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Elections Don't Change A Thing: Same Class Rules Behind New Smile

By VVAW

Finally, the election's over and we've got a winner. Jimmy Carter says he's got a "mandate" based on the 51% of the 53% of eligible voters who cast ballots for him (which means that 73% of eligible voters didn't vote for Carter). And immediately after the election was over, Carter left for St. Simon, a resort island off the coast of Georgia; his vice president elect, Walter Mondale, was vacationing in the Virgin Islands. And the defeated President was out hob-nobbing with his rich cronies in Palm Springs. Meanwhile, the electors, millions of working people in this country, went on with their back-breaking jobs in unsafe factories, or back to the unemployment lines, going home at night to decaying, crime-filled neighborhoods to hear the new president declare how we have reached the "national unity," how the "will of the people" has elected him our new President.

Lots of people were skeptical about these elections. People have been through Vietnam War, through Watergate, through a continuing economic disaster, and have heard all the thousands of flowery promises that politicians will pronounce to get themselves elected. There's not a whole lot of faith left in politicians on their glowing promise. For many people, however, there's still a shred of hope. "Ford is a pretty decent person," people thought; "Maybe he will be able to make things better for us--at least he's honest." And the rich who were backing Ford pushed the same idea to the max.

For even more people was "Carter hasn't had anything to do wit the mess we're in, so maybe he'll be able to pull us out of it." Even Carter's representatives couldn't do much better; when the Chicago Chapter of VVAW held an election debate, the person sent by the Carter campaign could only say, "Well we don't know much about Carter and what he'll do, but he'll probably be better then Ford." Or, as one woman who voted for Carter put it, "I just crossed my fingers, closed my eyes and pulled the lever."

Playing on what hope people had, the rulers of this country went to tremendous lengths to whip up our enthusiasm to vote. Neither candidate stirred up much excitement, so excite had to be created. And the media was willing ally of the rich in trying to get people interested. Playboy interviews, the photogenic families of the candidates, and finally, as pools showed that fewer and fewer people were planning to vote, there was suddenly the "thrill" of a close election. Radio, TV, newspapers blared out the message that it doesn't really matter who you vote for, but you're got to get out there and vote.

For the bankers and industrial barons who pumped millions into each candidate and who run the media which build them up, the point wasn't which politician won; they wanted to use this election to restore faith in the "democratic process." They wanted to convince the American people that it is really us who run the country, and no matter what happens from here on, we are the ones to blame; and that he only hope we have to solve the problems facing us is to put our faith in their electoral system. As John D Rockefeller IV, governor-elect of West Virginia, and nephew of Nelson and David said of voting, "It's not just a way to change things. It's the only way."

So Carter will soon assume the presidency. Will he do anything about unemployment, despite his loud campaign rhetoric? Hardly. Maybe he'll come up with some small-scale public works project. He's already stated, "Why pay a man $80 for doing nothing (unemployment compensation) when you can pay him $100 a week to rebuild the railroads." That's the essence of his "solution" to unemployment: lay off railroad workers making somewhere close to a living wage and drive down all wages.

And what about Carter's promises to veterans? In a letter sent out by the Carter campaign, he says "I believe there is a historic covenant between the people of our great country and those who have borne the pain, suffering, and wounds of war..." And then he gets down to "specifics"--"If I am elected, I will try to assure that Vietnam veterans are not forgotten but are given the same honors and benefits as those who fought in earlier wars."

Great! That's just what we needed. Maybe he means that, like the veterans of World War I, we'll have to pull off a Bonus March to even get the crumbs that Carter and his class are willing to let us have? Or maybe it means that we'll be honored by having wreaths laid on our graves every Veterans Day by the American Legion. No thanks. Our needs are far different than that--we need decent jobs, an adequate GI Bill, good VA healthcare along with the long list of things that all working people need in this country.

So what's going to change when Carter takes over the White House in January? What will be the result of years on campaigning and promising and smiling at the electorate? There may be some new faces (and probably not too many of them) and that's about it. Carter will be head of the machinery of government. He'll claim to be acting on behalf of the people. But Carter can only do as other presidents before him have--maintain an "order" which keeps a handful on top of society and the great majority of people on the bottom. No appeals for unity" can stop the working people from fighting for the things they need in order to survive against that class of capitalists who take all that is produced. Nor can veterans afford to sit idly by while gains which have been won through our struggles in the past are chipped away. And we won't!

What the rulers of this country are trying to hide is that the capitalist system is governed by laws of development, not by the wishes of this or that politician. As long as the whole set-up this country is based on the majority of the people slaving their lives away in the factories and mills while the fruits of their labor go to the capitalist owners, then unemployment, decay, war, and greater exploitation will be the result. The capitalist are required to drive the workers harder and harder to squeeze ever more profit and just as surely, the workers will fight back and resist their oppression. This is a basic law of capitalism. Jimmy Carter can not change this, nor does he want to consider that he himself has grown rich off the labor of others.

No doubt once Carter is President we will be told for month after month to "give him a chance." But the real steps forward for people are not "gifts" from politicians like Carter, but the results of our own struggles. Across the country people are fighting these rulers on different battlefronts: in strikes to win a decent standard of living, in battles to prevent closings of school and hospitals, in the fight against wars and military adventures. Vets are fighting cutoffs in the GI Bill for entire schools as in the Boston area, or taking on the Chessie system and the courts to win freedom for Ashby Leach and further expose the way that vets are dealt with.

Even while the election votes were being totaled, there was demonstrations around the country under the slogan "Politicians Fight For $$ Interests, We Must Fight For Our Own." Called by the Unemployment Workers Organizing Committees, the spirited demonstrations won support from many who saw or heard about them. In cities from Los Angeles to Boston, VVAW chapters took part in these demonstrations uniting with the need to expose the lies about national "unity," and to point to the nature of the system under with we live.

The demonstrations won support because they did more than just expose the fraud that elections are, or talk about the phoney "unity" which politicians push in order to keep their cronies on top. The demonstrations also pointed we face--that what we've got we've won through fighting for it, and that to keep it, we have to continue to fight. What workers are saying and vets are uniting with is this: "Our political activity will not be confined to pulling a lever every four years, to choosing between two servants for those who rob us and keep us down. We fight every day for what we need to live--and that fight is growing. The more they attack us and the more they try to make us accept their attacks with window dressing like the elections, the more we must take matters into our own hands. And that's what we are doing. We make society run, why can't we run society?"