Responses to Interview with Noam Chomsky

From Phil Gasper, Wendell P. Garton

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Bush v. Bush-lite

Chomsky’s Lesser-Evilism

By PHIL GASPER

Counterpunch, Weekend Edition March 20 / 21, 2004

http://www.counterpunch.org/gasper03202004.html

An article in Saturday’s Guardian reports that left-wing icon
Noam Chomsky has given his "reluctant endorsement to the
Democratic party’s presidential contender, John Kerry".
Chomsky’s support for Kerry is far from enthusiastic. He
describes the choice between Bush and Kerry as one "between
two factions of the business party" and Kerry as "Bush-lite",
only a "fraction" better than his Republican opponent. But
Chomsky argues that the current administration is
exceptionally "cruel and savage" and "deeply committed to
dismantling the achievements of popular struggle through the
past century no matter what the cost to the general
population." He concludes that "despite the limited
differences [between Bush and Kerry] both domestically and
internationally, there are differences. In a system of
immense power, small differences can translate into large
outcomes."

Chomsky’s acceptance of the "anybody but Bush" position is
sure to be influential, but on this occasion the arguments he
offers represent wishful thinking rather than the clear-
headed political analysis for which he is famous. There is no
question that the Bush administration’s policies are "cruel
and savage", but John Kerry (along with the majority of
Democrats in the Senate) supported most of them, including
the war on Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, the war on Iraq, and
the "No Child Left Behind" education act. As Marjorie
Williams pointed out in the Washington Post recently, "Kerry
voted for so many of Bush’s major initiatives that in order
to disown them now he can only argue that they were wrongly
or dishonestly ’implemented.’ This amounts to a confession
that his opponent made a chump of him for the past three
years. In fact, one might argue that Kerry is a poster boy
for all the ways in which congressional Democrats have
allowed themselves to be rolled by the Bush administration."

The Bush administration has pushed US politics sharply to the
right, but this represents not a qualitative break with what
came before but an extension and continuation of "cruel and
savage" policies implemented by other administrations over
the past 25 years, Democratic as well as Republican. Bush’s
attacks on civil liberties build on the legacy of Bill
Clinton, including the 1996 Effective Death Penalty and Anti-
Terrorist act (supported, incidentally, by Kerry). And while
Bush is certainly committed to "dismantling the achievements
of popular struggle through the past century no matter what
the cost to the general population", nothing that he has yet
done in terms of social policy has equaled the brutality of
Clinton’s gutting of the federal welfare system (again
supported by Kerry).

In terms of foreign policy, the differences are even smaller.
Kerry’s criticisms of Bush are purely tactical, as was
abundantly clear in a recent interview in Time magazine:

"Look, I’m prepared to take any action necessary to protect
the country, and I’m prepared to act unilaterally if we have
to," Kerry insists, noting that he backed the use of force in
Grenada, Panama, Kosovo and Afghanistan. "But there is a way
to do it that strengthens the hand of the United States.
George Bush has weakened the hand of the United States."

In fact, Kerry wants to send an additional 40,000 troops to
Iraq, advocates a "muscular internationalism" in the
tradition of 20th-century Democratic presidents (whose
foreign policy record was far bloodier than their Republican
counterparts) and even refuses to rule out "preventive" wars.
Chomsky is right that "small differences can translate into
large outcomes", but this plays both ways. Kerry, for
instance, may be in a better position than Bush to push
through the reintroduction of the draft, just as it took a
Democrat to implement welfare "reform".

Making decisions about the presidential election on the basis
of the minute differences between the two major party
candidates is ultimately a mug’s game. Whoever wins in
November, we’ll need the biggest and most militant social
movements on the ground to fight their policies, but when
activists get sucked into support for the Democrats the
movements are weakened and sometimes destroyed. In 1964, when
the Republicans nominated the anti-communist fanatic Barry
Goldwater as their candidate, anti-war activists thought they
could go "Half the way with LBJ". But as the late Hal Draper
remarked in a classic article on the politics of "lesser
evilism":

... you know all the people who convinced themselves that
Lyndon Johnson was the lesser evil as against Goldwater, who
was going to do Horrible Things in Vietnam, like defoliating
the jungles. Many of them have since realized that the spiked
boot was on the other foot; and they lacerate themselves with
the thought that the man they voted for "actually carried out
Goldwater’s policy." (In point of fact, this is unfair to
Goldwater: he never advocated the steep escalation of the war
that Johnson put through; and more to the point, he would
probably have been incapable of putting it through with as
little opposition as the man who could simultaneously
hypnotize the liberals with "Great Society" rhetoric.)

"So who was really the Lesser Evil in 1964?" asked Draper.
"The point is that it is the question which is a disaster,
not the answer. In setups where the choice is between one
capitalist politician and another, the defeat comes in
accepting the limitation to this choice." The same is true in
2004. The most liberal administration of the past 35 years
was led by Republican Richard Nixon, who was forced to
respond to ghetto rebellions, wildcat strikes and radical
social movements. But the historic role of the Democrats has
been to muzzle such movements. If we choose Kerry over Bush,
we make it more difficult to do the only thing that ever
makes a difference for our side—building real activism on
the ground.

Think again Noam.

[Phil Gasper is professor of philosophy at Notre Dame de Namur
University in California. He is a member of the National
Writers Union and a frequent contributor to Socialist Worker
and the International Socialist Review. He can be contacted
at pgasper@n....]

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Noam usually gets it right. As Will Rogers said, some 80 years ago: "We
have the best Congress that money can buy." It was true then, and it is
true now. Our version of free speech is paid speech through Corporate
ownership and control of the media. Public broadcasting is underfunded
and cannot present full and open discussion of any and all topics of
national or global concern. Thanx for the input.

Wendell P. Garton