Beyond the Summary of Nader analysis

John Gulick jlgulick at sfo.com
Fri Nov 10 22:22:52 PST 2000



>What common program? I don't see one, even on this list. It's something I'd
>like to see but how can we achieve defining it to make it palatable to those
>who still feel the best way for change to happen is by electing people and
>then going back to their jobs or whatever; whether their candidates are
>centrist, right-wingers or lefties?
>
>What would be a "top ten list" given that we're in for 4 years of gridlock
>at the institutional level? What is the common ground between liberals and
>radicals? We can't run away from this question any more.
>
>Ian

"Liberals" are for two clean-fuel burning SUV's in every garage, public education as the best mechanism for ensuring U.S. competitiveness in the dot-com age, and the inalienable right of Hollywood to spoon-feed pap to each and every market segment. I'm against any kind of programmatic compromise, but willing, ready, and able to welcome converts.

How about a program of zero economic growth ? Reducing the military and police budgets by 400 percent ? A halving of the work week ? An end to production for the sake of accumulation, and a start to production for basic needs, ecological rationality, and cultural literacy ? Non-autocentric green cities w/hazard zoning doubling as public parks, locally-oriented agriculture, and "wilderness areas" not for elite enviros but for the masses (access to which would be rationed out) ? Exhuming Bob Marshall's body, electroshocking it back to life, and appointing him Secretary of the Interior ?

No way "liberals" will go for this. No way most "radicals" will go for this. (Certainly most "Greens" won't -- around here they're trying to figure out how to square open space protection, affordable housing, the living wage, mass transit, etc. within the context of info-tech accumulation w/o challenging info-tech accumulation. Try, try again). So it's all about identifying those movements and tendencies in the present which will breathe some life into possibly heading this direction. Don't ask me for practical suggestions, though -- the last left movement in the U.S. which had my unalloyed support was the IWW, and they still didn't problematize the "use value" question enough.

John Gulick



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