Millions of working people see little difference between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. They are right about that. The Democrats have pulled out all the stops to convince people that their man, John Kerry, can do better than George Bush in bolstering “homeland defense” and “fighting terrorism” worldwide to “defend America.” Those are code words that capitalist politicians use to rationalize the assault by the employers and their government on the wages, working conditions, and living standards—as well as basic rights—of workers and farmers at home, along with the drive to extend U.S. imperialist domination abroad through the dollar and the sword.

The shrill tone of the Democratic campaign that was evident in Boston—the anti-Bush rhetoric, sometimes coarsely personalized, and the increasingly desperate attempt to top the White House as patriotic, antiterrorist warriors—is a reaction to the drooping appeal of the Kerry-Edwards ticket. One indication of this is the recent statement by Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, that the labor movement might be better off in the long run if Kerry loses the election.

Competing to out-do Bush over who will more effectively fight the “war on terrorism” is a losing proposition, as opinion polls indicate, since the incumbent has the advantage of a solid four-year record of doing just that. The calls by Kerry-Edwards and Co. for “better intelligence” and increased federal police spying should send a chill down the spine of any worker, farmer, or young person who is engaged in resisting the bosses’ offensive or opposing government policies.

Working people have already lived through the stepped-up dragnets and trampling on the rights of the accused and convicted carried out under Bush with bipartisan support. This course was initiated with the “homeland defense” measures of the Clinton years. After Boston, many would have good reason to wonder how well they would survive under a Kerry term.

Middle-class radical groups, including virtually all those calling themselves “socialists,” have been energetically trying to hitch workers onto the faltering Kerry-Edwards bandwagon of American imperialism. Supporters of “independent” candidate Ralph Nader can be seen on the streets of many cities gathering signatures for his uninspiring campaign, whose sole purpose is to meekly nudge the Democratic Party in a slightly more liberal direction.

This year there is only one working-class alternative to the two parties of imperialist war, economic depression, and racist oppression—the Socialist Workers Party slate. We urge you to support the SWP campaign, which does not end in November. Help distribute campaign flyers and other revolutionary literature to your friends, co-workers, neighbors, and relatives. Join with other campaigners in soapboxing on street corners. Arrange speaking engagements and media coverage for the SWP candidates.

The wording of the Socialist Workers campaign slogan mentioned above is carefully chosen. It urges working people not to take as their framework who they are against. That is the axis of the “Anyone But Bush” pro-Democratic Party campaign. Liberals and middle-class radicals, wedded to the Democrats, are asking people to “dump Bush.” Yes, we should be glad to help push Bush out in November. But not in order to push in a Kerry and an Edwards.

The pro-Kerry campaign, like the Bush reelection effort and all other capitalist election campaigns in the United States, focuses on the individual. “Vote for the man, not the party!” This individualism is a characteristic of bourgeois politics in the United States, citadel of the profit system, and serves as a safety valve for the U.S. rulers. It is tied to pragmatism, the philosophy of American capitalism.

The SWP campaign starts from the objective reality that there are two Americas—that of the bosses and that of working people—and from what advances the interests of the toiling majority.

The Socialist Workers campaign banner does not say, “It’s not what you are against.” Class-conscious workers are against many things: they oppose the death penalty, anti-immigrant raids and deportations, racist and sexist discrimination, imperialist war, and class exploitation.

What defines one’s political stance, however, is not simply what you are against but above all what you stand and fight for.

The SWP campaign supports workers’ right to organize unions and defends the labor movement from the unceasing offensive by the employers and their parties. It supports the efforts of the power-poor semicolonial countries to acquire and develop the energy sources necessary to expand electrification, a prerequisite for economic and social advances. It calls for exposing the drive by Washington and its allies to prevent the nations oppressed by imperialism from developing the sources of energy they need—including nuclear power—to bring much of humanity out of darkness.

The socialists call for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of U.S. and other imperialist troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Korea, Haiti, Colombia, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They propose a massive public works program to meet pressing social needs and put millions to work, at union scale. They advocate full cost-of-living protection for all wages and benefits to deal with the scourge of inflation, and a halt to farm foreclosures. They campaign for maintaining and extending affirmative action in employment, education, and housing. They say: abortion is a woman’s right to choose! And they call for an end to Washington’s economic war on Cuba and keeping U.S. hands off Venezuela.

Socialist workers explain their aim is to join with others to lead the working class and its allies in a revolutionary struggle to take power out of the hands of the exploiters, replace the capitalist regime with a workers and farmers government, overthrow the system of wage slavery, and join the worldwide struggle for socialism.

To those who are repelled by the twin parties of capitalism, we say: join in campaigning for the Socialist Workers candidates in 2004!  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home