Workers World Party: Kerry, Bush, and War

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It's especially important to make a judgment regarding what might be expected from Kerry on questions of war and peace. After all, the Bush gang has already carried out two wars of aggression and has sent in troops to forcibly occupy three countries--Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti.

Often capitalist candidates hide their real program behind demagogy to try to appear to be for peace. You would have to examine Kerry's record in Congress to know that he voted to invade Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, Somalia in 1992, Kosovo in 1999 and Afghanistan in 2001. But Kerry has made things easy now. He says he would add 40,000 troops to the military and send many of them to Iraq.

Kerry has had what might at first appear to be a confused position on the Iraq war. In October 2002, despite tons of phone calls, letters, e- mails and personal visits asking him to vote against authorizing Bush to go to war, he did vote for war. Later, after the invasion of Iraq and after the Iraqi resistance began in earnest, he said he was against the war. Now he wants more troops to reinforce the occupation.

But his policy is not really so confused. A look at Kerry's military philosophy, if you can call it that, can be seen in his support for "progressive interventionism," as expressed in his book "A Call to Service." To sum it up concisely, Kerry is all for using U.S. military might around the world to expand U.S. imperialist interests, but (1) it should have a cover of protecting "human rights" and (2) it should be done in alliance with the other imperialist powers instead of unilaterally, as the Bush gang likes to do it. Now that the United States is already in Iraq, he would not want to leave all that oil behind.

http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/edit0311.php

peacenik hippie radical.

I reward you for your optimisim, I guess.

We will make a Democratic Party campaign operative out of you yet, my friend....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

And I have said the same thing I said in my original post dozens of times.

A while ago, I wrote a thing about "beating bush," outlining one strategy that could be employed to do it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=357192

That strategy appears to be the road not being taken.

The alternative ain't pretty.

So what if we have a few hobbies that make raping and pillaging look like golf? It's not like we're not going to get around to working on that, it's just that we have our priorities, like world domination. We've got responsibilities too.

Besides, who cares what you think?

:-)

I think I found your problem

The Democrats are so shocked and awed by the bush regime that their efforts are focused on coming up with a candidate who will guarantee the status quo,

Am I mistaken, or are you saying that this is a new phenomenon?

we're in the mess we're in, and settling for an asshole transplant instead of exercising your constitutional right to change your government is not in your best interests.

I now know not to vote. What's next?

I can't get over the impression that you consider imperialism to be somehow new to a nation that was creating new "settlements" as the same time it fought for it's "freedom" and "democracy" which disenfanchised more than half the population.

Imperialism is part and parcel of our national character, and has had a strong influence on our policies from Day 1. They are embedded in our Constitution, which designed a system that was not meant to defeat itself. Elections are not revolutions, and not one has ever resulted in a change to our Constitutional order.

So what's next?

Only a tribute to your mastery of the dead-pan, and to the fact it was indeed a line worthy of a paid professional, my friend.

Your earlier piece was an excellent one, and there is a good deal to what you say in it, although in the final analysis it is impossible for me to agree whole hog with your strategic prescription. While the turn-out rate is highest in the upper income quarter, even so these account for well under half the total turn-out, and the Republicans receive a substantial proportion of their votes from persons with little income or education, and scant prospect for more of the former and no desire for more of the latter. There really does not seem to me to be much warrant for belief that the portion of the populace that does not vote would, if it did vote, do so much differently from the portion of the populace that does, or that it is eager for a radical program of any sort. There is too much uncertainty about the outcome for me to advocate such a leap into the dark in faith of finding a trampoline spread waiting.

"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disasterous and the unpalatable."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

They're too expensive. It's much easier, and cheaper, to buy a few.

you could be right, it could already be too late. I have said before, I do not think that a political solution is realistic.

More of a quaking boggy mud, with oddly spaced turved patches offering more stable footing, but no end to the moor in sight. It has at least the consolation of familiarity, however drear....

Ah well, we are different people, my friend, with different temperaments and outlooks and experiences; it would be a wonder should we agree on much more than we do.

Once the Sage wrote: "Having too little to live on, people know not to value life too much."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

Kerry would send in troops to secure Aristide's right to be deposed democratically, instead of starting the country back from scratch with yet another violent coup.

I thought you were a Kerry supporter, and that you were being honest. I'm sorry. Great line, DuctTapeFatwa!

Strikes me as a man who would be very dangerous at a poker table....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

:-)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=366795#369259

post 138. go see :hi:

That exchange had escaped my notice, as it was clear the Son of Heaven was bent on his course in the matter. It made me laugh to the point of tears, although there must remain this one caveat, which you will surely recognize, namely that between your opinion and mine there will always be this difference: mine is right and yours is wrong....

Allow me to make myself a peanut butter and Miracle Whip sandwich in honor of the occasion.

Be well, my friend, and happy hunting to you!

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"