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The uses of listening to right-wing radio: Casually flipped on Glen Beck while driving, and Beck is raving on about whether Obama had joined his media-concocted "9-12 movement". Beck then replays his favorite passage form Obamas' war speech at West Point, where he calls on Americans to return to the "spirit" that possessed this country immediately after the 9-11 event, hence Beck's "9-12". Thank you Mr. Beck for pointing out the most reprehensible piece in the entire speech: the re-invocation of that wonderfully racist lynch-mob spirit that so pervaded the land at that time. "Death to the Arabs!" bellowed a fist-pumping African American man (yes he was!) strutting around downtown Oakland on the "day after", and his was not an isolated sentiment. I must confess that at that moment I felt like walking up to the guy and, pretending to sympathize, shout "Yeah! and after we get all them d**n Aaayrabs, we can go and string up all the godd**n n*****s too!". Since I am still alive and well today, it is hopefully clear that prudence got the better of me on that splendid 9-12 day. Yes, Barak Obama, by all means let's return to the lovely "spirit" born on that glorious day. We all know what unfolded over the next few years under its spell. This, a call to return to the period before that which made his own Presidency possible, I submit, was the most dangerous passage in the whole of Obama's West Point speech. I fervently hope Obama ends up a one-term President. This time around it would be better if the Clinton Dems fell on their faces fair and square without an independent left "spoiler" to blame, so I was relieved to hear that Nader was going to run against Dodd for his Connecticut Senate seat (the same state whose Democrats kicked Joe Lieberman out, only to screw up the general election but, point made). For purely tactical reasons I'd prefer no "3rd party" run from the left in 2012. Obama might pull a rabbit out of a hat between now and then, but the odds are running against, and I'd want to bet on those odds and see the Clintonites and their right-wing policies exposed as the real "spoiler" in the eyes of the pwogs (whom I might then start calling 'progressives' again). As far as the avenue of electoral politics goes, I'd be against "3rd party politics" - I don't want any 3rd party, I want to build a mass movement with an electoral arm - so long as this avenue is available to us - aimed at the disruption and ultimate destruction of the existing 2-party regime. That is something that must be build from the ground up, targeting offices at all levels, municipal, state and congressional. My own preference is to take on the Pwog-Dems in their own "safe" districts, where they get predictably reelected year after year, like a permanent bureaucracy. After, the constituencies in those districts overlap with our own natural constituency: the multi-ethnic working class. So there is plenty to do in the next 8 years without having to worry about Presidents - until 2016. The standard cautions against electoralist opportunism are raised here. That is a risk to be dealt with, best by ensuring that the core of any mass movement related to this, not be organizationally determined by the demands of the electoral system. We have the whole rich experience of not only the old SDP's and Euro-CP's etc., to draw on here, but also the Brazilian WP and Chavez as well, as negative examples. For those fond of comparisons with the political crack-up in the antebellum period of the Civil War - I don't blame you for the comparisons - keep in mind it is not going to happen that way again. The relations of social power to the state institutions is radically different today, as I am sure we all realize. The crackup then could occur mostly within the electoral system because base and superstructure were still in close correspondence then - that fact was the source of the longterm historic strength of the USA in the 19th century. So then it made sense that an opposition, then of the Lincoln Republicans, would pursue a strategy aimed at seizing control of the Federal apparatus, particularly the Executive. (Worked great for Andrew Jackson in 1828). Our situation is very different. I see elections working into a strategy in the form of the creation of an enduring working class - colored "wedge" just big enough to trigger an explosive political crisis. Meanwhile it should be a multi-faceted platform to systematically expose the workings of the regime. The immediate obstacle will be the continuing mass illusion that you elect people into office "to get things done" - an illusion eagerly propagated by the Pwog-Dems (I hope this label goes up there with mugwumps, hunkerers, fire-eaters, doughfaces and other choice phrases) - after all, that's why its so important not to spoil things for the Dems, so we are told. And of course when the betrayals inevitably come, we are told by the same folks that "outside pressure" is required, only to find out that these same folks have done nothing to prepare such "pressure". We need to engage concretely with the political situation as it actually IS, at the same time on the basis of consistent working class principles. I know that isn't easy. But I've never seen such a rich and wide field for intervention all along the line, municipal, state and Federal - crises everywhere. And it looks to be sticking around for awhile. -Matt ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
