Gore

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Mon Sep 7 00:30:46 PDT 1998


At 04:03 PM 9/6/98 -0400, Louis quoted:


>Chris Burford, referring to Albert Gore:
>>OK so this devil is one we must sup with, with a short spoon! It may be
>>easier to expose his weakness and his dependence on capitalism, if people
>>try to push him, on specific reasonable reforms.

and then followed up with a non-sequitur that shifted the terms of the argument.


>It is very important for people to work hard at compromise, especially when
>they are in a relationship.

Where in my quote do I talk about the importance of working hard for a compromise, still less of forming a relationship like that between Louis and his girlfriend which he then irrelevantly goes on to detail?

I was saying in response to Paula, that if we are to ally with ordinary people there are limits to our ability to make progress by sticking at the general level - "these politicians and capitalists are all a band of crooks" etc. In terms of exposure, campaigns for specific reforms are better.

Besides reforms are beneficial, and more beneficial if they are fought for, than if they are handed down magnanimously. So if there is a problem that Gore poses as being green, ensure he is tested as hard as possible. In the course of this not only may more concessions (not compromises in the sense of personal relationships!) be extracted but the business lobbies that constrain him and which led Clinton to make such a shoddy response last year to the European calls for action on global warming, will be exposed.

Where I understand Louis's argument at its best is:


> The capitalist class uses the
>Democrat-Republican political party to maintain its class rule.

Sure. I was saying that Gore's problems about this could be an opening for radical campaigning to break the virtually open financial bribery by the capitalists of the electoral process. It could also be an opening for campaigning for proportional representation rather than the expensive primaries system which amplifies first past the post charismatic politics, (with candidates who may then take the adulation rather concretely).

This crisis of US politics looks fairly serious from this side of the Atlantic and I apologise if it looks as if I am trespassing on your turf, but the US president is someone we all have to live with. If any US politician is going to get caught out for lying, if he (she?) is asked questions about adultery, something is going to have to change!

What looks like a personal issue is actually indirectly a class issue.

My assumptions are that the two-party bougeois electoral system has to be reformed with pressure basically from *outside* those two parties, but it is worth looking at the contradictions within them.

Louis describes the shift for him and many in dropping illusions in this system and becoming a Huckleberry Finn type "outlaw".

Outlaws can analyse the world with penetrating insight. The point however is to change it. If the cookhouse is to be taken over, there must be a struggle for reforms (not compromises) to attack the enemy where it is weak.

I sense that Louis is still using the internet as a form of marxist identity politics. I would emphasise in the context of this debate and elsewhere, the future of marxism on the internet is showing its relevance for practice.

Only those marxists who are not sure of their ground would hesitate to discuss the importance and the relevance of the struggle for reforms.

Chris Burford

London



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