard as he does.

In fact, I could parse much more than is stated above, but I think you 
get the drift of my contention.

Mort

P.S. Bill Blum also does a job on Kerry (on ZNet), but he is much more 
solid, if less passionate.
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