5 April 2004

Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and radical critic of American foreign policy, has endorsed the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for president, John Kerry, in his race with George W. Bush. The arguments Chomsky musters in support of Kerry are banal and threadbare in the utmost. They reveal the MIT professor, an articulate observer of certain political and social phenomena, to be a vulgar defender of the two-party system.

Chomsky offers up yet another version of the "lesser-of-two-evils" argument, which for decades has helped keep American workers in thrall to the big business parties and paralyzed in the face of the ruling class assault on their social conditions and living standards.

In an interview given to Britain's Guardian on March 16, Chomsky remarks that "Kerry is sometimes described as Bush-lite, which is not inaccurate, and in general the political spectrum is pretty narrow in the United States, and elections are mostly bought, as the population knows. But despite the limited differences both domestically and internationally, there are differences. And in this system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes."

Chomsky expresses admiration for Ralph Nader and Democratic Party congressman Dennis Kucinich, "insofar as they bring up issues and carry out an educational and organisational function." He acknowledges that the election comes down to a "choice between the two factions of the business party," but that this "does sometime...make a difference."

In fact, although the Guardian interview produced headlines, Chomsky had already made his position clear more than a month earlier in an interview with the Left Hook web site: "The current incumbents may do severe, perhaps irreparable, damage if given another hold on power—a very slim hold, but one they will use to achieve very ugly and dangerous ends. In a very powerful state, small differences may translate into very substantial effects on the victims, at home and abroad. It is no favor to those who are suffering, and may face much worse ahead, to overlook these facts. Keeping the Bush circle out means holding one's nose and voting for some Democrat...."

These are bankrupt arguments, which avoid the substantive political issues facing wide layers of the American population. If Chomsky admits that Kerry and Bush are merely two representatives of the same imperialist elite, how can he possibly justify support to either one? How will support for the candidacy of one or another of these reactionary figures contribute to the political clarification and long-term interests of working people in America?

The notion that the "small differences" between the two major parties can translate into "large outcomes" suggests that there is some means of ameliorating the crisis of American society other than its radical economic and social transformation, a solution that can be handed over to the other "faction" of "the business party," the Democrats.

That there are differences between the parties is a truism. Otherwise, why would they exist as separate organizations? The two bourgeois parties in America have their own histories, they make somewhat differing appeals, they use distinct tactics in the pursuit of a common goal: the defense of American capitalist interests at home and abroad.

One of the specific aims of the Democratic Party and its supporters at this moment in history, and the recent efforts of Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton exemplified this, is to give the impression that a diversity of opinion, and even opposition, is possible within the current political framework. Chomsky is volunteering his "left" credentials in the perpetration of this fraud.

The conflicts that arise within the ruling elite can sometimes be quite bitter, as the Clinton impeachment scandal demonstrated. However, these differences do not provide a viable basis upon which working people can organize their struggle for their own social interests. On the contrary, subordination to the Democratic Party remains the principal mechanism by which those independent interests are stifled and suppressed.

The Bush regime is no doubt reactionary and dangerous. However, its character does not arise from the personalities of its various representatives, but from the crisis of American and world capitalism. This crisis will not go away if the Democrats are elected. On the contrary, the situation will grow sharper, no matter which of the two big business parties comes to power. Everything depends, in fact, on the working population advancing its own socialist, internationalist solution to the crisis of American society, against all the factions of the Democrats and Republicans. Kerry, a veteran bourgeois politician, who voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act, is also reactionary and dangerous.

Given Kerry's insistent support for the continued colonial occupation of Iraq, Chomsky, by dint of his support for Kerry, ends up, whatever his past anti-imperialist credentials, lending aid and comfort to a brutal and criminal imperialist enterprise.

Moreover, with his endorsement of the Democratic Party candidate, with hand to nose or not, Chomsky must accept responsibility for the actions of a Kerry administration, should it come to power. When such a government launches its own colonial invasions, in the name of a "humanitarian intervention," Chomsky will bear a share of the political responsibility.

full article:
www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/chom-a05.shtml