[lbo-talk] Naomi Klein: ABB

[snit snat]

Klein's argument is that supporting Kerry will mean we can move forward and 
stop obsessing about a presdinet or even the neocon cabal:


Anybody but Bush - and then let's get back to work

With Kerry at the helm, the left might focus on the real issues again
Naomi Klein
Friday July 30, 2004


The Guardian
Last month, I reluctantly joined the Anybody But Bush camp. It was "Bush in 
a Box" that finally got me, a gag gift my brother gave my father on his 
66th birthday. Bush in a Box is a cardboard cut-out of President 43 with a 
set of adhesive speech balloons featuring the usual tired Bushisms: "Is our 
children learning?" "They misunderestimated me" - standard-issue 
Bush-bashing schlock, on sale at Wal-Mart, made in Malaysia.

<...>

This madness has to stop, and the fastest way of doing that is to elect 
John Kerry, not because he will be different but because in most key areas 
- Iraq, the "war on drugs", Israel/Palestine, free trade, corporate taxes - 
he will be just as bad. The main difference will be that as Kerry pursues 
these brutal policies, he will come off as intelligent, sane and blissfully 
dull. That's why I've joined the Anybody But Bush camp: only with a bore 
such as Kerry at the helm will we finally be able to put an end to the 
presidential pathologising and focus on the issues again.

<...>
The other day, I was ranting to a friend about Kerry's vicious support for 
the apartheid wall in Israel, his gratuitous attacks on Hugo Chavez in 
Venezuela and his abysmal record on free trade. "Yeah," he agreed sadly. 
"But at least he believes in evolution." So do I - the much-needed 
evolution of our progressive movements. And that won't happen until we put 
away the fridge magnets and Bush gags and get serious. And that will only 
happen once we get rid of the distraction-in-chief. So Anybody But Bush. 
And then let's get back to work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4982252-103677,00.html

"We're in a fucking stagmire."

       --Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'