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Why Elections Matter—and Why We're Still Arguing About It

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Dave Anderson

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Oct 30, 2012, 11:55:30 AM10/30/12
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http://www.thenation.com/blog/170886/why-elections-matter-and-why-were-still-arguing-about-it#

Why Elections Matter—and Why We're Still Arguing About It
Phyllis Bennis on October 29, 2012 - 10:39 AM ET


It’s practically the eve of the election—and I’m still kind of stunned
to hear from people who don’t plan to vote, who think voting doesn’t
matter. A young writer, 21 years old, wrote to me the other day, after
seeing an interview I did on what elections are and aren’t, and on how
the candidates do and don’t differ on foreign policy. (Spoiler alert:
mostly they don’t.)

Among other things, he said “We young people understand that the
political theater of electoral politics will not bring about the
radical transformations required to avert environmental and economic
catastrophe.”

And of course he’s absolutely right. Anyone who thinks that choosing a
“better” leader for the US empire will somehow bring about “radical
transformations” has been watching too many campaign infomercials.
Only powerful social movements can do that. We have to fight for
democracy and we have to build our movements—choosing a presidential
candidate doesn’t accomplish either one.

Because national elections—at least those for president—in this
country are not democratic. As I said in the interview he was
critiquing, presidential elections are not our turf, they’re not our
people, they’re not our choices. And anyone who thinks that voting for
one candidate over the other is going to solve our problems—especially
global problems including wars, occupations, climate change and global
inequality—is way wrong.

So our work has to focus on building our movements. But who gets
elected president is dangerously relevant. My own work focuses on
stopping the drone war, getting US troops out of Afghanistan now
instead of two years from now, ending US support for Israeli
occupation and related issues—and on those issues there’s hardly any
difference between the candidates.

There is one war-and-peace issue where they do differ, and that one
matters a lot. Both set “red lines” and say they would use military
force against Iran—that’s disastrous under any circumstance. Romney’s
red line, which is Israel’s red line, would use force to prevent Iran
from reaching “nuclear weapons capability.” While it’s not defined
anywhere in international law, “capability” is generally assumed to
include the ability to enrich uranium and scientific knowledge. And
arguably, Iran actually has that capability already. In the real world
of potential new wars, there’s a huge difference between that, and
Obama’s red line, which he would invoke to prevent Iran from “having”
a nuclear weapon, an event which the entire combination of US military
and intelligence agencies agree could not happen before at least a
couple of years out. The difference matters—because over years it is
possible to build and strengthen movements that will make any such new
wars impossible.

And while foreign policy shows the closest parallels between the two
parties, that isn’t the only issue. Who gets appointed to the Supreme
Court—whether a mainstream moderate centrist or a young right-wing
extremist ideologue who will work for decades to move the court even
further to the right—matters a huge amount. And that’s exactly who the
current Republican party will appoint. Top Republican candidates view
rape—“legitimate” or otherwise—as God’s plan for bringing babies into
the world. Women, especially poor women, living in much of this
country already have few or no options for full reproductive
healthcare, especially in how to deal with unwanted pregnancy. One
party is pledged to appoint judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade and
make abortion illegal across the board. That matters.

Some undocumented young people have just won the opportunity to gain
legal status in this country; that’s way not enough, but it matters
when the alternative is a new regime pledged to deport all
undocumented or to force them to “self-deport.” Obama’s commitment to
Medicare and Social Security remains mostly intact, largely because
his political base demands it; Romney’s commitment to both is
non-existent, except as a means towards increasing privatization. As
usual it’s the poor who would suffer the most. Obama has not made good
on most of his earlier commitments on climate—but Romney would take
those failures further, opening up the Keystone pipeline on his first
day in office.

My on-line critic went on to say, “Perhaps a Romney administration
would speed up a response by a dislocated working class in
overthrowing this doomsday machine? Obama is an extremely effective
tool of the corporate enterprise.” Somehow I never accepted the view
that the worse things get, the more likely we’ll have a revolution. I
just don’t think it works that way. Revolutionary processes—look at
the Arab spring—don’t emerge where people are the most beaten down,
the most impoverished (which is why we haven’t seen a Sierra Leone
uprising or a Niger spring). They happen when people have some renewed
hope and then those hopes get dashed. I’m pretty sure we’re not
anywhere close to a revolutionary moment in this country. And I
certainly don’t think that making things worse for the poorest,
oldest, sickest and most vulnerable among us is a viable strategy for
building movements—or for making revolution.

This election is not about supporting or withdrawing support from
Obama; it’s about keeping the worst from gaining even more power than
they already have, so we can get on with the real work of building
movements. If you want to call that the “lesser-evil” theory, fine.
There’s an old saying that when you’re drowning, and the water is
rising up over your mouth, that last half-inch before it reaches your
nose is a half-inch of life and death. Especially if you’re short—or
in this case, especially if you’re poor.

This election, regardless of who wins, will not solve the problems of
this country and the world. We have to build movements powerful enough
to take on the challenges of climate change, war, poverty, inequality.
But we should be clear, there are significant differences between the
two parties and the two candidates; while neither are our allies, one
will make our work of building movements even more difficult, will
threaten even more of our shredded civil liberties, and will put even
more people around the world at much greater risk. Around the world
many people are terrified of an electoral result that will return
us—and them—to the legacy of George W. Bush.

Elections don’t change the world—only people’s movements do. But
elections can make our work of building movements impossible—and
that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
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