What's the matter with West Virginia? posted by Richard Seymour

Clinton is now down and out, and if Barack Obama has any sense he will not consider her for the VP. This isn't because she's vicious and ruthless and would probably undermine him in office - actually I would quite enjoy that. It isn't because of her race-baiting either - Obama doesn't really mind all that, and can adapt. It is because she will probably cost more votes than she will draw. However, one of the claims she successfully established for herself was that she had a critical appeal among white working class voters and Hispanics. I do not mean to say that this claim is accurate, but many commentators believe it. In fact, there is some limited truth to the claim. For although Obama did make some surprising breakthroughs in white working class areas, it was Hillary who commanded this vote in the main. Look at some of the states where Hillary won: Indiana, an overwhelmingly white, manufacturing state; West Virginia, an overwhelmingly white, manufacturing state; Ohio, overwhelmingly white with - like London - a poor urban core and a rich right-wing belt around it; Kentucky, a southern/mid-west state, overwhelmingly white, with a strong history of car manufacturing; Pennsylvania, an industrial heartland, overwhelmingly white. You may wonder what Hillary had to offer those people apart from fear of the 'black peril'.

It's very simple, and it doesn't take long to explain. Barack Obama is a neoliberal candidate who has hitched his wagon completely to Wall Street. He can provide a faintly progressive veneer to the accumulation practises of the uber-rich. Clinton, while I don't for a second she would have proved more progressive in office, placed herself to the left of Obama on the economy. She knew something quite important, and that is that Bush had won these areas strongly in 2004 after years of Democratic hegemony by posing as an economic nationalist and a defender of jobs. West Virginia, for example, used to be a hardcore Democratic state. Yet it went Republic big time in 2004. This is what Mike Davis had to say at the time:

A bastion of the powerful steel and mine workers' unions, West Virginia was famously loyal to the national Democrats in such dismal elections as 1956, 1968 and 1988. Yet last week Kerry lost West Virginia by a shockingly large margin (13 percent) ... The great achievement of the Clinton era was to realign the Democrats as the party of 'new economy', of the bicoastal knowledge industries and high-tech exporters. Instead of an economic rescue package for the heartland as demanded by the industrial unions, Clinton rammed through the job-exporting North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

Kerry campaigned on that legacy. Like Gore, he was heavily funded by the entertainment, software and venture capital industries. And, also like Gore, he campaigned without a compelling economic message or serious proposals to stem further loss of industrial jobs. At the most, he promised modest tax breaks for corporations that kept jobs at home. Bush, on the other hand, had imposed temporary tariffs on imported steel in 2001. The tariff was undoubtedly a cynical Rove-inspired tactic to capture blue collar Democrats, but it worked. From a West Virginia standpoint, the Texas cowboy had the guts to stand up to European competitors, while Kerry offered little more than aspirin for terminal cancer. Bush was perceived (however incorrectly) as an economic nationalist while Kerry was tarred as an untrustworthy Europhile.

So, this is what Hillary Clinton did: she talked up 'bread and butter' issues; attacked Obama on NAFTA; pledged to cut taxes on exorbitantly high 'gas' prices; proposed tax cuts for 'middle class' (working class) Americans and tax rises for the rich; and stressed the importance of defending manufacturing jobs. It doesn't do to puff Hillary as the Bull Moose reformer, even if she looks like a testosterone-fuelled white supremacist at times. And Obama did make some similar pledges on tax and the minimum wage. In fact, Obama got into trouble for raising the issue of class at one point - but it was in such a fashion that he was accused of "elitism". And it is worth remembering that Clinton is to the right of Obama on the single biggest economic issue facing America, the trillion-dollar 'war on terror'. Nonetheless, Clinton was relentless on the 'bread and butter' issues, the manufacturing job issues, and particularly pushed a version of the economic nationalism that Bush did: 'get tough with China, bring jobs back home', was one of her themes. She also attacked 'corporate America' for union-busting, and was far more successful in getting union money than Obama, who was more successful with Wall Street. Clinton was explicitly appealling to the constituency that would once have been called 'Reagan Democrats' - those who are right-wing on social issues, but tended to vote Democrat for the sake of their material well-being. To repeat a theme of Chomsky's, asking whether Clinton's proposals amount to anything is like asking whether the promises in a Colgate commercial amount to anything. Of course they don't. But she successfully segmented and targeted an audience that is furious over the Bush economy and in all probability developing a long-term allergy to the Republicans.

In truth, what's the matter with West Virginia is what's the matter with the rest of America. The Democrats ditched the New Deal about thirty years ago, and now the only apparent repository of statist Keynesianism is the GOP, which is mainly in the business of defending business. And there isn't a serious organised alternative. Davis is right: the Frank thesis, that poverty-stricken 'red state' voters are voting against their economic interest, contains an unstated and insupportable premiss, which is that people have a real chance to express their economic interests at elections. They do not. They have something equivalent to a market research survey: what policy flavour do you prefer, on a scale of 1 to 5...?

Labels: america, barack obama, democratic party, george w bush, hillary clinton, john kerry

I see the circus... posted by Richard Seymour

...but where's the bread?

Labels: barack obama, hillary clinton, john mccain, us elections

"Obliterate Them" posted by Richard Seymour

Hillary Clinton says:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Labels: annihilism, hillary clinton, imperialism, iran, us elections

Obama's the man for capital posted by Richard Seymour

I actually think that an Obama victory would be substantially better than any of the other main candidates. I do think his antiwar position on Iraq is important, even if I'm not convinced that he is a principled 'antiwar' candidate - one recalls his statements on Iran before the NIE, and notes his various pro-Israel statements, which are kind of obligatory. And actually, yes, of course it does matter that he is the only black candidate and the first one to have had a serious chance of winning. It counts, even if it doesn't count for all that much. And it counts that he isn't an outright neocon, whereas I think the neoconservative faction would actually do very well under both McCain and Clinton, who are the two other serious candidates. His campaign seems to be promising, though he will not deliver, an end to the nightmare. I personally hope Nader's campaign does something more than implode on the first few steps - if nothing else because by raising a serious radical campaign, it will drive the agenda further to the Left. If Democrats want to whinge about this, as they can always be relied upon to do, they have to be able to make a case to would-be Nader voters why should not vote for a radical left-wing campaign, and it should be something better than 'you're ruining it!' But Obama, while he doesn't differ on a lot of principle with Clinton and McCain, is different enough that it matters. A victory for him will be seen around the world as a defeat for the 'war on terror', and that counts.

Still, I think it's worth pointing out that one reason his campaign is in rude health is because capital actually rather likes him. The top campaign donations for Obama, Clinton and McCain are online, respectively here, here and here. It is noticeable that finance-capital, the dominant sector of the US ruling class, appears to be swinging hard behind both Democrats, although Hillary's largest donor is DLA Piper, a huge law firm and lobbyist for various corporate interests. Although both have a very different position on the justice of the invasion of Iraq (Hillary is trying to pose as an opponent, but is one of the most hardline supporters), both are broadly committed to devoting more to the occupation of Afghanistan and less to Iraq. One assumes that the US ruling class is sick and tired of the Bush clique's adventurism and wants to try and consolidate Central Asia.

Yet, Hillary is in bad shape financially and her campaign is losing momentum in a very serious way, which is why in the run up to the key states of Texas and Ohio, she is resorting to the Islamophobic card, just as she has played on racism throughout the campaign. Quite a ruthless team, the Clintons, and I for one am not ready to say they're out of the primaries - far from it. Although I agree with those who say that Clinton probably wouldn't win the presidential race against McCain (and the polls support this), she's tough enough and dirty enough to pull through this first round. And if that happens, you've probably got a an absolute militarist nutcase for President, albeit one given to wearing the humanitarian surplice (along with Bob Dole, if you can believe that). And then it'll be party time.

Labels: barack obama, hillary clinton, john mccain, us politics

Hillary Clinton's latest recruit posted by Richard Seymour

I try not to follow these things in too much detail. The primaries are already pretty much dead. McCain is the GOP candidate, without doubt. I notice that some of Obama's supporters are not only moist in every crevice, but actually anticipating victory. His recent wave of victories in some surprising states has added to that, but Hillary is still in the lead in polls and she's probably going to take Texas. There isn't much of a difference of principle either way, and I'm not going to get worked up about choosing between the two. However, I do despise this Clinton couple. Bill in particular has shown what a nasty scumbag he always was - Hitchens was right to notice how adept he was with the race card. (Pity Hitchens is now a ranting fucking Islamophobe, as it sort of takes the force out of his argument).

And I'm particularly intrigued that the Clintons have chosen to highlight the support of the former Senator, Bob Kerrey. Kerrey, who first nominated Clinton in December, is one of those Democrats who can find a democratic or humanitarian rationale for any atrocity, and he remains a fervent apologist for the Iraq war. He was also, of course, the man who first dropped those Muslim-baiting comments on Obama. However, what is staggering about Kerrey is that he is an actual, real-life, open and shut war criminal. I don't mean in the usual sense that he has voted for wars of aggression, or even just that he is a decorated Vietnam Vet, although this does have some bearing on his Bronze Star.

There's a rather lengthy, and disgustingly apologetic story about Kerry's Vietnam exploits in the New York Times, which meditates a great deal on his suffering and conscience. He led a crew in Thanh Phong who, as part of US military policy, deemed a peasant house to be fair game, went inside and killed everyone inside with knives. They murdered an elderly man, a woman and children under twelve, not soldiers. While Kerrey maintains that he stayed outside and let the others go in there and stab up the family, one of his colleagues says he entered and helped murder the old man. Kerrey explains: "Standard operating procedure was to dispose of the people we made contact with ... Kill the people we made contact with or we have to abort the mission". So, the Clinton campaign's message is that it is soft on genocidal war crimes and soft on the causes of genocidal war crimes.

Labels: barack obama, bob kerrey, genocide, hillary clinton, john mccain, primaries, war criminal