Reply #86: I just want to remind folks of some history, in support of Kucinich's statement. [View All]

In my very first vote for president, I voted for the candidate who was advertised as the "peace candidate," and who painted his opponent as the "warmonger." I'm speaking of the 1964 presidential election. I voted for LBJ. Little did I know--for I was very young at the time--that Congress had voted for the "Gulf of Tonkin" resolution only a month before the election, on the basis of false evidence that the LBJ administration had provided, of a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. military ships, nor had I any notion of what that would mean. John Kennedy had been assassinated a year before. (Neither did I know of his new executive orders, just before he was killed, ordering the withdrawal of U.S. military "advisers" from south Vietnam. Found that out only recently, actually.) LBJ was now the president, and was running for reelection, and had made much of his opponent Barry Goldwater's statements threatening to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. I was against that, and had been born a Democrat anyway, and voted for LBJ, in the belief that he would keep the peace, and be better for the country in other ways.

What I got for that vote, and that act of faith in our Democratic leadership, was TWO MILLION people slaughtered in Southeast Asia, and over 55,000 U.S. soldiers killed, and countless millions of injuries, over the next decade.

Lesson: Beware of Democrats bearing peace.

That was a long time ago, but the lesson that BOTH of our political parties are controlled by the "military-industrial complex" is still relevant. I don't know what to do about it. And I wish that the generation that rebelled against THAT war--including myself--had been more savvy and more persistent, and had dismantled this aggressive war machine THEN. But we did not. And here it is again, manufacturing wars to keep its coffers fat with our tax dollars.

I think they've "bought the farm" this time--as the old fly-boys used to say. They've bankrupted us. And the poor and middle class are going to pay the price of a projected TEN TRILLION DOLLAR deficit, for many decades to come. And the world has meanwhile been re-aligning itself against the out-of-control U.S. bully--probably not a bad thing (since WE can't control our own government), but it will have (and is having) economic consequences. The Bushites and collusive Democrats have earned the enmity of the world, have trashed our economy, and shredded our Constitution, and have even installed a highly riggable electronic voting system, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, so that reform is blockaded, and will be impossible until we restore transparent vote counting, if we can.

And I don't see anyone among the Democratic candidates for president--except Kucinich, and possibly Edwards--who is fundamentally challenging what has been done, how our party leadership has responded to it (or not responded to it), and what these actions and truly dreadful policies bode for the future. Kucinich and Edwards are also the only two who have questioned the vote counting system (Kucinich more than Edwards), which is curious, indeed, since the vote counting system is so blatantly, obviously riggable. "Trade secret" vote counting, indeed. I mean, come on.

With my knowledge of the election system, and what was done to it during the 2002 to 2004 period, and some other early hints about the 2006 Democratic Congress, I really didn't expect them to stop the war, or do anything but what they have done--lard Bush and Cheney with hundreds of billions more of our non-existent money, to keep killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights, and to solidify the U.S. military position in the Middle East on a permanent basis. One of the early hints was an interview I caught on C-Span in the week after the elections, of the crop of new "Blue Dog" Democrats who were re-forming that old Gary Condit coalition of Bush-friendly traitor Democrats. What they said, in essence, was that they were for cutting everything in the budget, and making everything "pay as you go," EXCEPT THE WAR BUDGET. And Pelosi was there in the studio endorsing this--though she didn't speak in those interviews.

Our leadership showed its hand very early, in fact. Everybody noticed "impeachment is off the table" (cuz it was such a shocker), but few realized what this "Blue Dog" coalition meant, although some activists had warned of a DLC strategy to use money and power to get this kind of Bush-friendly, war-friendly, corporate-friendly, rich people-friendly, so-called 'Democrat' elected, riding the tide of public revulsion against the Bush Junta. Other candidates were elbowed out, so that these were the 'D''s that angry voters pressed the button for--often not realizing that they were just voting for a Bushite by another name. Maybe a little smoother, maybe a little less visibly corrupt, but essentially a Bush vote on almost everything that matters.

We had the same problem back in the 1960s--that peace was not an option. No matter who you voted for, the war continued, and was escalated. Nixon eventually ran--when LBJ stood down, obviously reviled by the voters over the war--on a platform of "peace with honor," purporting to have a "secret plan to end the Vietnam War." The war went on for five more years--and was expanded to Cambodia and Laos. The true candidate who would have ended the war--and I'm quite sure he meant it--Bobby Kennedy, was assassinated just prior to that election (1968), the one that Nixon won. And I have no doubt now that that is WHY he was assassinated. It was the night of the California primary, which Bobby Kennedy had just won. He was headed for the White House, and he really meant to end the war. From a Cold Warrior background, he had come to understand how evil it was, and he identified with the young generation which was being conscripted to fight it. The carnage by 1968 was horrendous. He had done his homework. He could see no sense in it whatsoever. He reminds me of Edwards--who voted for the Iraq War, but seems to have genuinely reconsidered that vote, and even apologized for it.

My point is that we will not be permitted a choice. If Edwards moves ahead in the presidential race, and it is determined by the corporate powers that rule over us, that he really will withdraw from Iraq, and change the country's direction, away from militarism and associated corporatism, they have several options, the least ugly (and visible) of which is, the rigged voting machines.

I really am not sure of Edwards--as I wasn't of Bobby Kennedy back then. I didn't vote for Bobby in that primary. I voted for Eugene McCarthy, the candidate who initially challenged LBJ in New Hampshire and drove LBJ out of the race. I knew Bobby was going to win the primary and the general election. He was hugely popular, and very charismatic. My vote for McCarthy was a "message" to Bobby--stick with your antiwar promise. I did think that Bobby would make a great president. And I think the genuineness of his intention to end the war can be measured by what happened to him that night. Bang-bang, shoot-shoot. There were a number of CIA interests that were threatened by him (CIA activities in Latin America, for instance). But Vietnam was the biggie. Could this war machine perpetuate itself indefinitely, by inventing wars? That was the question. And could both party leaderships be made to toe the line? It came to quite a test with the Reaganites' illegal war on Nicaragua, but when the Democrats did not impeach Reagan for that awful crime (and for one most Americans didn't even know about then--a far bloodier crime in Guatemala, where TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Mayan villagers were slaughtered, with Reagan's knowledge and complicity), it was all over really. The Democratic Party was cemented within the "military-industrial complex," and that is who the leadership is loyal to, not to the people.

Of Clinton I would say that, although he was not particularly militaristic, he laid the groundwork for the Bush Junta, with the sanctions and no-fly-zone bombings against Iraq--softening them up for the kill--and set up NAFTA, the Telecommunications Act and other global corporate predator policy that has made it very difficult for we, the people, to fight Bushite fascism. Clinton also "balanced the budget" on the backs of the poor, and created a surplus, which the Bushites promptly looted for tax cuts for the rich, and a corporate resource war. Some good, some bad in Clinton--but a long, long way from the party of FDR, and John and Bobby Kennedy, who understood the phrase "robber barons" and had genuine feeling for the "little guy"--the workers, the poor--against the Goliath of Big Business, with John and Bobby having a strong, native distrust of the CIA of that era, and Hoover's FBI, and of warmongers like the Miami anti-Castro Cubans. Their distrust was based on experience, and possibly also because they were Irishmen, who know to keep a wary eye on entrenched fascist power.

Lesson for now: Start with unrigging the voting machines. This democracy was not destroyed in a day, and will not be restored in a day. It's going to take time. We have to think both short term (like, whom to support for president, for what it's worth at the moment), and long term, to restore our democratic institutions from the ground up.