>Incidentally, Nathan himself is exhibit No. 1 of the continuing damage
>done by the DP's grip on leftists: that grip deprives us of crucially
>needed political talent. It is very sad that Nathan's organizational
>skills and analytic power should be devoted to the interests of
>oppression rather than of freedom.
There is a really twisted compliment embedded in there somewhere.
But the reality is that almost all my writing and political work is about issues and I've rarely mentioned Nader in any of my published writings (mostly to promote Runoff Voting) and I do essentially zero institutional Democratic party work. I'm a contrarian and the issue where people most disagree with me on LBO is on this one, so I admit to being fatally drawn to raising the issue here. Just look at the explosion of posts on the subject.
But I recommend you read my new book (coming to a bookstore near you :) on the Internet and policy-- you'll find I'm pretty bipartisan in trashing liberal deregulators from the antitrust kids of the 1970s to lacerating the Clinton White House for allowing privatzation of the Internet. And the solution at the end of the book is hailing street action and global mobilizations for justice, not filing down to the ballot box to pull the Democratic lever.
In the US, I still think that's the best voting strategy, but that's merely a narrow strategy as part of the much broader radical action needed for social change.
-- Nathan Newman