----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Devine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Michael P. wrote:
>The fault lies with us. Nixon did the positive things that he did
>because there was a spirit of militancy at the time. I suspect that if
>people were organized and militant -- such as we saw in Seattle,
>Washington, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles -- even a right-wing Supreme
>Court would be reluctant to take extremely unpopular actions.
-The fault lies with the lack of political militancy on the left. A vote for
-Nader (or maybe McReynolds) is a vote for raising the level of militancy,
-which would pressure _either_ Gush _or_ Bore. A vote for Gore would not be
-a vote for increased militancy.
Voting is militant?!!
Voting is an incredibly passive tool, but this idea of "militant voting" is
exactly why I think the third party advocates are so screwed up. It allows
the substitution of a symbolic act like voting for real militancy, militancy
that requires day-to-day organizing and real risk, whether risk in the
workplace to organize a union, risk in the community to challenge cops or
risk in a whole range of other venues where militancy is a real act of
courage.
If Nader supporters could really sketch an argument for why voting for him
will improve peoples lives or build a real movement over the long-term (as
opposed to the wretched and continual failures of every other third party
movement since Eugene Debs), I could take it seriously. But this
militanter-than-thou defense of helping to elect Bush to the Presidency is
tired and just insulting to other folks who sacrifice a lot every day to
build militant organizations and, in order to defend the survival of those
organizations, have made the pragmatic decision to support Gore.
Voting doesn't raise any level of militancy.
Voting LaFollette in 1924 (the highest vote total of any left third party
candidate) was followed by the most conservative Coolidge years. Voting
Wallace in 1948 was followed by the escalation of the Cold War and
McCarthyism.
Voting Commoner and Anderson in 1980 was followed by the Reagan years.
Make an argument, any argument, for why this year is any different from
those years and why the results should lead to "more militancy" as opposed
to the years of reaction that followed those campaigns?
-- Nathan Newman
