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Socialist Democracy November 2004

By Lanre Akinola

The re-election of George Bush as American President for the next four years means a continuation of pro-rich imperial policies that were the hallmark of the first four years of his administration. But this does not mean that there would have been any fundamental changes in the US political and economic policies if his main opponent, Senator John Kerry had won the election.

Many activists especially in the third world had thought that Bush would not be re-elected for failing to move America forward in the last four years and for embarking on an imperialist war in Iraq. But the anger against Bush was not as a result of the war in Iraq alone. Despite the talk of an economic 'recovery', most Americans do not see any real economic gains in their lives. Again, Bush has aggressively attacked labour unions women's reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, civil liberties (especially of Muslim Americans), and environmental regulations.

Despite all this, Bush got re-elected because his main challenger, the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, offered no real alternative. As Senator from Massachusetts, Kerry voted for Bush's war on Iraq, the Patriot Act, "No Child Left Behind", and the war on Afghanistan. On June 23, 2004, he voted to increase the Pentagon budget to $447 billion to continue Bush's colonial occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Like Bush, Kerry promised to cut the corporate tax rate and strongly supports "free trade." He voted for NAFTA and the WTO, accelerating the exportation of decent jobs from the U.S. and increasing sweatshops and pollution in Mexico and other semi-colonial countries. Kerry also supports the Isreali Prime Minister Sharon's apartheid wall that is seizing even more Palestinian land-again, just like Bush. Of course, secondary differences do exist between the Democratic and Republic parties, but what stands out, especially in this year's presidential race, were their similarities, and not their differences.

On women's reproductive rights, where Kerry and Bush have differences, Kerry stated that he believes life begins at conception and that he would appoint anti-choice judges to federal courts. Similarly, Kerry opposes Bush's bigoted proposal to write discrimination into the Constitution and ban same sex marriage. But Kerry supports civil unions rather than marriage.

The situation in general was like two parties, one agenda. What could change the White House pro-rich policies is for the working people and other oppressed layers in America to come together with the sole aim of forming a working peoples' party which will work towards the socialist transformation of American society. Under an American working class government, the mega-billions being poured into the military/industrial complex would be massively invested in education, health etc not only in America but abroad as the commanding heights of economy will be put under the democratic control and management of working people. Our sister organisation did not back any of these biggest capitalist parties in the elections. It instead supported a Ralph Nader presidential bid as a strategy to create a mass working class party aiming to end the domination of American politics by these two in one capitalist parties.

Socialist Democracy November 2004