Electoral False Choices or False Options (RE: Nathan, Bill Bradley, CALPERS, and the Left)

[Ken Hanly]

I am not well enough versed in US politics to judge the accuracy of Nathan's
remarks but certainly in other countries third parties have been quite
successful and have had considerable influence. In Canada, the CCF pioneered
medicare and introduced many other reforms while in power in Saskatchewan, and
along with others the federal CCF was instrumental in forcing ruling parties to
introduce pensions. To a lesser extent the CCF's successor also introduced
significant reforms. Lately however, the NDP has gone the way of other social
democratic parties but without much accompanying electoral success.

   Perhaps one of the reasons that third parties in the US have not been
successful is that activists such as Nathan have continued to work for the
Democrats.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

P.S. In Canada the CAW is spearheading a working class politics drive that will
be discussing such matters as whether it is worth while trying to reform the NDP
or forming a new working class party.

Nathan Newman wrote:


> > Nathan Newman wrote:
> >
> > > I also don't think the average person is a stupid idiot who continually
> > > acts
> > > against their interests, which leftists who denounce Clinton, Gore or
> > > Bradley as the enemies of blacks, workers or women must assume, since
> > > workers, blacks and women keep voting for people like this in
> > > disproportionate, sometimes overwhelming numbers.
> > >
> Then Seth Ackerman:
>
> >       Nathan you've hit the crux of the issue. Workers and blacks --
> > especially blacks -- like Clinton precisely because he is
> > represented as the liberal "choice" in the two-party system...
>   An important goal of left politics must be to make people sharply
> > aware that they are being given false choices -- that Clinton/Gore's
> > rhetorical commitment to blacks, workers, etc. in fact masks a
> > betrayal.
>
> A false choice is one where it makes no difference; a rotten set of choices
> is one where it makes a difference, but not that much.  We have the latter,
> not the former.
>
> The problem is that third party candidates are false options, not that
> lesser-evilism is a false choice.  You can argue for a lot of left political
> strategies in the 20th century and many have their moments of success, but
> the one complete failure has been third party politics.  Some minor gains in
> policy are cited for Deb's Socialist Party, but mostly because they were
> absorbed into Roosevelt's New Deal.  Other than that, third party politics
> have been a parade of failure and irrelevance.  Especially since World War
> II, whether running Eldridge Cleaver or Angela Davis or Barry Commoner or
> Ralph Nader, the results have been the same- complete and utter failure.
>
> Most people just recognize failure and don't choose to encourage it.
>
> I play the Democratic party hack on this list, but my dirty confession is I
> voted Green against Dianne Feinstein in California (for a candidate who was
> a political friend), was appointed to the Berkeley Labor Commission by the
> then only Green Party member of the city council, sent a check to Bernie
> Sanders campaign (the only political contribution I have ever made) and was
> a member of the Northern California Citizens for Proportional Representation
> and of Alameda County Progressive Alliance, an effort to unite third party
> advocates and progressive Dems into an electoral alternative in
> Oakland/Berkeley.
>
> I bet I have done more third party political work than all but a tiny
> handful of its intellectual advocates on this list.  And I can guarantee
> that the sum total of time spent on third party politics by my friends and
> political associates far outdistances almost every other person on this
> list.
>
> The results of third party politics are just sad.  With one of the highest
> Green Party registrations and the most developed party structure of any
> areas in the country, Oakland finally elects a Green Party member, Audie
> Bok, to the California state legislature in 1998.  And within a year, this
> nice community college teacher who seemed completely loyal to the Greens
> turns around and acts like any other politician, dumps her Green Party
> registration and links up with more mainstream political allies.
>
> The problem with our political system is not party labels, but the system
> itself of district first-past-the-post elections which drives everyone
> towards the center.  It is just a false option and real delusion to think a
> different party label will itself solve those problems.
>
> Average left-leaning Democratic voters are mostly not deluded and don't need
> leftists to un-"mask" anyone.  They know what they are doing.
>
> What they need is leftists to stop spending their time and mental energy on
> failed and useless strategies like third party politics and concentrate on
> the real nitty-gritty organizing that builds left political power
> independent of elected politicians, whatever party label is ultimately used
> by candidates.
>
> -- Nathan Newman