[Peace-discuss] John Pilger's article on Kerry (2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mort--

Some specifics. You object particularly to the following paragraph form
Pilger's 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."

[1] I'm unhappy with the term "crypto-fascist." It might be defended in
terms of what Clinton, unprincipled as he was, would have done in more
extreme circumstances, but that's conjecture.  Fascism refers at least to
a more authoritarian regime than the US has.  The methods of control are
different -- propaganda, rather than police repression of elites. (That
often doesn't help non-elites: Clinton's America imprisoned more of them
per capita than any other country in the world.)

[2] You "would not agree that Clinton was little different from Bush," but
surely the issue is how important those differences were.  Since they both
served the same masters, I think it's correct to assume, not much. Hence
"his destructive policies, foreign and domestic," as you say.

[3] "Ashcroft and the justice department" -- cf. the burning of dissidents
at Waco (Ashcroft's just imprisoning them) and the "Effective Death
Penalty Act" after the OKC bombing.  Had Clinton been in office after 911,
I have no doubt he'd have rushed through he Patriot Act too -- which,
after all, was sitting on the shelf because it was a police wish-list
prepared during the Clinton years...

[4] "...court appointments -- guys like Pryor and Pickering wouldn't have
been nominated by Clinton."  I think far too much is made of this: look at
the Supreme Court appointments, back to Eisenhower.  The best have often
come from Republicans, the worst form Democrats.  Furthermore, liberals
make a great error relying on the courts to save them.  The courts
discover rights only when popular movements demand them -- witness
minority civil rights, free speech.

[5] "...women's and minority rights..." -- often code for a defense of
sanctity of abortion, the defense of which allowed feminist groups to
give Clinton a pass on real progressive issues from welfare to health
care. As Alex Cockburn wrote after Clinton's first 100 days, "He's no
friend of the unborn and unwanted, and that's enough to keep the liberals
happy ...  Bottom line: Clinton has been good on anything irrelevant to
the stability of power and wealth."

[6] "...environmental records and appointments (Clinton's was not
exemplary, but was far better than Bush's)."  Far better?  I'd recommend
two books by the best environmental writer in he country, Jeff St. Clair
-- Al Gore: A User's Manual, and Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green
to Me.

[7] "...general appointments to government agencies, even military
programs."  In some cases certainly, but some pretty wretched ones, too --
e.g., see St. Clair on Babbitt.
 
[8] "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."  Not only "did not suppress" but continued, and I think
you minimize what he did.  There's a great deal of continuity
Reagan-Bush1-Clinton-Bush2 on this, and some of Clinton's moves were quite
shocking, e.g., "Clinton negotiators encouraged Russia to adopt
Washington's launch-on-warning strategy to alleviate Russian concerns over
BMD and annulment of the ABM treaty..."!
<www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-07/03chomsky.htm>.

[9] "It is not true that 'the biggest war and arms budget in history was
approved' in the Clinton years ... it was higher in the Reagan and Bush II
years."  I think you're right about this.  But remember that the Clinton
years saw the end of the Cold War, the justification for US military
spending -- and nothing happened.  There was no "peace dividend." Who even
remembers the phrase?  The Clinton administration showed that "defense"
was never the issue.

[10] "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."
Not exactly; see the following from August 1999
<http://www.stimson.org/cbw/?sn=cb20020113265>:

"A 14 July White House nonproliferation fact sheet points to a series of
accomplishments during President Bill Clinton's tenure that have resulted
in "unprecedented progress" in stemming the spread of nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons. Although the document's positive focus is
understandable, historians may not treat the Clinton Administration so
kindly. Clinton's second term has been marked by missed opportunities and
backsliding on weapons of mass destruction, not by accomplishments.

"For example, Clinton ignored the chance to secure swift passage of the
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in his first term. Credit for gaining
Senate approval of this treaty in April 1997 goes not to the Clinton
Administration, but to the U.S. chemical industry, esteemed military
commanders, and Senate leaders who fought for the CWC's passage. Once the
CWC was activated, the Clinton Administration allowed the implementing
legislation to languish, which embarrassingly put the United States in
noncompliance with the accord for failing to submit required declarations
of U.S. industry activities. Furthermore, the White House approved
damaging exemptions in the implementing legislation, which finally passed
last October, that would undercut the CWC's sampling and challenge
inspection tools..."

[11] "[Pilger writes] '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."  A good bit of the rest of the article is devoted to
illustrating that point, which may not be worth it. I think it can be
sustained in the history of the 20th century, but there's not much to
choose between the two parties on this issue -- that's what the principle
of "bi-partisan foreign policy" has meant -- "disputes stop at the water's
edge."

[12] "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." In fact almost two-thirds of the Americans who died in Vietnam
were dead by the time Nixon assumed office.  The Harris poll showed that a
substantial number of those who voted for Nixon in 1972 did so because
they thought he would end the war sooner than McGovern.

[13] "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."  The Democratic
liberals all voted for the Iraq invasion.  The only principled,
anti-imperialist attacks on the neocon policy from within the major
parties came from paleo-conservatives -- Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, the
American Conservative, Chronicles, etc.

As I said, I think the paramount concern is getting the Bush
administration out of office, but it's hard to deny the force of Debs'
remark, "It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to
vote for what you don't want and get it."
       
Regards, Carl