Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:14:17 +0000
Subject: nevermind the ballots


Never mind the ballots
So, to summarise, you can lose more jobs than any 
President since the Great Depression. You can preside 
over millions of families losing their health care. You 
can take away working people's overtime payments. You can 
impose a tax cut which benefits the already ultra-rich 
elite ("my base" as he famously admitted). You can lose 
all three Presidential debates (and look like an angry 
moron who makes stuff up). You can smear someone who 
fought in the war your dad's contacts got you out of (and 
go AWOL while defending Texan bars from the Communist 
threat). You can start an unnecessary war based on lies 
that killed 1,100, mostly working class, troops as well 
as countless Iraqis while wasting $200 billion and 
increasing the risk of terrorism. You can fail to live up 
to your promise to "smoke out" Osama Bin Laden (and get 
your cronies to proclaim his latest video as a "gift"). 
You can introduce torture as state policy in Abu Ghraib 
and elsewhere. You can create a global gulag system 
centred on Guantanamo bay.  You can poison the 
environment by undermining and/or not enforcing 
environmental regulations. You can give hundreds of 
millions in no-bid contracts to the Vice President's 
former company. You can turn a substantial budget surplus 
into a gigantic deficit. You can let 9/11 happen and then 
fight the creation of the 9/11 Commission, resist 
speaking to them and then do not act on their 
recommendations. You can value faith over science. You 
can refuse to speak with the press or the public and can 
only let supporters into your election rallies. ...and 
you win the popular vote by several million votes. 

Welcome to George Bush's America, where the majority of 
voters have just announced to the entire planet that they 
are fine with all this. This was an important 
announcement, particularly for Islamic terrorists whose 
worse propaganda has just been confirmed. But this is 
unfair. Only 51% of American voters (representing around 
30% of possible voters) choose an ultra-rightwing big-
business theocracy as its preferred ruler, rejecting 
scientific progress along with human rights and 
supporting aggressive imperialism as the foreign policy 
of choice. Yet it is clear that the other 49% 
(representing around 30% of possible voters) are 
considered irrelevant. Not only are "liberals" demonised 
by the right, which expresses utter hatred and contempt 
for them, the Bush Junta quickly talked of its new 
"mandate" given by having a staggering 1% more voters 
than the losers. Given the radical right-wing agenda they 
imposed after stealing the election in 2000 (and without 
a popular majority) we can only expect one thing -- even 
more of the same but supersized. 

Perhaps it will be argued that the economic and military 
messes will now have to cleared up by those who caused 
them. But that is doubtful. Bush wealthy supporters are 
not affected by the war or unemployment. It will be 
ordinary Bush voters who will face the draft and poverty 
-- along with those who rejected him at the ballot box. 
The only people to really benefit, other than the elite 
and the Christian fundamentalists, are the satirists. 
They will have lots of material to work with.  

Civil liberties will be further eroded. Abortion rights 
will disappear in most, if not all, states and women's 
reproductive rights will become property of the state. 
The chasm between the ultra-wealthy and the rest (which 
has been growing since the 1980s) will increase, 
cementing plutocracy as the proper name for the American 
system. The merging of church and state will increase, as 
will military spending. Social security will be 
privatised and the tax system "reformed" to place the 
burden on the working class even more, with workers 
facing (yet again) stagnating wages, longer hours and job 
insecurity. And, how knows, perhaps the draft will be 
introduced to secure the colonisation of Iraq and, 
depending, to invade Iran. Perhaps we can draw some 
comfort that Bush supporters are pretty much ignorant of 
the facts. Indeed, they hold opinions about Bush and the 
world significantly at odds with reality and while faith 
is a powerful thing, it cannot hold back reality 
indefinitely. Particularly when they have elected a 
leader whose policies make that reality as bad as 
possible for the non-elite.

According to exit polls, 22% of voters stated that "moral 
issues" was the key issue. In other words, most Bush 
votes considered this their key issue. Morals  which, for 
example, apparently tolerate unnecessary wars which kill 
over 100,000 and are justified by lies and spin. Yet even 
as Kerry was demonised because he had "Massachusetts 
values," the Christian right states had higher divorce 
rates than Massachusetts (which has the lowest divorce 
rate in America). What explains the contradiction? 
Simply, by "moral issues" or "family values" it is meant 
"know your place in the social hierarchy." It also means 
curtail (or ban) any lifestyle they disagree with or 
consider evil. In other words, the "values" rooted in 
obedience, conformity and a fear of the different and a 
family based on patriarchy rather than the love between 
equals. 

Ironically, though, it is the logic of the capitalism 
that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and 
promotes a different set of values that is destructive of 
family life -- and much else besides. By voting for 
"moral issues" or "family values" over the last few 
decades, the Christian right have done most to destroy 
them. Ultimately, though, this was not about  "morals" 
(in whatever sense) but rather power and the fear that 
oppressed classes, sexes, races and sexuality's are 
freeing themselves from the social hierarchy which places 
(rich) white men at the top. Bush urges "unity." When 
someone in power says that, it translates as "do as we 
tell you." That is the one thing we must reject. While 
the voting may be over, the real tasks and struggles are 
just beginning. This is the forging of a strong social 
movement which can make voting irrelevant as it uses 
direct action and solidarity to fight the powers that be 
-- political, economic and social. 

The fact that Kerry lost in Ohio, which had seen 232,000 
jobs evaporate and 114,000 people lose their health 
insurance during the Bush years, is incredible. The 
failure of Kerry's campaign should drive home the obvious 
anarchist lesson that we cannot rely on politicians to 
act for us or hope that our freedom's can be defended by 
putting a cross in a bit of paper every few years. Such 
"sovereignty" is meaningless. It simply gives a blank 
cheque to politicians to misuse and abuse as they wish 
while disempowering the grassroots from taking effective, 
direct, action to defend their rights by focusing 
activity on a few leaders to act for us.

Change can only come from below, not from above, in the 
streets and workplaces. While we fight Bush or Blair, we 
need to remember that the enemy is a ruling class as a 
whole and whoever is its political representative -- 
whether it calls itself Republican or Democrat, Tory or 
New Labour. That means helping to build a social movement 
in our communities and workplaces which fights for change 
directly and which empowers the grassroots by practising 
self-management within a bottom-up federal system. It 
means applying our libertarian ideals in everyday life 
and fighting our own battles rather than hoping some 
capitalist politician will be less incompetent, less 
authoritarian and less pro-business than another if they 
get elected.

But it is Bush who has been elected to the Presidency 
(for the first time), apparently fairly (although role of 
the company providing voting machines cannot be dismissed 
given that it contributes to the Republicans and its head 
said in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio 
deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"). 
This highlights the problem with statist democracy. 
Democracy is undemocratic, little more than an elected 
dictatorship. Only a system based on self-management can 
ensure that people have a meaningful say in the decisions 
that affect them. Economically, this means replacing the 
feudalism of capitalism with workers' control. 
Politically, it means replacing the centralised, top-down 
state with a decentralised, bottom-up federation of 
communes. Similarly, Bush shows that the majority is not 
always right. Why should 51% of the populate dictate to 
the other 49%, particularly when the former want to 
impose an authoritarian regime. In an anarchist system, 
those communes which wanted to live free would simply 
secede. Those who wanted to impose their way of life 
("family values") would be able to impose it on 
themselves and no one else. 

So, perhaps, that is what America should do. Let the two 
Americas be free. Let the Blue states secede and let the 
Red States create their authoritarian big business 
friendly theocracy. Let those who reject this dogma be 
free to be themselves. The same within the Red States 
themselves -- why let one community dictate social rules 
to another? Only a genuine, bottom-up, federal system can 
ensure that social and individual freedom exists. That 
explains why the right would never allow it. Given a 
choice between a theocracy and freedom, most will choose 
the latter. Being yourself, not what a priestly or 
statist hierarchy decrees for you, is inherently 
appealing. Hence the pressing need for the right to seize 
state power. 

And the pressing need to build an anti-parliamentary 
movement that can stop them -- as well as any other 
would-be rulers, whether right, left or centre -- and 
build the new world in the process. That means opposing 
the false values of the right by showing the possibility 
of a movement inspired by the values of liberty, equality 
and solidarity. It means going beyond party allegiances 
and building a social movement based on a shared social 
position, love of liberty and visions of a decent 
society.