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

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jon wrote:

> Ultimately those "activists in the
> trenches" will have to learn from their own experience that promoting
> someone like Kerry is a loser. We got a little taste of this with the
> Nader campaign of 2000. But now Bush has panicked these folks back into
> the Democratic party fold. I don't think it will last long, however.

On what do you base that belief? It seems to me, based on long history, that
if Bush wins, then 2008 will bring some ultra-right-wing Republican
(Cheney?) vs. some right-wing Democrat (Edwards?) and the situation will be
EXACTLY the same, with progressives being told that they HAVE to vote for
the Democrat lest the right to abortion be lost by the appointment of
Supreme Court judges, etc. The situation has been the same in countless
elections, and surely the most prominent ABB'ers are well aware of that and
learned that lesson. It doesn't seem to matter. And the strength of the 2008
ABX movement or the 2012 ABY movement will only depend on the degree of
reprehensibleness of X or Y, not on any lessons learned from their own
experience.

It seems to me that that position will continue until there is both a
serious pole of attraction on the left (a revitalized Green Party, a Labor
Party, whatever) AND some kind of changes in the electoral laws
(proportional representation, instant runoff voting) which makes that pole a
viable one. Which is one of the reasons I have said before (perhaps not in
this forum) that the greatest sin I think prominent ABB'ers, including the
ABB wing of the Green Party, made this year, is not demanding at least some
nominal support for PR or IRV from the Democrats as a condition of their
support.

This is all, of course, related to the question of whether elections will
ever play any role in moving this country in a revolutionary socialist
direction, which is doubtful.

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