Class Politics and the Elections

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Wed Oct 18 07:53:17 PDT 2000


LeoCasey at aol.com:
> ...
> I agree with Nathan that when one is rooted in real and mass progressive
> movements and forces, a strictly ideological position in elections is a
> luxury which can not be afforded. There are real stakes in who wins, and --
> quite frankly -- only students, academics and rootless intellectuals can
> pooh-pah those stakes as insignificant. That is why none of the mass left,
> those with real constituencies they represent, are dismissive of the need to
> elect the least reactionary and conservative/most progressive forces
> possible. By contrast, the 'organized self-conscious left,' which is almost
> entirely based in academia and among intellectuals, has a rather different
> take on things, since they are so insulated from the attacks on public
> education, health care, union rights, etc. which will result from Republican
> ascendency.
> ...

I wonder if you, or anyone here, would care to engage an issue I've attempted to notice before, without much success. That is the issue of moral connection with the person or party one votes for, and with the election as a whole.

I believe this issue is raised by several practices of previous administrations which we may expect Mr. Gore to continue, but I'm thinking particularly of the Drug War. I regard the Drug War as akin to the Nazi Holocaust, although of course it exists on a much smaller scale (so far). Not twelve million, but only several thousand have been killed; "only" several hundred thousand harmless people have been locked up in prison. The political basis of the Drug War is clearly racism, sadism, superstition, and unrestrained greed and ambition. The damages and corruption worked by the Drug War to everyone's rights and welfare are too well-known to require recitation.

Now, a foolish or uninformed person might not be aware of these things, but we have to assume that Mr. Gore knows them and knows what he is doing -- he is knowingly and intentionally promoting a profoundly vicious policy for political advantage. Is this something moral persons can connect themselves to as voters, whatever advantages they, or people they think they care about, may derive from it? How? At what point would one finally draw back?



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list