Millions have hoped against hope that Barack Obama represents real
change. But these sincere hopes were dealt another blow with the
selection of Senator Joseph Biden from Delaware as Obama’s vice
presidential running mate. Biden has had a long career in politics, and
is often portrayed as a “liberal.” However, a brief look at his
policies only goes to show the sorry state that bourgeois liberalism
finds itself in!
Although, like Obama, Biden disagrees with
McCain on how best to continue U.S. imperialism’s domination of the
Middle East, he has since the begining been a vocal supporter of the
wars and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq. For example, he
voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq,
which gave Bush a free hand to start the Iraq War. Biden favors
“internationalizing the war” and increasing the number of soldiers, as
well as continuing massive funding. His main criticism of Bush is that
he hasn’t been honest enough about how long and difficult the war will
be.
An opponent of withdrawing the troops from Iraq, Biden favors
partitioning Iraq into a loose federation of ethnic states with
separate regions for the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis, something akin to
the disaster that took place in the former Yugoslavia. Biden was
instrumental in the 1999 U.S.-NATO war against Yugoslavia under the
Clinton administration. His “lift and strike” resolution combined sales
of arms to the region with the massive bombing campaign that took place.
Biden
is also responsible for legislation that allocated of nearly $10
billion to fund the prison industry. The legislation cut higher
education access for inmates, added many extensions of the death
penalty, and even initiated so-called “boot camps” for minors. This
approach is precisely the opposite of what is needed to address the
problems poor workers and youth, and particularly minority youth face
daily. Rather, it is a compounding of the problem.
And in a
serious a twist of irony, Biden in 2003 attempted to convince John
Kerry to offer the VP slot to John McCain! This only goes to show just
how indistinguishable the two corporate parties really are! It calls to
the mind the famous line by Groucho Marx: “These are my principles. If
you don’t like them, I have others.” Now, as Biden has become hyper
critical of McCain, his political opportunism is clear, which is not
saying much since Joe Biden is also big fan of the right wing British
Labour Party figure Neil Kinnock, whom he even plagiarized a speech
from.
In short, far from having anything to do with “change,” Biden represents more of the same.
