-----Original Message----- From: James Devine <jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>The "majoritarian" emphasis fades pretty easily into "hey how can we get
a
>majority of the vote of the current electorate with their current level
of
>organization and consciousness?" which gets us working in the Democratic
>Party (or its equivalents in other countries). It gets us quickly to
>endorsing the lesser of two evils (Al Gore in 2000!).
>In the end, if we can mobilize "mass struggle," it will change a heck of
a
>lot of peoples' minds on important issues (as the anti-war movement did
>vis-a-vis the U.S. war against Vietnam).
Again with the antiwar movement. It failed miserably. Millions upon millions of Vietnamese were killed; mass bombings led to the insanity of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Vietnam lasted from 1961 to 1973 (or 1975 with all bombings) despite the antiwar movement.
Frankly, majoritarian politics in 1968 came much closer to ending the war with "Clean for Gene" than the mass mobilizations did.
Now, the idea that the choice is either vote for the lesser of two evils OR do mass mobilization is silly. I think I can safely say that I have been involved in more mass mobilizations, including arrests, than most people on this list, yet I also vote Democratic most of the time without grimacing (even if I hold my nose).
In fact, the people I know most involved in mass struggles day-to-day are more likely to vote Democrat than leftist intellectuals. Not that I don't know great mass activists who gag when they see a donkey, but most of the activists I know can walk and chew gum, fight in the streets to change the balance of forces while voting for the best deal they can ("the lesser of two evils") on election day.
In fact, most activists have to do "lesser evilism" every time they fight for a union contract or demand change in their communities. They take the best they can get today and prepare for battle tomorrow.
BTW majoritarianism is not preparing to vote for Gore; it is actually thinking about how to frame a political strategy that could produce an alternative who could actually win the nomination and the Presidency. It is those who refuse to even think about an alternative majoritarian approach that guarantee that most progressives will end up voting for Gore in 2000- you may remain pure and vote for someone else, but if you would be a bit less pure, you might actually get a majority to vote for someone better.
--Nathan Newman