Editor’s Note: The forthcoming USA presidential election concerns the whole world. However, it is primarily a matter for eligible USA voters. Any articles published on the World Crisis Web on the subject of the election are presented to stimulate free thinking and debate, and don’t necessarily reflect the views of the editor.
Omar Barghouti
Noam Chomsky has correctly and perceptively argued that although the difference between U.S. President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry is small - thus the “Bush-lite” label given to the latter by many - in a “system of immense power,” a small improvement over Bush could “translate into large outcomes” in several vital areas, including health care and education domestically, and world peace and the environment globally. Even fractional changes could make life more tolerable to millions in the U.S. and the world.
Bush-lite, Chomsky concluded, was therefore a cut above Bush-regular.
The view from Palestine may be at variance with this logic. Palestinians are not betting their lives on the prospects for progress under Kerry. After all, he has already come out to express unqualified support for Israel’s apartheid wall, settlements in the Occupied Territories and other grave Israeli violations of international law. Even under an analytical microscope, one would be hard pressed to identify the “lite” part when it comes to Israel.
And this comes as no surprise. Israel has effectively secured a position of unparalleled influence over the American administration, especially as far as foreign policy toward the Middle East is concerned. This is now a built-in feature of the system that will take far more than a mere change in presidency to alter. Moreover, Kerry, unlike Bush, may actually be able to win considerable European and international backing for essentially the same biased policy, and that would make him worse, in fact.
Lite is not always bright, it seems.
Take cigarettes, for instance. For many years now, people around the world have been naively duped into thinking that cigarettes labeled “light” somehow posed a lesser risk of serious disease. Through extensive, relentless and quite ingenious public relations campaigns, bogus research and political muscle, the mighty tobacco industry has effectively succeeded in circumventing the robust results of age-long research, which has proven beyond doubt the causal effect between smoking and several chronic illnesses. The “lights” were a smoker’s dream come true: all the addictive fun with no harm done. Smokers wanted to believe; that was the secret behind the staggering success of the ruse.
To the detriment of the tobacco industry, however, scientific evidence has consistently shown that the lower nicotine and tar levels have hardly resulted in an alleviation of the disastrous health impact of smoking. Quite the opposite, they had an adverse effect as smokers put off plans to quit and felt more at ease smoking lights around children or other passive smokers. A supposedly noticeable change for the better has therefore turned out to be for the worse. Little wonder then that even the U.S. Justice Department is pushing for a ban on descriptions of “light” cigarettes.
The same goes for Bush and his low-tar Massachusetts competitor. For sure, a Kerry presidency may bring in some tangible change that bodes well to many, not least those who have suffered the brunt of the neoconservatives’ designs and policies in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In all likelihood, a President Kerry would set a not-too-far deadline for pulling U.S. troops out and officially ending the occupation of Iraq. Multilateralism may be given a terribly needed boost. The UN may finally breathe a bit easier. But would those changes be better or worse in view of the fundamental opposition between empire on the one hand and peace, justice and balanced human development on the other?
A watered down version of empire is still empire. Worse yet, it is more nicely packaged, and as such has an appeal that may assure its longevity. A considerable - some say unprecedented - wave of protest against the current crude ways of empire has emerged from diverse American industries, power houses, diplomats and former political and military leaders, who have become acutely concerned about where the neocon path is leading. What is common to all of the critics perhaps is the belief that prolonging American economic and military dominance in the world will require softer, silk-gloved tactics that can cement alliances, secure allegiances and pacify resistance. Hence Kerry.
Like low-nicotine tobacco, a more diplomatically astute “emperor” perpetuates dependency and a false feeling of contentment, while still pursuing the same objective of world domination, faced with less opposition from a mollified world.
Democrats have been disingenuously shouting: “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.” Well, a vote for Kerry is a vote for Bush lite. Just like tobacco lights, which may well turn out to be worse for the world’s health in the long run, Americans would do well for themselves and the world by seeking or creating a better alternative to Bush, or Bush lite.
