[Mb-civic] Election Day Fears

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Friends--This is an important article.  Short.  Read it.  And it will still be very much 
more palatable reading it in light of a Kerry victory....It's now 4:05 PM on election 
day, the 1st 6 states' polls are just closing, I'm feeling guardedly optomistic.....


--> If you pass this comment along to others -- periodically but not
repeatedly -- please explain that Commentaries are a premium sent to
Sustainer Donors of Z/ZNet and that to learn more folks can consult ZNet
at http://www.zmag.org 


Today's commentary:
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-11/01jensen-youngblood.cfm

==================================

ZNet Commentary
Election Day Fears November 02, 2004
By Robert Jensen and Pat  Youngblood 

We have two great fears about Election Day 2004. 

The first is that George W. Bush will be elected. 

The second is that John Kerry will be elected. 

Those fears are rooted in an understanding that the threats to global
justice and world peace come not from a single person or party but from
systems, and that no matter who is elected, those systems -- empire and
capitalism -- remain in place. There is no hope for the long-term
sustainability of human life on the planet if empire and capitalism are
not replaced with more ecologically viable and humane ways of organizing
political and economic life. And both Bush and Kerry are committed -- by
their words and deeds -- to the maintenance of the capitalist empire. 

But which of these imperial capitalist candidates takes office in January
2005 is not irrelevant. There are differences between the two, and some of
the differences aren’t inconsequential. 

Bush and Kerry are both pro-war candidates, in the case of Iraq and in
general. Kerry voted to give the president authorization for the war and
remains committed to continuing the illegal occupation of Iraq. Both
pledge virtually unconditional support to Israel in its brutal and illegal
occupation of Palestine. The two candidates’  hawkish rhetoric on Latin
America and the Caribbean is virtually indistinguishable. And both Bush
and Kerry are committed to continuing to spend more than $400 billion on
an insane military system that has little to do with national security and
much to do with the maintenance of empire and corporate profits. 

On foreign and military policy, Bush and Kerry differ mostly in style and
strategy, not fundamental aims. Much is made of Kerry’s commitment to
traditional alliance politics, which some have pointed out would likely be
more effective in the long term than Bush’s go-it-alone strategy. If
Kerry rebuilds U.S. alliances with other powerful states, especially in
Europe, it might allow the empire to continue for a longer period. 

But one can also imagine the ideologically fanatical neo-conservatives who
run foreign policy in the Bush administration taking risks with war and
nuclear weapons that more moderate Republicans and Democrats would not.
ItÂ’s important to realize that many in the global south who are working
for radical change want us to remove the Bush administration, with no
illusions about the pathetic alternative Kerry offers. It would be
arrogant for Americans with left/progressive politics to ignore that. 

On domestic policy, the differences seem more pronounced. No one can
mistake Kerry or the contemporary Democratic Party as being pro-union,
pro-environment, or pro-civil rights, but they are less overtly hostile to
those issues than the reactionaries who run the Republican Party. The Bush
administration’s eagerness to eliminate social programs and erode civil
liberties, along with the theocratic leanings of some Republicans, should
keep us up nights.

In short, left/progressive people who reject the U.S. empire can find
reasons to vote tactically for the removal of the Bush administration,
which means voting for Kerry in swing states. We can acknowledge that the
Bush administration -- the actual people in power and the ideology that
fuels them -- are scary, and that the rest of the world is scared of them.


But a Kerry administration will not mean a shift in basic policy, at home
or abroad. It likely will mean a slightly less psychotic commitment to a
system that is unjust and unsustainable. That’s why we’ve been saying
that while Nov. 2 is an important date for American politics, Nov. 3 is
even more important. 

We work in a grassroots antiwar and global-justice political group
(www.thirdcoastactivist.org). We intend to get up the day after the
election and continue the work of educating and organizing within our
community to make clear the horrors of empire. We’re going to keep
talking about the atrocity-generating machine that is the U.S. occupation
of Iraq, no matter who is in office. WeÂ’re going to keep talking about
the need for a dramatic transfer of resources from the global north to the
global south, no matter who is in office. WeÂre going to keep talking
about how deeply rooted systems of white supremacy and male supremacy help
bolster the empire, no matter who is in office. 

In short, we’re going to come together with others in the anti-empire
movement and keep at it, understanding that progressive social change
happens through movements, not politicians. We’re going to keep
suggesting to people that we face a choice: Either we dismantle the empire
from within, non-violently, or we will watch the empire collapse through
violence from the outside. 

If Americans are truly interested in justice -- in the simple plea that
maintaining a world in which half the people live on less than $2 a day is
wrong, that such disparities are evil -- then we have no choice but to
join the movement to dismantle that empire. 

But even if we care only about our own survival, the choice is the same.
On Sept. 11, 2001, we got a glimpse of what it will look like when the
empire collapses from the outside. That is the future that Bush and Kerry
are offering. It is a future that -- no matter which one of them is in
office -- we can try to make sure does not come to pass. 

Youngblood is coordinator and Jensen is on the board of the Third Coast
Activist Resource Center in Austin, TX. They can be reached at
pat at thirdcoastactivist.org and rjensen at uts.cc.utexas.edu.



--


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, option D 
(up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options (option A - 
1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - up to 3x/day) 
please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you this email and you 
want to be on our list, send an email to ean at sbcglobal.net and tell us which 
option you'd like.



Action is the antidote to despair.  ----Joan Baez
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20041102/07586b35/attachment.htm