> Scaife 'n' Snitch (and the Hitch)

Rakesh Narpat Bhandari rakeshb at Stanford.EDU
Tue Apr 17 13:46:23 PDT 2001



>Rakesh Narpat Bhandari wrote:
>>
>> >
>> What would Secty of State Dolan recommend? You have to judge to Nader
>> by whom he surrounds himself with (even Bhagwati likes Nader himself
>> according to Doug).
>
>This is the sort of thing I meant when I suggested that very intelligent
>people can say the most stupid things. It is bizarre to talk aboutn what
>a Nader administration would do, since there never will be a Nader
>administration. The issue is how to build a left movement in the U.S.,
>not what policy the U.S. will follow, since leftists at this time cannot
>possibly affect U.S. policy. There exist many barriers to the creation
>of the left, but at least two were threatened by the Nader campaign
>(independently of anything Nader actually stood for). One was the
>hegemony on the "left" of the progressive wing (or allegedly progressive
>wing) of the Democratic Party. That hegemony must be destroyed --
>"soft" leftists must be made to see the hopelessness of supporting the
>DP.

What for god's sake are you talking about? What hegemony of the Democratic Party? Most working class people already don't vote and even if they do it's with their noses closed. The Democratic party has "Hegemony" (whatever you mean by that big word--where's Dennis P when you need him) among some segments of the professional class. That's it.


> Part of achieving that goal is making it impossible for a Democratic
>candidate to win elections, at every level from township clerk to
>president.

To ensure that a full scale reactionary like Bush wins? No thanks. Just can't wait for the ABM Treaty to be scrapped, for China to militarize even more, for India (with US assistance) to respond in kind, for Pakistan (and North Korea) to turn to China and Iran for help, for Israel to use the threat of the Islamic bomb for an even bigger build up, for the Saudi elites to demand more protection. You like the world of that racist Rumsfeld and Cheney? Find an intrigue novel and read about it. Why the hell do you want billions of people to live in it?


> Another barrier is the loneliness of leftists in the U.S.,
>the lack of any machinery by means ofm which they can find each other.
>So every vote for Nader was a message sent out around the country that
>here was another refuser of the DP: I did not vote *for* Nader, I voted
>for him only as an act of solidarity with other Nader voters.

Right with other Nader voters who are for the most part antiglobalization, back to nature crack pots. If you think this has anything to do with solidarity with the working class, you are simply deluded.


> The size
>of the vote for Nader was a partial index of the potential strength _at
>this time_ of the left movement in the U.S. And what counted was not
>Nader but Nader voters (and what they thought they were voting for).

Then it would be hopeless. The alienation of most Americans signals the potential strength. If you wanted to make a defensible argument, say that anyone who voted represents the illusions which pose an obstacle to social change.


>
> Nader has already said in no uncertain terms that
>> he opposes the WTO
>
>The WTO, like the Pentagon, the CIA, and the New York Times, is merely
>one more arm of u.s. imperialism. Trying to understand why any alleged
>leftist would support it calls for peering more deeply into human nature
>than I care to venture.

Trying to get rid of MFA and US overuse of anti dumping laws? Trying to make sure that the US has to bring its already dubious intellectual property concerns in front of a world body, instead of using strong arm tactics to get the most liberal interpretation of IPR through bilateral deals, as the one with Jordan? Carrol, I am not for the WTO but I am not for the opposition to it either. It's more complicated than you make it seem. You are just another anti globalization simpleton.

Rakesh



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