28 August 2018
Amidst the outpouring of
praise from all sections of the political establishment for Republican Senator
John McCain, who died on Saturday, two statements stand out.
The first was from Vermont
senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who tweeted: “John
McCain was an American hero, a man of decency and honor and a friend of mine.
He will be missed not just in the US Senate but by all Americans who respect
integrity and independence.”
The second was from Democratic
Socialists of America member and New York congressional candidate Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted: “John McCain’s legacy represents an unparalleled
example of human decency and American service. As an intern, I learned a lot
about the power of humanity in government through his deep friendship with Sen.
Kennedy. He meant so much, to so many. My prayers are with his family.”
Ocasio-Cortez posted with her
tweet the editorial from the Washington Post on McCain’s death, “John
McCain, the irreplaceable American,” which praised McCain for his work on
“national defense and deterrence of foreign aggression” and for “[rising] above
party politics to pursue what he honestly saw as the national interest.”
What, one is compelled to ask,
are these two individuals, who present themselves as figures of the left and
even socialists, talking about? What is McCain’s legacy of “human decency and
American service?” What made him an “American hero?”
Was his human decency on
display when he was dropping bombs on the Vietnamese people, or when he was acting
as one of the earliest supporters of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which led to
the deaths of one million people? Was his heroism expressed in his call for the
bombing of Iran, his visit with Islamic fundamentalist organizations
spearheading the CIA-backed civil war in Syria, or his demands, up to his last
day, for stepped-up aggression against Russia?
The list of countries McCain
advocated bombing is a long one, and there is no war launched by the US that he
did not support. Political positions have consequences, and McCain had the
blood of many hundreds of thousands of people on his hands. A genuine socialist
would not praise his “human decency,” but demand, were he still alive, his
prosecution for war crimes.
The praise for McCain by
Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders is a calculated political decision. It reveals
everything about the politics of the Democratic Party and the particular role
played by these figures and the organizations that promote them.
On the part of Sanders, his
declaration of solidarity with McCain is in continuity with his own Democratic
Party election campaign in 2016. Sanders proclaimed his support for the foreign
policy of the Obama administration, including its wars in the Middle East, and
said that a Sanders administration would utilize Special Forces and drone
strikes—“all that and more.” After losing the primaries, Sanders endorsed
Hillary Clinton, seeking to channel the social opposition reflected in support
for his campaign behind the candidate of the military-intelligence establishment.
As for Ocasio-Cortez, her
evolution is an example of the general rule of bourgeois politics that the
deeper the crisis, the more rapidly political tendencies and individuals are
exposed for what they really are. It is only two months since Ocasio-Cortez
defeated incumbent Democrat Joseph Crowley in the primary election for the 14th
Congressional District of New York.
How quickly this “socialist”
has expressed her fidelity to establishment bourgeois politics! She has moved
to distance herself from any association with socialism, backtracked on her
previous criticisms of Israel, pledged her support for “border security,” stood
beside Sanders as the latter endorsed the Democrats’ anti-Russia campaign, and
now heaps gratuitous and obsequious praise on one of the most reactionary
warmongers in American politics. And there are still two months to go before
the election.
At the time of Ocasio-Cortez’s
primary victory, the World Socialist Web Site wrote that
“anyone who suggests that her victory marks a shift to the left in the
Democratic Party should be told, in no uncertain terms: Curb your enthusiasm!
The DSA is not fighting for socialism, but to strengthen the Democratic Party,
one of the two main capitalist parties in the United States.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s comments have
drawn criticism from many who backed her campaign. However, those who may have
been attracted to the DSA based on the impression that it is a socialist or
anti-war organization should draw the necessary conclusions.
The Democratic Party is
engaged in a ferociously right-wing campaign in its conflict with the Trump
administration. Its focus is not on Trump’s fascistic policies or his own
warmongering, but on the claim that Trump is insufficiently committed to war in
the Middle East and aggression against Russia. The Democrats have utilized the
death of McCain as part of a calculated strategy, elevating him—along with
figures such as former CIA Director John Brennan—as political heroes.
They, along with the corporate
media and the Republican Party establishment, are seeking to use McCain’s death
as an opportunity to shift public opinion in favor of war and political
reaction.
In the 2018 midterm elections,
as the WSWS has documented,
the Democrats are running an unprecedented number of former intelligence and
military operatives as candidates. The promotion of groups such as the DSA is
an integral part of this strategy. “The politics of the ‘CIA Democrats,’” the
Socialist Equality Party noted in the resolution passed
at its Congress last month, “is not in conflict with, but rather corresponds
to, the pseudo-left politics of the upper-middle class, as expressed in
organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the
International Socialist Organization (ISO).”
The role of Ocasio-Cortez,
Sanders, the DSA and the ISO, is to give a “socialist” label to politics that
is entirely in line with the right-wing, militarist and imperialist character
of the Democratic Party.
The elevation of the DSA does
not represent a movement toward socialism, but rather a defensive reaction by the
ruling class against what it perceives to be an existential danger. The
corporate-financial elite is well aware of polls that show growing support for
socialism and opposition to capitalism among workers and particularly among
young people. The DSA is therefore promoted by the media (the New York
Times published yet another prominent article on Sunday boosting
Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA) even as genuine left-wing and anti-war publications,
above all the World Socialist Web Site, face ever more direct forms of
Internet censorship.
The politics of the DSA and
the broader pseudo-left has far more in common with the politics of McCain than
it does with genuine socialism. There can be no question as to what role these
organizations would play if brought into positions of power. A similar path has
already been trod by the Left Party in Germany, which has implemented austerity
measures and promoted the anti-immigrant policies of the far-right AfD, and
Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) in Greece, which since coming to power
in 2015 has implemented the brutal austerity measures demanded by the European
banks.
The Socialist Equality Party is
fighting to organize workers and youth on the basis of a socialist program.
This means not mild and insincere reformist demands to provide cover for the
right-wing, militarist Democratic Party, but the mobilization of the working
class, in the United States and internationally, for the revolutionary
overthrow of capitalism. The building of such a movement must be based on the
exposure of and struggle against figures such as Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders and
the treacherous politics they espouse.
Joseph Kishore
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