Re: Democratic Participation (Re: Nick Cohen on Thomas Frank)

[andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen@xxxxxxxxx>]

Your stuff on democratic participation is still too
vague. Insofar as I grasp your point, you are
describing what happens in an upsurge of
radicalization. It is not something radicals or
activists can create. That would be just another form
of top-down organization. When it happens, you'll know
it, and no one can stop it except by force. But saying
to people, Don't Do This Because It Doesn't Involve
Democratic Participation is a recipe for inaction.
Like telling people, Don't Work For Unions, They Are
Bureaucratic Organizations.

Your response to my skepticism about a third party is
uniformative. Basically you say, if you don't try, you
won't succeed. Well, you might as well say the same
about working for Total Revolution Now. I still don't
know why I should not botherto do the latter, but i
should try to do the former. I could also say the same
thing about working for social democracy or a New New
Deal -- if we don't try to get it, we will not
succeed.

Finally, your minimization of the Bush
administration's appalling evil is pure sophistry, and
I am sorry to say that if you believe it, you are
deluded. The Johnson and Nixon administrations are so
far superior, all their crimes acknowledged, that if
you would not trade Bush for either of them in a
heartbeat, I cannot imagine what to say to you. Even
Clinton, whom I despise, with his DLC agenda, would be
far far preferable. A better candidate too. I4

 have advocated independent politics for decades,
though I backed a Democrat before as well, Mondale,
when I thought Reagan was going to blow up the world,
and I worked on the Rainbow Coalition campaigns too,
but I never denied that there was a significant
difference between the parties as you seem to here --
I just thought that the difference wasn't great enough
in light of our goals. Well, now I think it is. Maybe
not forever, hopefull the GOP will get back to its
more normally rational advocacy of greed and
oppression as opposed to the lunatic barbarism of the
Bushies, then we can say again, A Plague On Both Their
Houses. That would be progress, to get back there. In
the meantime, I'm not the only person who thinks this
is the worst administration we have had since James
Buchanan's. Maybe worse.

jks



--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> 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
>
> * Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
> * Bring Them Home Now!
> <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
> * Calendars of Events in Columbus:
> <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>,
> <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, &
> <http://www.cpanews.org/>
> * Student International Forum:
> <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine:
> <http://www.osudivest.org/>
> * Al-Awda-Ohio:
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
>




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