Re: [Marxism] The Dead End of Anybody But Bush

[Ilyenkova@xxxxxxx]

Josh writes:
>This is all fine and good for intellectuals, journalists, even
organizers focused on anti-war protests that at least for now are put
together without real hope of denting U.S. war-plans, etc.  But for
activists with a huge stake in reformist causes that hope to win
victories in the short term it's not convincing (the idea that the
Democrats and the Republicans are the same party, so why vote for
Kerry).  Take union activists - Kerry has said he will support a
return to recognition of card check as a means to gain union
recognition, like under the NLRA in the 1930's before Taft-Hartley, or
like what they have in Canada.  We'll see if he actually does it.  But
there is no arguing to a union activist that getting government
protection for card-check would not open up huge vistas for union
growth.  In the broader sense there is no arguing there is a
correlation between Republican dominated states and right-to-work
states.  Where in his article does Arnove address the thousands of
militant shop-stewards whose consciousness of these facts will lead
them to vote for Kerry and support the DP?<

I earlier ridiculed the notion that Kerry's support for check off union 
recognition could be taken about as seriously as Clinton's 1992 support of the 
AFL-CIOs demand for legislation to ban scabs ("permanent replacement workers"). 
It's true in the main, that folks like militant shop stewards buy the equation 
Republican=antiLabor; Ergo Democrat=proLabor. But that belief is pretty 
illusory and it's just wrong to assume that these illusions in the Democrats 
are set 
in stone. I'm in a union shop, have held office beyond steward, been purged 
for *disloyalty*, been re-elected, re-purged etc etc. I miss no opportunity to 
point up the role of the Democrats and the two party trap. When there's no 
alternative but voting for a red my arguments are dismissed as "idealistic" 
(their 
word). But when there's a choice that they recognize as a "real world" 
option, like Nader-Camejo, I get "You're definitely right but I can't say it or 
the 
District Council will be on my back etc. But F'em, I might vote for Nader." As 
for the comitted reformists they're incorrigible and I don't waste my breath. 
So I think it's really a matter of who our audience is. Both groups-- 
entrenched reformists and militant stewards or pissed-off rank and filers, know 
deep 
down that we're right. And I think, no matter what they say about 
intransigents as opposed to what they really think may well be an entirely 
different 
matter. On the one hand, yes, there's the "I blame you Nader people for this 
(i.e. 
Iraq)." But on the other hand the same people keep voting for me and keep 
asking my political opinion. They don't go to the business union types on 
anything. What really kills the left is the kind of hypocrisy and spinelessness 
showed 
by the Zinns, Solomons and Chomskys. As Josh concedes any progressive voter 
knows the deal on Kerry and feel diminished by supporting him or looking to 
"leaders" who ask them to.
Ilyenkova

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