Here I am, enjoying post-solstice sunrise at 5.48 a.m., and, on
California's North Coast, sunset at 8.35 p.m. (probably classified info if
you ask Tom Ridge). I'm in the early summer of 2003, and already people are
acting as though the first Democratic primary was only a month or two away.
Already we're wading deeper into the issues that will pulse with increasing
intensity across the next 17 months.
Is the task of booting George Bush out of the White House
paramount? Out with the imperial Crusader, the death-penalty-loving,
Bill-of-Rights-trashing, drug-war-advocating corporate serf! By all means.
But whoa! Who's this we see, galloping out of the mists of rosy-fingered
dawn, a knight errant sent by the gods to give the kiss of life to all our
fainting hopes? It's . why, it's. yes, it's another imperial Crusader, a
death-penalty-loving, Bill-of-Rights-trashing, drug-war-advocating corporate
serf. Only he's a Democrat, not a Republican. That changes everything. Or
does it?
Take Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont. Right now, he's
enjoying a boomlet. Across this great land, ambitious Democrats are hopping
from foot to foot in an agony of indecision. Kerry, Graham, Dean, Gephardt:
Which way to jump? Dean! Clinton without the satyriasis, Carter without the
Baptist sanctimony; a simple country doctor (albeit with Dean and Witter
armorial bearings) who ran Vermont through the Nineties, and who, somewhere
in the mid to late 90s, began to set his compass for the White House.
Progressive, but not radical; against the war, but no peacenik.
I'm a realist. I know that anyone hoping to win the Democratic
nomination has to achieve acts of political prestidigitation equivalent to,
though harder than, guiding a herd of rampaging Gadarene swine through the
eye of a needle. No matter that a candidate might have the idealism and
social conscience of William Morris, the conscience of Philip Berrigan, the
moral clarity of Robespierre or Ralph Nader, he'd still have to act as
ruthless swineherd. I know that. But I'll confess it. The more I look at
Dean, the less I like him.
The death penalty? Yes, Dean evolved into a pro-death penalty
position just when he was debating a White House run. For heinous crimes
like killing kids or cops. Now, with his eye on the primary in South
Carolina, he's added "terrorists" to those into whose arms he would stick
the needle. Isn't that the posture of Ashcroft or of W. Bush, who signed
more death warrants than any other governor in U.S. history? It is, but be
reassured by the Dean campaign. In a Dean administration, those consigned to
Death Row will know, even as the needle starts pumping the poison into their
veins, that President Dean went that last half mile to ensure fairness.
Medical marijuana? Is the Democratic candidate wholly owned by
the pharmaceutical companies, the blue-nose lobby? Dean says, "My opposition
to medical marijuana is based on science, not based on ideology." Oh, yeah.
Dean's opposition is based on 200 percent proof political calculation. He
looked in the crystal ball and decided he didn't want to be pilloried by Tim
Russert and the other telly-pundits as a friend of the herb, so Gov. Dean
headed off a really good medical marijuana law making its way through
Vermont's lower house, the same way he headed off a pioneering health
initiative in Vermont. Recently, he called Gephardt's health proposal
"pie-in-the-sky radical revamping." He was gung-ho for welfare "reform,"
which he has called an "incredibly positive force." He's a "fiscal
conservative," which is kiddy code for serf of capital.
Yes, Dean did stick his neck out a tiny bit on the invasion of
Iraq. He said he wasn't convinced by the WMD threat. Smart fellow. He took
some stick for that. Good for him, but Dean is a solid, mainstream imperial
Democrat, with entirely predictable prostration to AIPAC and the Likudniks.
I'm glad to say I'm not alone in adopting a reserved attitude
toward strident Democrats, saying Out with Bush at any price.
When we look back in a year or two or five, I think it will
become clear the war on Iraq helped to propel the domestic peace and justice
movement to a much higher level of organizing. Can the peace movement keep
going; and if so, in what direction? Will it become a recruiting base for
Democratic candidates for the nomination, or will it remain an independent
force?
A foretaste, maybe even the taste, of what the answers might be
came at the start of June in Chicago, at a conference organized by United
For Peace and Justice (UFPJ). Wazzat? After organizing the two largest
anti-war demos in this country (Feb 15, March 22) UFPJ (of which Dobbs is
the press coordinator) is now the major national coalition with more than
650 member groups.
The conference was aflame with a cross section of America's
radicals, everyone from the Socialist Alternative to Code Pink! to U.S.
Labor Against the War, to the Communist Party USA, along with local
coalitions such as Wasatch Coalition for Peace & Justice (Salt Lake City),
the Terre Haute (Ind.) Stop War on Iraq, and East End Women in Black, just
to name a few.
The theme of UFPJ's relationship to the Democratic Party ran
like a red thread throughout the entire meeting. At no time did it seem
likely that the majority of delegates were anything but independent of both
parties. There were impassioned pleas for UFPJ to endorse Dennis Kucinich
(also, from a very few, Howard Dean) but such calls were easily overwhelmed
by the majority of those present. UFPJ will not be endorsing or supporting
any candidates, at any level. Demonstrations are scheduled for both the
Republican and Democratic conventions next year. The peace movement is alive
and kicking.
People like Dean had better face facts. The Democrats aren't
going to win over everyone with the Anyone But Bush line next year.
Alexander Cockburn is coeditor with Jeffrey St. Clair of the
muckraking newsletter CounterPunch. To find out more about Alexander
Cockburn and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate Web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2003 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
