Re: [Marxism] Joel Kovel on Nader candidacy

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kovel: Remember, too, that Dean's campaign is mostly financed by innumerable
small donations.

Proyect: Don't forget George Soros, who forked up $5 million.


Soros has given, or pledged to give, large amounts to several "Anybody but
Bush" organizations like Moveon.org. Giving $5 million to Dean would, of
course, be illegal.

Robert Novak
(http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20031220.shtml) claims
that Soros is "expressing doubts" about Dean and moving towards supporting
Clark. Not that you can believe anything Novak says since it's just as
likely to be deliberate Republican spin or attempts to manipulate reality as
reality itself.

The REALLY bizarre thing Kovel says is this:

> Finally, Dean doesn't need Nader to push him to the left. Dean is moving to
> the left even as we speak, because the real base of his support is a
> remarkably democratised movement, pulled together by the internet, that
> should make greens - and Nader - weep with envy.

Support by a "remarkably democratised movement," even if it were the case
(which is, IMHO, more illusion than reality,  as Louis suggests), doesn't
have anything to do with "moving to the left." Democratic party activists
are just as likely to favor "electability" and "moving to the center" as a
candidate like Dean, ESPECIALLY in the current "Anbody but Bush" mindset.
How else to explain Kucinich's poor showing in the polls, when we know that
far more than 1% of Democrats (or people in general) support the kind of
positions Kucinich espouses?

If Dean were really "moving to the left," as Kovel suggests, then he needs
to back that up with FACTS about such movement, rather than THEORIES about
what a "remarkably democratised movement" might be doing. In FACT, on issues
like Iraq, the evidence is that Dean is moving to the RIGHT, not the left.

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