Seeing that I woke up this morning to a Kerry volunteer knocking on my door (I didn't mind), and that it's the right time to do so, here's why I'm voting for Kerry, in detail.
It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of Kerry. Partly, military experience is a slight minus for me in a candicate -- while I think it's possible to avoid it, I think the military does bad things to one's character, promoting a poorly based hierarchy of people, promoting violence, a certain kind of narrow-minded discipline, and an unfortunate conservativism. It pushes nationalism, and makes people think that they've done something that people should respect them for, causing them to be extremely irritating to people like me who are not at all nationalist. I know that this attitude is no doubt infuriating to family and friends that were/are in the military, but they, so far, have coped with my other opinions too. Kerry doesn't really stand for who I want in office -- I want an intellectual, an academe, with passion and firm positions. Ideally those positions would line up with my positions in some important ways. Kerry doesn't really represent me -- he's not socially liberal enough. The natural division of how a candicate works is domestic policy and foreign policy. Domestically, Kerry gets a C-plus for me -- he does a few things that I want, but there's a checklist of things that's important to me that he does nothing for. Ending the drug "war", eliminating religious integration with government, electoral reform (coalition government works better), subsidising university education, providing free contraceptives and other reproductive-management services, ending IP protections, fixing business corruption, better environmental controls, these are the domestic issues that I care about. However, on all of these, BushJr either stands for positions that are the same or a lot worse. More importantly, I see stark differences in foreign policy between the two main candicates, and that matters a lot to me.
Ordinarily, for Americans, foreign policy is completely dull. Americans tend not to pay attention to the rest of the world, and so foreign policy continues to happen, outside the realm of politics, except for academes (liberals) and businessmen/theocrats/etc* (conservatives). For better or for worse, this is the way things have been for quite some time. In this set of four years, we're seeing two things -- firstly, the results of all the foreign policy that our government has been doing without much public awareness, and secondly, a politician who messes things up so badly that, the history notwithstanding, he needs to be recalled. For the first point, I will not elaborate here -- the reader should educate themselves about American involvement in the Islamic revolution, in funding terrorists in the fight against the Soviets, in Israeli history, in assassinations, military training (see especially "School of the Americas"), funding of coups, etc.
On the second point, BushJr has seriously messed up almost everything he has touched. There are three primary ways his failures can be classified. First, he has failed to support the United Nations, in fact has undermined them at every opportunity. The best tool the world has for peace, and a delicate instrument built over many years, has been eschewed, marginalized, and insulted by BushJr. More than just that, BushJr seems to be hostile to the very idea of cooperation, avoiding even courteous diplomacy with our strongest allies on the topic of his war. The initial sympathy from the rest of the world has swiftly turned to worry and hate as the United States has ripped alliances apart and become dangerously and determinedly a loner. The second way he has failed is to act in bad faith. Remember Hans Blix? The United States made a call for nuclear inspectors in Iraq, promising war if weapons were found, and peace if Hussein admitted their presence. None were found, and Blix suggested that there were none. BushJr, who in retrospect was visibly just looking for a pretext for war, ignored the results and waged war anyhow, and now that no weapons have been found, the war is just an embarassment for those of us who have an attention span longer than a few weeks. Saddam told the truth, and BushJr lied. The other military operations happening in the area were also initially conducted under the goal of finding Bin Laden, but in recent times, as hopes of finding him have grown slim, he has suggested that finding Bin Laden is completely unimportant. Dishonesty in these areas is dishonesty of the worst kind. So many lives lost to pointless or dishonest war. Finally, BushJr has committed us to futile and destructive action. A vague war on terror is the perfect excuse for indefinite military operations, as terror is a technique, not a movement. It is, moreso, a technique that any nation or force would use, including the United States. This war will never end, fought this way. It ignores the base causes of anti-american sentiment (American foreign policy/meddling), and smacks of political opportunism. The bloody results are visible -- the United States is now imprisoning people indefinitely, without any kind of legal pretext, using torture to extract information, while subjecting its citizens to deprivations of civil liberties. At the same time, corporations close to BushJr and friends' fortunes profit from "reconstruction" and the "opportunity to invest" in conquered lands. The threat of theocracy -- rule worse than Saddam's secular autocracy, looms in Iraq, as Afghenistan begins a slide back to the dark ages from whence it came.
There are some areas where I'd like to see more action in foreign policy that neither candicate is interested in. In particular, I'd like to see the Cuban embargo ended, and Taiwan recognized (delicate work, to be sure), but right now I'd be happy to have someone who would do nothing on foreign policy, compared to what BushJr has been doing.
So why not a third party? Because, although I like (some) third parties, and feel that our democracy would be healthier with more of them (especially if structural changes were to take place that would make it work better), ending the current disaster is more important. If it were Bob Dole running against Al Gore, I'd be happy to vote for a third party, but here the differences are too stark between the two, and defeating BushJr is a priority. I would probably vote for Nader or the Green Party if the stakes were lower.
That's why I'm voting for Kerry.
- There's an interesting term that is yet to be coined for people who are
On a side note, Yasser Arafat is ill, perhaps dying. He recently flew off to France to seek medical care. It'll be interesting to see how the PA is affected. Would a new leader better be able to lead to peace, or was Yasser actually a pretty good leader, peacewise, comparitively speaking? I guess we may find out soon. Sharon, surprisingly, appears to be making genuine steps towards peace, angering the Israeli right.