------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 14, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
EDITORIAL: LESSON OF THE ELECTIONS Not all the election results are in yet as we go to press, and some are still in dispute. However, it seems clear that in this midterm election, the Republican Party has gained clear control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, while losing some key governorships in northern industrial states. Only about one third of the electorate voted. While the Republicans surely outspent the Democrats--the figures are not in yet--there were millionaire candidates on both sides of the ballot. Tom Daschle, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, showed how far to the right his party has moved when he commented on NBC, "I think it means that the president has an opportunity here to enact and proceed with the plan [on Iraq] as he has articulated it. I think the American people appear now to give him the benefit of the doubt." His humble-pie statement was an echo of the exultant message from the White House, which now intends to move ahead with its war plans with renewed vigor, shaking the election results like a big stick at everyone in the world who might express reservations. U.S. imperialism--and, indeed, world capitalism as a whole-- is in a growing crisis that started in the economy and has now moved into the dangerous area of attempting to revive the flagging fortunes of the Fortune 500 through military aggression and the total capture of the oil-rich Middle East. So far, despite a growing grassroots anti-war movement, this stampede by the ruling class to seek salvation for its profit system in organized mass murder--as it has done so many times before over the last century--has had the approval of both capitalist parties. Daschle's comments reflect what this lackluster election was all about--the craven capitulation of the liberal wing of the capitalist class to the war hawks in a time of crisis. There was little in the campaign for the tens of millions of workers, students, seniors, disabled and unemployed to get excited about. Real incomes are down, layoffs are up, workers have been losing their pension money while the billionaire crooks thumb their noses, medical costs have skyrocketed, housing costs are sky-high, and 2 million people are in jail. Did the "opposition" have a program to address any of this? A national health plan? That died with Bill Clinton. Put money into social services? The Democrats voted with the Republicans to kill welfare and cut taxes on the rich. A jobs plan? Both parties agree: let the market do its "magic." And so it has--the Incredible Vanishing Jobs Trick. Build affordable housing? The landlords wouldn't like that. Raise Social Security? Both parties have been telling the people that they must be weaned away from "government handouts." Only the agribusiness corporations and the military-industrial complex have the right to suckle at the public treasury, it seems. The capitalist electoral system has won again, and the people have lost. But that is nothing new. What is new is that there's a grassroots movement coming up that cannot be discouraged by something in which it had little faith to begin with. True, there were the many who desperately bombarded congressional offices with pleas to vote against the war. But they got a rude awakening when their "representatives" admitted that they voted for war in total disregard of what their constituents were telling them. Capitalist elections seldom bring about any significant gains for the masses of people, but they can be a barometer of public sentiment. This is limited in the United States, however, by the slick and sophisticated manipulation of public opinion every day by the mass media--controlled lock, stock and barrel by big capital. And by the fact that the majority of people in any election don't vote at all. It shocked some to find out two years ago that, on top of all this, there was actual fraud in the Florida election, where African American voters in particular were excluded from being counted by various tricks. Then it turned out that similar procedures had been used in other states as well. Now it seems that the same biased Florida voter rolls were in use this time around, too. The movement can take comfort in this historical observation, however: When a mildly anti-war Democrat, George McGovern, actually did make it onto the presidential ballot in 1972 during the Vietnam War, he was roundly defeated. But the movement against the war was not defeated. It went on to become so powerful at home and in the military ranks in Vietnam that the Pentagon brass began to lose control of its rank and file. At the end of it all, the imperialists had to admit they would never subdue the Vietnamese people or crush the movement at home. They finally withdrew. The election results contain an important lesson for all who fight for justice and against the war machine: our strength lies in organizing the people, not in becoming captive to the capitalist political parties. n - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. 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