[Peace-discuss] Where we are now

[C. G. Estabrook]

The election of Bush means that much the same group of statist
reactionaries (hardly conservatives, either neo- or otherwise) who are
guilty of what the German leaders were condemned for at Nuremberg --
launching aggressive war -- are still in charge of US policy. Not that
things would have been much different for Iraq, had the Democrats won.
Kerry was committed (apparently) to equally murderous policies there; his
foreign policy advisers seem to have taken Richard Clarke's position that
the US should have killed different Arabs and killed them earlier (in
spite of the fact that assassins from Oswald to Sharon hardly ever effect
a change in policy).

In domestic matters there may have been some difference.  Our two
semi-official parties, similar as they are, respond to slightly different
constituencies, and some of the Republican looting may have been lessened
under a Democratic administration. Bush was as clear as he can be (that
is, not too clear at all) at his first press conference, when he announced
that he wanted to spend his "capital" on privatizing social security and
revising the tax code.  The transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich,
which proceeded apace under the first Bush administration, will only
continue in the second; in fact there may be even more emphasis on it, as
the administration possibly turns away from foreign to domestic concerns.

Edward Luttwak has pointed out that the recent history of US presidencies
shows that second terms often bring changes in direction.  The disastrous
and incompetent occupation of Iraq, and the fiscal and financial
mismanagement that means that foreigners must pony up about two billion
dollars every business day to keep the US economy afloat, may put serious
limitations on what the second GWBush administration can do. Concentration
on the interests of those whom Bush famously referred to as "my base," the
very wealthy, may be the order of the day -- which may have the effect of
lessening somewhat the torture -- figurative and literal -- of the rest of
the world.

The historian of the Vietnam War, Gabriel Kolko, argued that a Kerry
victory would actually be more dangerous for the world at large, because
Kerry would have lessened the isolation of the US and thereby undercut
opposition to US imperial policy from the EU and the rest of the world.
The Iranian government seems to have brought that reasoning, letting on
that they preferred the "known quantity" of the Bush people to a possibly
more diplomatic Kerry administration, which might make it more difficult
for them to play off the EU and the US, as they seem successfully to be
doing.

In any case, almost three out of four eligible voters did not vote for
Bush, in spite of an intense campaign of fear and misinformation in the
corporate media.  The result was a Republican victory far closer than that
of 1972 -- which was followed by the end of a criminal war, the effective
impeachment of a severely limited chief magistrate, and some of the most
progressive social legislation (and even more progressive proposals) of
any administration in living memory.  Not a bad model.

  ==============================================================
  C. G. Estabrook
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
  office: 217.244.4105 mobile: 217.369.5471 home: 217.359.9466
  <www.newsfromneptune.com> <www.carlforcongress.org>
  ===============================================================
  "We must make clear to the Germans 
  that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial 
  is not that they lost the war, 
  but that they started it. 
  And we must not allow ourselves 
  to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, 
  for our position is that no grievances or policies 
  will justify resort to aggressive war. 
  It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy." 
  --Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, US prosecutor at Nuremberg
  ==================================================================