Seems way, way to optimistic to me.
Many people can believe the US government is wrong. Most in the US probably do, for most things most of the time. To consider it illegitimate is something else.
This is hard to check, since I doubt whether Gallup has ever asked Americans whether or not they ever considered the president to be holding office illegitimately (itself of interest). If there is a modern historical parallel, it might be the start of the Ford presidency, where an unelected partisan president-by-crisis pardoned a crook, at a time of much deeper progressive power. I seriously doubt that at the time one would have found one in five Americans who would have believed that Ford was not *really* the President, that he held the office illegitimately, even though he was clearly in there as part of a corrupt political deal.
There is a big mental step that one must take to go from saying "that goddamn crooked President" to "that goddamn crooked coup leader."
----Original Message Follows---- From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: Re: legitimation crisis postponed? Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 11:26:23 -0500
Gregory says:
>So one in five Americans consider the president illegitimate. Sounds
>like a nice start to a legitimization crisis to me...
Perhaps, though I suspect that (at the very least) one in five Americans has always thought of the U.S. government as illegitimate since the anti-Vietnam War movement, despite the mass media & the governing elite's indefatigable efforts to rewrite history & manufacture consent. The problem in recent decades has been, among other things, due to (1) demobilization since the end of the anti-war movement; and (2) the mass media's successful efforts to minimize & trivialize protests (against the Gulf War, for instance), often refusing to cover them altogether.
Seattle, etc. may have broken the vicious circle of (actual & imaginary) demobilization & demoralization.
About (2), see the following articles by my good friend Eric Swank:
Swank, Eric. 1993/1994. "Shall We Overcome?: The Sense of Power Among Gulf War Protesters." _Critical Sociology_ 20:31-51.
Swank, Eric. 1997. "The Ebbs and Flows of Gulf Protests." _Journal of Military and Political Sociology_ 25:211-29.
Swank, Eric. 2000. "Who Can You Trust?: Determining the Credibilities of Newspapers that Cover Protest Mobilizations." _Research in Social Movements, Conflict, and Change_ 22.
>IF there were left organizations with enough power, or even desire,
>to push this fight. Which there aren't.
Enough power, no, but desire, yes.
At 9:54 AM -0500 12/14/00, Jonathan Sterne wrote:
>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 09:54:32 -0500
>From: Jonathan Sterne <jsterne+ at pitt.edu>
>Subject: Re: inauguration protest?
>To: David Shumway <shumway+ at andrew.cmu.edu>,
> mlg-ics Mailing List <mlg-ics+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
>
>At 05:09 PM 12/13/00 -0500, David Shumway wrote:
>>Anyone know plans to protest the Bust inauguration? I know many of you
>>don't think Bush is any worse than Gore, but the point is not Gore. It
>>is that this election demonstrates utterly the lack of democracy in the
>>US. My view is that a large peaceful protest would help to build
>>opposition to the Bush administration. Ideally, there should be
>>constant protests for the next four years. These should be inconnection
>>with the effort to get rid of the electoral college--which serves to
>>discourage candidates from seeking votes from the poor and minorities.
>
>Right on, David. Here's something from another list I'm on.
>
>--J
>
>>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 09:41:03 -0500 (EST)
>>From: AShuman101 at aol.com
>>Subject: Re: MLArching on Washington
>>
>>following up on this, it's interesting to see the proliferation of
>>protests
>>being organized.
>>
>>there's inaugurauction! from the folks who brought you dc's protests last
>>april. it's already being referred to as j20 with the first articles on
>>police infiltration appearing on indymedia and the first interviews with
>>police officers appearing in the washington times and possibly the post.
>>www.inaugurauction.org
>>
>>there's the million voter march in the initial planning stages for may.
>>www.votermarch.org
>>
>>and there was jesse jackson's call yesterday for a week of nonviolent,
>>nationwide protests the week of january 15th, as he called bush's
>>presidency
>>"a velvet coup." don't know whether these protests will really happen, as
>>jackson was a considerably muted presence on cnn last night, where larry
>>king
>>asked him about dubya's appeal to black americans.
>>
>>we'll see how these coalesce,
>>aaron
At 12:02 AM -0600 12/14/00, Lou Paulsen wrote:
>From: "Lou Paulsen" <wwchi at enteract.com>
>To: <marxism at lists.panix.com>
>Subject: JANUARY 20!!! (READ AND RESPOND!!)
>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 00:02:26 -0600
>
>All right, let's talk reality. This is a POLL of the US subscribers to
>this
>list.
>
>Do YOU agree that we have to build for the January 20 protest against the
>inauguration of Bush with a significant commitment of our resources? And
>are YOU going to do it? Are you going to start tomorrow? tonight?
>
>And if not, why not?
>
>Full disclosure: yes, it's true that my party has been working on plans for
>a counterinaugural demonstration for weeks. So you might be tempted to
>say,
>"Please, Lou, we know you feel obliged to build your party's events, but
>don't spam us with them."
>
>I would like you NOT to say that. In general I DON'T spam this list with
>the activities calendar of Workers World or the IAC. However, I believe
>that things have changed since yesterday, and I HAVE to post this. It's my
>DUTY. And you HAVE to address it. It's YOUR duty.
>
>I believe that even if the counterinaugural demonstration had been called
>by
>my least favorite group on the left, I would be writing here urging people
>to go to Washington on January 20, although first (in that hypothetical
>case) I would be writing my party's leadership and urging them to take it
>up.
>
>Up until yesterday, you might have said, "Yes, a demonstration at the
>inauguration would be a good thing, but then there are a lot of other
>things
>going on. There are a lot of national demonstrations. We have local
>responsibilities," etc., etc. But things have changed. This is NOT a
>normal inauguration any more. This is an inauguration which will FOREVER
>be
>linked in history with racism, fraud, and the lifting of the pretty mask
>that usually hides the rotting corpse-face of "bourgeois democracy" in the
>United States.
>
>It is the fruit of that election which, unlike all others since maybe
>Debs-McKinley (1896), has momentary split apart the bourgeois parties and
>caused some true things to be told about their racist system, their
>hypocritical ruling-class courts, and their whole system of class rule.
>Even as I write this, they are repairing the split. Gore and Bush will now
>shake hands and embrace and talk about "the things that unite us" being the
>important things, WHICH IS TRUE, applied to them. The workers and
>oppressed
>whose emotions have been mobilized are being told to forget what happened,
>to repress it into unconsciousness, to keep the secret, to keep their
>mouths
>shut and smile and act as if everything was all right, as if they were
>abused children in a dysfunctional family!
>
>"There is a tide in the affairs of humanity which, taken at the flood,
>leads
>on to revolution." (Shakespeare, revised.) This is our chance. NOW is our
>chance. We have not had a chance like this in the US in 30 years. In the
>next few days, tomorrow, TONIGHT, we should be getting out press releases
>and calling the talk shows and saying, "NO!!! To hell with what Al Gore
>says, we don't accept the outcome! We don't accept Bush as legitimate, we
>don't accept your whole system as legitimate! We don't give a fuck for all
>your commentators and pundits and historians and authorities who are
>telling
>us about what wonderful fucking speeches Gore and Bush made about
>reconciliation and bipartisanship and "healing"! We are not going to be
>'healed', we are going to come to the inauguration and protest!! The whole
>world WILL be watching, and we are going to tell the whole world what we
>think of this president, this court, this Congress composed equally of open
>enemies and craven sneaking lickspittle enemies." If we do this now, before
>they solidify the iron wall, before they line up every 'labor lieutenant'
>and every Democratic party hack to talk about how we have to look forward
>to
>compromise and unity, we WILL be listened to. We will be heard, yes, by
>the
>youth, by the workers, by the poor, by the masses. If not by millions -
>then by thousands. But who knows? There are moments every once in a while
>when we, yes, the 150 people on this list in the US, yes, the relatively
>small numbers in WWP and in all the parties and formations represented
>here,
>we are presented with an opportunity to AFFECT HISTORY.
>
>Every sufficiently organized and angry person in this country who CAN make
>it to DC WILL make it to DC. Do you think the anti-globalization youth are
>going to miss this? They are making their own plans. What about Florida?
>Is it out of the question that thousands from the oppressed communities in
>Florida will come up to have their voices heard if not their votes? CAN
>you sit this out? CAN you stay at home and watch it on television??
>
>This is a list full of Marxists. Marxism is not a religion or a social
>science or a hobby. It is a commitment to CHANGE THE WORLD. In a country
>like the US that is a damned difficult proposition. And among the chief
>difficulties is the "civil religion" of the US, as it has been called - the
>belief in the system, in voting, in the constitution, in the wisdom of the
>forefathers, in the impartial courts, in pledging allegiance to the flag,
>in
>the "best government on earth, for all its flaws." It is a more choking
>and
>paralyzing dogma than any manifestation of Christianity or any other
>religious fundamentalism. Now, unpredicted by anyone, the noxious clouds
>of
>this dogma have momentarily been dissipated. WE DO NOT GET THIS KIND OF
>OPPORTUNITY EVERY YEAR, or EVERY DECADE. This is our opportunity to
>AGITATE - to POLITICALLY EDUCATE - to fan the flames of the anger of the
>masses. Furthermore, it is an opportunity that comes just as a recession
>is
>about to hit.
>
>I am addressing this to EVERYONE here in the US. I don't demand or expect
>that you march under WW's banners. You can like us, tolerate us, respect
>us, scorn us, trust us, mistrust us, hate us, WHATEVER. March under
>whatever banners you feel like. Organize however you feel is appropriate.
>I'd like you to endorse it, but if you don't want to, don't. But come!! If
>there is a city, a state, or for that matter a campus, a union, a stratum,
>a
>'sphere' where WWP is weak or nonexistent and your group / circle /
>tendency
>is stronger, this is your chance to show how much better you can organize
>than us! But please, DO, recognize the importance of this thing. Do
>organize for it. Don't miss this historic opportunity. GET ON THE BUS.
>But first, GET THE BUS.
>
>Down with the racist dictatorship of the rich! Protest the inauguration!
>
>Lou Paulsen
>Chicago
>
>General info and press releases: www.iacenter.org
>NY and some local leaflets are at: www.mumia2000.org
>To endorse, go here:
>http://home.earthlink.net/~npcboston/jan20end.htm
Yoshie
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