Re: [Marxism] electoral politics Was: soros and wbai

[Craig Brozefsky <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Julio Huato" <juliohuato@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> This type of wild economic swings put any society under
> indescribable stress.  They have a strong political impact because
> they drive people, who may otherwise be inclined to accept the
> status quo or seek gradual changes, to bold political experiments.
> The need for drastic political change becomes common sense -- it
> enters the minds of masses of people as a matter of survival.

To be emboldened to "political experiments" also requires that the
political groundwork has been laid as well.  When I see the slums in
Caracas, I think of Cabrini Green, of the rural slums near my
hometown.  If I were a Marxist doing political work, I would not be
trying to persuade people to rally behind Dean, or another Democratic
candidate, I would be going into those communities that have been
experiencing that which you cite in Venezuela.  That is the work that
had to be done before the two-party system could be toppled.  The
Democrats have shown themselves every bit the devils handmaiden that
the AD did, but this work remains to be done.  They didn't boom with
the .com bubble, they aren't seeing an economic recovery.  This is the
point behind my loose analogy to Venezuela.

> Again, this is nowhere to be seen in the United States nowadays.  What
> is, for example, the feasibility of a Nader righteous presidential
> campaign in the U.S. in the current conditions?

I think quite likely.  He has formed an exploratory committee.
Another Green candidate nearly won the SF mayoral race.  But you seem
to be missing my point.  The feasability of any candidate is not the
issue. The deveopment of a political force which can manifest itself
in the electoral ring and elsewhere is what is at stake.  Candidates
are transient, and if a strong electoral force arives, candidates will
flock to it.

> economy is in decay.  In spite of all the problems, the boom in the
> 1990s is credited, one way or another, to a democratic
> administration.  The democrats are not, in any meaningful way, in a
> situation analogous to AD?s after the Carlos Andrés Pérez
> debacle.

What boom? Who benefitted?  The workers who have lost their savings
and pensions?  The elderly who are seeing medicare privatized?  The
poor who saw vital services slashed and are seeing that trend
accelerate now?  And if 2000 wasn't a display of democratic
patheticness, I am not sure what is.  Oh, I got it, their lockstep
voting records in the drive to an illegal war.  Now they cower behind
an "anyone but bush" strategy, and you wanna shill votes for them?

I'm sorry, but I can argue with enough people like you just going
about my work here in Chicago, and at least with them I have the
satisfaction of knowing that they are actually DOING some electoral
work and have a Peace platform independent of any candidate.  With
you, I simply don't know, yet 8^)

-- 
Sincerely, Craig Brozefsky <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
No war! No racist scapegoating! No attacks on civil liberties!
Chicago Coalition Against War & Racism: www.chicagoantiwar.org

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