<HTML>Dennis: What is remarkable to me about the debate over the election on LBO-Talk, is that despite the general willingness here to take up every question, no matter how small, even down to whether or not Bernstein was an orthodox Marxist, you have been the first person who was even willing to address the issue of how the election might effect what I have explained is, for me, the most burning issue -- the future of public education. I am not suggesting that everyone should see education as the most burning issue, because quite reasonably, people have all sorts of different investments in the fields where they work; it is reasonable for Max to have his own passion about economic policy, and Nathan his passion about the Supreme Court and the law, so on. But certainly the future of public education is an absolutely central issue, at the very least no less vital to the direction of this society than the future of Social Security or health ! ! care, and the unwillingness to take it up here seems to me significant. We clearly have radically different notions of what the stakes in this election are. And even when you took up the question, and when you say some things with which I could wholeheartedly agree [that this election is not about to change the fundamental ground and discourse on which the battle over public education is fought, and that we need a political strategy to do that], you still reach conclusions that I can only find contrary, in a fundamentally wrong-headed way, to the most basic realities of the situation. Say what you want about Gore, but the notion that he has been anything but completely and entirely on the record in opposition to privatization of public schools and vouchers, and that he has held to that position for some time, is just made up of sheer, whole cloth. There is simply no evidence anywhere to suggest that such is the case, and there is not a single proponent of vouchers/privatization who would treat such a suggestion with anything but disdain: they know very well that Bush is the only ! ! man who will advance their agenda on that front. Similarly, Gore is proposing a rather significant expansion of federal spending on education; Bush is proposing taking the existing funds, and turning them over to vouchers. There is a clear, fundamental difference between the two candidates on the issue of education, and your conclusion that there is not, that somehow Gore is just as pro-privatization and pro-voucher as Bush, just as likely to cut funds to education, flies in the face of the evidence before us. I have come to the conclusion that on LBO-Talk we speak different political languages about these matters. For my part and for some others whom I will not burden by being identified with my views, electoral politics is fundamentally an arena of strategic choices and interventions, one battlefield in a Gramscian war of position. You analyze the battlefield, and what we used to call the "relationship of forces" on it, and you intervene strategically. In an era, when the mass left was on the offensive, you would seek to find new ground that could be gained; in an era where it is on the defensive, such as we are now in, you seek to consolidate what ever ground the mass left now holds, and ensure that no more ground is lost. This is a strictly consequentialist position: you judge what you should do politically by the practical results of such actions, whether at the end of day, you have won what could be won, and successfully defe! ! nded what could have been lost. For the contrary position, electoral politics is fundamentally an arena of moral choices and individual moral expression: you must advocate only those parties and candidates which embrace your moral-political vision, and anything less is an act of personal corruption. You build now for the future realization of that vision, no matter how far off, and if the price of that approach is losses and defeats in the here and now, so be it. What is essential, above all else, is fidelity to that vision, and its long-term realization. This is a moralist position: you judge what you should do politically by the furtherance of your moral-political vision. I think that you and Doug [with all the constant references to what he considers my moral failings by working for the UFT/AFT, with its, to him, abhorrent history and politics] are probably right that the fact that I do work for a trade union is not unconnected to the politics I espouse here. But I don't think that my work is the causal factor. Rather, I think that my politics led me to seeing work in this context as more fruitful, more productive than taking my Ph.D. and disappearing into academia, where I could think, read, write and teach about issues of political philosophy which interest me. You don't fight and win Gramscian wars of position by writing articles of political philosophy, as pleasurable as that might be for some of us. Where others see a willingness to abandon principle by working in the UFT/AFT, I see an opportunity, not found elsewhere, to be part of one of the strongest and best organized segments of wor! ! king people, to be part of a reorganization of the fabric of unionism as it takes up issues posed by the dramatic changes in the world economy we are living through, and to be at the center of a battle over the future of public education which will determine, in large measure, where this country moves on questions of social and economic justice. My approach to this election is just an extension of a Gramscian, radical democratic politics to which I have been committed for some time. The notion that electoral politics is a moral arena, a site of individual expression of moral visions, is -- I would argue -- a fundamentally individualist conception of politics. I can't say that it surprises me one bit either (a) that the base of support of the Nader campaign is so heavily skewed toward white, upper middle class, professional males or (b) that mentioning this fact irritates the hell out of Naderites on LBO-Talk. But it is precisely such a social base, especially in academia, that has the luxury of treating politics as an arena of individual moral expression, and of commitment to a "radical" politics that would happily remain marginal, so long as it is faithful to its vision. And the very fact that every organized manifestation of mass left politics -- from trade unions to feminist organizations to anti-racist/civil rights organizations to lesbian/gay organizations -- rejects such a posture becomes the very ! ! proof that they are pro-capitalist. A fine piece of circular logic, from this vantage point. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Leo, Your union loyalties lead you to believe you'll have more influence with a Democratic president than a Republican one. Its reasonable up to a point - generally up to the point where being taken out and shot isn't necessarily all that different from being pecked to death by ducks.  Same result, different method. You'll reap meager gains in changing regional funding for schools, reducing the urge among parents to exit the public ed system, and stemming the tide toward testing regardless of who wins.  Reduced spending, vouchers, and testing make-up the agenda.  Gore and Bush do not exactly differ on the agenda.  You need to work to change the agenda, not pick presidential candidates. Dennis Breslin</BLOCKQUOTE> Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869) Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- </HTML>