On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Patrick Bond wrote:
> > From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com>
> > I was speaking exclusively about labor law, Carrol. There, and only
> > there, Nathan has convinced me the Democrats have been consistently
> > better.
>
> If the Democratic Party is the preferred home of financial,
> commercial and property capital, and if the latter are the most avid
> exponents of neoliberalism, then why are you and Nathan willing to
> grant credit around a meagre legislative agenda when it is
> Clinton-Gore neoliberalism and the accumulation process it
> supports that poses such a profound threat to worker interests
> (across the world)?
<Sigh> I guess it's hard to be precise about campaign choices. Maybe it's even misguided. But my if-then argument about the Democrats, which I think I have distilled from Nathan, is as follows:
If you think that the labor -- which is to say the union -- movement has to be the core of any progressive politics in this country;
And if you think therefore that drastically easing our draconian laws against organizing is the most important first step to aim for in national politics;
Then you should vote for the Democrats, DESPITE ALL THE OTHER FUCKING AWFUL THINGS THEY'VE ALWAYS DONE AND ALWAYS WILL DO. Because the only way to ever get such a change in the laws is to achieve a Democratic Majority in the Senate, the absence of which -- according to Nathan, and I think he's defended it ably -- has prevented several major attempts to make such a revision in the fairly recent past.
AND IF NOT, NOT.
So naturally there is a case to be made that NOT is more important.
And personally -- which I thought was clear from my original post -- I'm leaning at the moment towards Ralph.
> Michael, I've been away, and too busy to track this thread so my
> apologies for posing a perhaps off-track query.
Cheerfully accepted :o)
BTW, one addendum to that original argument. There is an argument to be made that even if you accept that getting more Democrats in congress is more important than who gets to be president, that might still not force you to vote for Gore. Christopher Caldwell, for one, argued that a big pro-Ralph vote would increase the turnout among progressive abstainers, and once in the booth, they'd vote for Democrats for congress. So he thought a strong Ralph vote would actually increase the chances of a Democratic majority in congress.
I like that, "a strong ralph vote." Sure sums up my feelings.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com