Democratic Participation (Re: Nick Cohen on Thomas Frank)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

At 10:53 PM -0700 9/15/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> The "democratic participation" stuff is too vague for me to
> understand -- I don't know how you operationalize that.

The question is whether the rank and file are simply working for ends
and means determined by others (e.g., MoveOn issuing an cyber-alert
and subscribers following the command in it, union officials hiring
and issuing orders for organizers to mobilize for the Democrats, etc.
in one-way top-down communication) or the rank and file are
networking with one another laterally, collectively deliberating
long-term, medium-term, and short-term ends and means of their own,
and pressuring leaders to coordinate all to carry them out.

At 10:53 PM -0700 9/15/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> That leaves your idea of creating a third party. This has worked
> once in US history, 160 years ago -- the GOP, which was created by
> splitting the Whigs. Do you think this is practicable? That it can
> be created by people like us with experience in organizing protests
> and conferences and marches, but lacking real pols? Do you think
> that the lunatic left (including us) is willing to make the
> necessary compromises in its purist positions to get the 15-20
> million people you are optimistically talking about together?

Obviously, I answer yes to all three questions, but neither you nor I
can guarantee that it will be possible or impossible ahead of time.
Either you think it's practical and aim your practice for it, in the
process advancing it by your action, or you don't think it's
practical and don't aim your practice for it, in the process
hindering it by your inaction.  At least it is clear that inaction
tends to a self-fulfilling prophesy, while action doesn't necessarily
tend toward it.

At 10:53 PM -0700 9/15/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> does that mean that you are willing to countenance the indefinite
> rule of W-style Republics

Voters have and will swing back and forth between the two parties of
the ruling class in the foreseeable future.  There is nothing in US
history or what voters are saying and acting now that indicates that
the Republicans will forever have the control of the White House from
now on.

At 10:53 PM -0700 9/15/04, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> not Bush I or Dole style paternalists with a semi-social conscience
> some of the time, not even Reagan style Republicans who (after all)
> in retrospect did not do that much damage, but the current howling
> hoodlums with no bottom to their greed or limit to their imperial
> ambition?

Bush II is waging much more limited wars than LBJ and Nixon, for
instance, because he can't reinstate the draft.  Bush II hasn't done
to Arab and Muslim citizens and residents what FDR did to Japanese
citizens and residents.  Bush II hasn't attacked poor women and
children in times of recession as much as Clinton did in seemingly
more prosperous times. And so on.  I don't subscribe to the idea that
the Bush II era represents the worst in US history.
--
Yoshie

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