>From: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: the rabbinical view of LesserEvilism
>Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 17:28:40 -0500
>
>At 01:07 PM 11/2/00 -0500, Doug quotes Rabbi Lerner:
> >
> >Finally, voting for a lesser evil entails abandoning and helping to
> >disspirit those who share your principles. Many Nader people are
> >standing up for the principles that you believe in, and instead of
> >supporting them for doing so you are attacking them. Don't be
> >surprised if many these people eventually give up on trying to change
> >the world. So the next time you look around for allies for some
> >visionary idea or moral cause that inspires you, you will find fewer
> >people ready to take risks, and ironically you may then use that to
> >convince yourself that nothing was ever possible and that's why you
> >"had" to vote for the lesser of two evils.
>
>
>That reminds me of the scene from the "One Flew Over the Coockoo's Nest"
>when Nicholson tries to lift the drinking fountain to ram the bathroom
>window. He fails miserably, and his companions laugh at him, but at the
>end of the film someone else follows his footsteps and succeeds.
>
>Touching and powerful, indeed. Except that it will not work here. A
>better analogy would be the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - while some tried to
>appease the Nazis, others decided to fight - but in the end none of these
>choices mattered, because everyone ended "up in smoke."
>
>Fighting the Nazi juggernaut required much more than personal attitudes
>(appeasement or defiance) - it required the Red Army. Ditto for the
>juggernaut of American ruling-class bipartisanship - we need a Red Army or
>at least a Sputnik to shatter the self-confidence of the ruling class and
>force it to make some concessions.
>
>wojtek
>
>
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