I quoted Hitchens:
> >It's not enough that the two-party machine has all the
> >money at its disposal and all the press and media, too. It still needs
> >courageous volunteers to ram its message home. These unctuous surrogates
> >seek to persuade us that, though we have no power, we can and should be
> >held responsible." [the NATION, November 6, 2000, p. 9]
Nathan says:
>The idea that "we have no power" and thus no responsibility is what is
>wrong with much of the rhetoric around the whole third party movement. Of
>course we have power, even if we are divided and often fail to use the
>power we have effectively. "We" are potentially the vast majority of the
>population who would benefit from a more just and equal society and that
>gives us all the potential power we need.
The quote from Hitchens is not saying that the "we" (which refers
specifically to the Nader voters, not to any potentially vast majority, in
his column -- as should have been obvious from the preface I added to the
quote) have no power and therefore have no responsibility. (BTW, I believe
that much antagonism and some flame wars can be avoided via careful
reading. I have several times written replies to e-messages, but when I
went back and read what the person wrote, found that I had misinterpreted
what he or she said, so I had to start from scratch or simply throw the
damn thing out.)
Instead, it's referring to the fact that those of us who are disgusted with
the two-party line (and would typically not vote at all rather than voting
for Gore) get trashed for something that the "unctuous surrogates" should
take responsibility for. By following the lesser-of-two-evil position in
every election since godnosewhen, they reward the Democratic Leadership
Committee and their ilk for their efforts to turn the Democratic Party from
a "New Deal" alliance into an electoral machine that caters to white
suburbanites (the "soccer moms"). As any behaviorist psychologist knows, if
you reward a rat with cheese for doing something, it will reinforce the
behavior, so the behavior will be repeated. The DLC seems to do absolutely
everything in its substantial powers to undermine the traditional New Deal
base, including incarcerating large numbers of minority folks under the
misbegotten "war on drugs," who won't be able to vote because they were
convicted of felonies. (Of course, DLC worthies like Clinton weren't even
prosecuted for stunts like bombing the Sudan in order to distract people
from Monica.) The DLC drives people to vote for Bush, Buchanan, Nader,
etc., or not to vote at all, and then blame them for doing so. The vast
majority of people who were disgusted with the Democrats didn't vote for
Nader. Instead, they looked at the "viable choices" (as the two-party line
says they should) and decided they preferred the Fool over the Knave, often
because the former was more pleasant on TV. (I'm sorry, but can you imagine
Al Gore giving Presidential speeches over the next 4 years? Maybe it's
slightly better than Bush, but...) When you have a choice between two
Republicans, you go for the one who does it better. You go for the real
thing rather than the amazing simulation.
BTW, Gore seems to have done very poorly among white suburbanites. This
should suggest to the DLC types that they've failed and should turn back to
the "New Deal" base (as Gore did a little when he started getting
desperate), but I doubt they'll do it, since they are campaign-contribution
driven. (The key is finding a fund-raising alternative to the now-banned
renting out of the Lincoln Bedroom.) Instead, they'll probably struggle to
make future "third party" efforts even more difficult (as they have in
California), probably justified in the name of democracy. The whole
silliness of the popular vote vs. electoral college conflict (which may
give the Presidency to Bush even though Gore won in terms of votes) could
be solved with the "instant run-off" system. However, the Dems and the GOPs
will fight this system because it would encourage third-party efforts. The
Greens and other third-party types will be shoved aside in this decision,
since the New York TIMES and other establishmentarian political forces
(backed by Nathan) will blame too much democracy (deviant parties) for the
problem.
I'm all in favor of the "instant run-off" system, and I bet that the Greens
are too. However, the duopoly parties don't want it. In fact, if it comes
up in respectable circles, I'd bet that people like Arlen Spector (boo!)
will push it...
>But the failure to wield the power the existing left has effectively does
>nothing to encourage the much greater majority we seek to see that left as
>effective leadership for uniting for that social change. Part of assuming
>leadership is assuming responsibility, for people will only follow
>leadership over the long term when they believe that power entrusted will
>be used responsibly. ....
I won't take responsibility for Albert Gore, Jr. That's why I didn't vote
for him. He and his vanguard should take responsibility for their
decades-long effort to drive out everyone to the left of them who can't
swallow the lies (and for putting the labor movement and other such
progressive forces in a situation where they have to kowtow to the lesser
of two evils, swallowing pride in the name of pragmatics). He should take
responsibility for losing the election (if, indeed, he did so). After all,
he couldn't even win his home state! These are the people who know Gore the
best. It looks like they know more than we do about him. They seem to have
chosen the unknown evil over the known evil.
>But we have power collectively and to argue otherwise is to argue that
>there is no hope of defeating capital's power. So why bother arguing
>about strategy at all?
>
>Nader and his supporters had the power to throw the election to Bush. ...
That's a _very_ narrow interpretation of the meaning of power. Among other
things, it's a mistake to add the Gore vote to the Nader vote to say that
it shows how liberal or left or whatever the US electorate is. It's like
adding apples and oranges. If Nader hadn't been on the ballot, many would
have just not voted.
Note that the percentage of the registered voters that actually voted
_rose_ this year, reversing the general trend. This suggests that the Nader
campaign (and Buchanan's effort, to a much lesser extent) actually expanded
the electorate. I didn't see Gore trying to bring in non-voters (unlike,
say, Jesse Jackson when he was running as a Dem).
In closing, it's important to note the two-party line has an element of
truth (like most positions). The US electoral system is an iron cage (to
use Max Weber's phrase) which limits the popular voice, so that the powers
that be can persist in power while being endorsed by regular plebiscites.
Anyone who tries to stand up is simply setting him or herself to be cut off
at the knees, to be blamed because the "worse of the two evils" got
elected. The two-party line tells us to think inside the box, to follow the
old-fashioned advice to the victims of rape, i.e., lay back and enjoy it.
Or to use a more pleasant and perhaps more apt analogy, surrender to the
good cop's blandishments to avoid the bad cop's hitting, confess to the
crime whether guilty or not.
Interestingly, this suggests that we might accept a common anarchist view,
i.e., that if elections could change the system they wouldn't be legal. But
I'd instead think outside the box, suggesting that instead we should resist
(and I'm not talking about violence). This involves _extra-electoral_
efforts, which I've always argued are much more effective than voting for
this or that candidate. The "battle of Seattle" and all that. Community
organizing. Grass-roots educational efforts. Etc. Easier said than done,
but absolutely necessary. If you want to combat the power of money (and the
DLC, its clearest embodiment in the DP) you have to develop the basis for
other kinds of power. And keep your independence from the political
machines (the DP, the GOP, etc.) rather than being subordinated to them.
The problem is that when a grass-roots movement actually takes hold and
starts getting popular support, it will have an electoral reflection. The
Gene Debs, Norman Thomas, and Henry Wallace votes didn't simply come
because people weren't smart enough (or moral enough) to follow Nathan's
advice. Instead, they arose because there were extant social movements
whose goals and ideals were not expressed in the two-party system. This is
where Nader came from, too. In 1976, he ran for President seemingly as a
game (and was trashed in the NATION magazine for it). But in 2000, there
was an extra-electoral movement brewing, which encouraged Nader to become a
different person in many ways, sweeping him to take the run seriously (and
he was trashed in the NATION for it).
I'm afraid that as long as their are counter-hegemonic movements, there
will be people who will go against Nathan's advice. There's nothing we can
do about that, except try to undermine such movements. In the end, we have
to ask if voting for Nader helped promote the grass-roots movements. Like
with everything else in real life, it depends. It depends on whether or not
people realize that it's the extra-electoral action (the "street heat," in
Jesse Jackson's terms) that's crucial. It depends on whether or not people
get involved in trying to convince the majority of the people of the truth
of Naderite or Green politics on a grass-roots and face-to-face level
rather than being bound up in the electoral iron cage.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
