There was one moment in the debate last night when the real, long-term stakes of the American ruling class came into the open.
Sorry to lapse into such terms again. I try not to do that. It just makes people look at you funny. Consider it the knot in my stomach talking. (That knot tightened for a solid ninety minutes, and it was still there when I got up this morning.)
Anyway....the moment in question came when Bush made clear that, under his watch, the United States would never put itself in the position of being subject to an international criminal court.
Not exactly what you would call a breakthrough moment in the history of American policy, of course. At one level, nothing new at all.
But yes, indeed, a little glimmer of fear was visible, for just a moment there, in those beady little frat-boy eyes, instead of the usual bland twinkle.
Kerry did not rush in to dispute the point. Let's put it this way. Suppose that, for the sake of argument, there really is more than a dime's worth of difference between the parties, this time.
Well, that ain't the dime.
The formula for determining the specificity of ruling-class interests: First, select out the subset of issue that the two major candidates do not express disagreement over. Then (second subtraction) ignore whatever has no direct consequence for people who lack money or power. The remainder is, so to speak, the final determining political instance.
They don't disagree on whether to continue the war, only on how to continue it. So that passes through the first stage. But not the second. If I were an Iraqi trade-unionist, for example, I might well prefer an internationally controlled police presence to an American occupation, and certainly would not want to be handed over to the tender mercies of whatever Baathist/Islamicist hybrid is now cooking in the countryside.
No, what the debate last night suggested is that, at the end of the day, for all the talk of multilateralism and whatnot, there is a specific interest in making sure that "the indispensible country" always reserves the right to define itself as being within its rights.
Otherwise, certain people might have to measure their actions against the possibility of personal consequences. And we all know how distracting that can be.
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