Re: Gary Trudeau, Iraq and Nader

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:

> In any case, the only person who seems to be discomfited by attacks on
> Kerry is Marvin Gandall.
-----------------------------------
I suppose I should comment in case someone should happen to interpret my
silence as agreement. But then I think, Louis, we should end this exchange
which I suspect is wearying the list. I'll try not to direct anything at you
personally to warrant a reply.

I've mentioned many times before that my interest in the Democratic party or
the NDP or the social democratic parties abroad  has little or nothing to do
with their leaderships or programs, which are all very similar, and which is
what I would expect them to be in this period. So I'm neither discomfited --
nor, for that matter, enthused -- by attacks on Kerry and other political
figures. I'm largely indifferent.

It's the people in these parties I feel a kinship with. They're family:
politically interested wage- and salary-earners, many of them women and
members of minority groups, many of them active trade unionists, antiwar
activists, environmentalists, feminists, gays, civil libertarians, etc. I've
lived near them and worked with them all my life. I don't particularly mind
that they call themselves social democrats or liberals. They do so because
they presently see the parties which go by these labels as more able than
others, including the inconsequential far left organizations, to defend
their living standards and urban social values. If I identify with them in
their struggles outside the political arena, why would I stand apart from
them during elections, which they generally see as critical to their
well-being and as an extension of their struggles between elections?

I don't make a fetish of their attachment to these parties. I know that if
they become sufficiently disastisfied with them, they will leave them -- and
they won't, as we often like to think, do so only if we're there to "lead"
them. It's clear, incidentally, that not of all of us will be "there" if
such a time should come. As you know, I believe this would only happen if
and when capitalism no longer provides them with jobs and rising incomes --
or at least the promise of same -- which, by some people's standards, would
qualify me as a vulgar materialist.

Some of my friends and old political associates have moved over to the Green
party. They're still part of my political family, and I can understand the
frustration that's led them there. They've invited me to join them. I've
joked and asked them to contact me again when trade unions and other popular
organizations begin affiliating and passing resolutions in support.

Marv Gandall