Doug,
Sorry for my fit of pique at the list a couple of weeks back. Your return has precipitated a welcomed revival pragmatism recently, for which I'm grateful. Maybe you could post this message-assuming that the delicate souls on LBO won't be overly exercised by it.
>>I've often thought that it is the fundamental pessimism of many on the left
>>that, having given up on attaining socialism as a real goal, substitute
>>maintaining purist tactics as a substitute. If you can't win at least you
>>can lose with pride.
>I don't want to lose forever, and I don't think marginality is any
>proof of purity. But if you keep supporting candidates who ignore or
>transgress every fundamental principle, where do you end up?
So why not put your money where your mouth is: find a winnable local race, put together an organization to make a serious run for the seat and win it. You might be surprised to find that the machine which you justifiably inveigh against is far easier to shake up than you imagined. Big city Democratic machines are, for a variety of reasons I could go into, more vulnerable now than at any time in their history-they are shells of their former selves. The smarter Democratic hacks realize this and are running scared-which accounts for the hysteria which greeted the Nader campaign as well as the smears against any third party efforts which emerge from Dem apologists, dutifully reposted by those on this list.
If you do run or get involved with a local campaign, you will find that not only can you win by articulating a principled progressive vision, that's the only way you can win. People aren't stupid; they are just as wised up as LBOers to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the new Democrats/neo-liberal consensus. Far from being dead, social democracy, if not socialism, is where the votes are. It is not where the money is to finance campaigns, but at a local level you don't need a whole lot of it.
Of course, running a race means establishing relationships with average working and (non working) people, listening to what they have to say, articulating your positions in language which they can understand (a very different thing from "dumbing down" your message, incidentally) and in general, learning how treat human beings as they deserve to be treated- not as some abstract variable in an econometric calculation or as a theorized entity within a totalizing metanarrative.
The best antidote to the epidemic of intellectual autism (or perhaps it's just simple misanthropy) among the left is to go out and knock on about 500 doors in your neighborhood armed with some idea of how to make your critique of neo-liberalism relevant to local politics. (This will not be at all difficult in most cases.) I guarantee that at minimum you will scare the crap out of the local Democratic machine in the process.
John Halle Green Party Alderman Ward 9, New Haven, CT
http://www.ctgreens.org/newhaven/halle/index.html