QandO

July 10, 2004

Two Americas
Posted by McQ

I know John Edwards knows Joe Biden, but I'd bet he's never met James P. Cannon. Or then, maybe he has:

For there are two Americas—and millions of the people already distinguish between them.

One is the America of the imperialists—of the little clique of capitalists, landlords, and militarists who are threatening and terrifying the world. This is the America the people of the world hate and fear.

There is the other America—the America of the workers and farmers and the “little people”. They constitute the great majority of the people. They do the work of the country. They revere its old democratic traditions—its old record of friendship for the people of other lands, in their struggles against kings and despots—its generous asylum once freely granted to the oppressed.

John Edwards you ask? No, the aforementioned Mr. Cannon. In 1948. As he made the keynote address to the National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party.

Interesting how similar the messages are. Both populist. Both class warfare. Both incorrect. James Taranto pointed this out on his "Best of the Web" yesterday.

But after clicking on the link, I read a little more of Cannon's speech. The "two America's" wasn't the only part that struck me as similar to what we're hearing from the John-Johns as well as the rabid left:

Their program is a program of madness, and it is doomed to failure. The great majority of the peoples of the world do not want to be slaves of America. That is to their credit and we applaud them for it. The attempt to enslave them would be profitable only for the small group of monopolists—and the military caste, who dream of careers as colonial administrators of conquered peoples.

But the criminal adventure would encounter such ferocious resistance that the American people at home would have to pay an enormous cost in living standards ruined by inflation, in the stamping out of democracy by military rule. And America’s young sons would have to pay in misery, blood and death. The American people would be among the first victims of the insane campaign of American imperialism to conquer and enslave the world.

American hegemony, American Imperialism, war for oil, war for Haliburton, war for profit, blood for oil, blood for Haliburton, etc. etc. Incredible how much more the left has shifted left in the last 50 years, isn't it?

American democracy, under their rule, is slipping away. The fear that oppressed Mark Twain, the fear that America would lose its democracy, is steadily becoming a reality. The Taft-Hartley Law is but the most recent instance of this ominous trend. The divine right of kings has reappeared in America—disguised as the divine right of judges to issue injunctions and levy fines against labour organisations.

Only three years have passed since the imperialists finished the last slaughter. And now they are drafting the youth for another. Militarism is becoming entrenched in America. Militarism—so long synonymous with goose-stepping Prussianism—is now to be made synonymous with Americanism, if big business has its way. A large section of the sturdy immigrants who helped to build this country came here to escape militarism. Now their grandsons face the same brutal regimentation here.

Democracy slipping away, big-business, fear and oppression, slaughter (speaking of WWII). Sound familiar to anyone?

Perhaps the biggest irony is that's the message we hear today from Edwards and Kerry.

In 1948, that same message was delivered by the Socialist Workers Party about the Democrat administration of Harry Truman.

Is it any wonder why Zell Miller has a problem with today's Democrat party?

We firmly believe they will do so. We firmly believe the real America—the America of the workers, the people—will help save the world by saving herself.

We, the American Trotskyists—we, the national convention of the Socialist Workers Party, summon our America to her great destiny—not as conqueror but as liberator of the world.

Indeed.

Thank you Mr. Edwards, er, Cannon.

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