Dddddd0814 at aol.com wrote:
>
> [clip]
> by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
> and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
>
> So, the Democrats have paid the price for a cowardly, half hearted, inept
> campaign, and they didn't even see it coming.
A political party, like a whole society, is an ensemble of social relations, not a conscious & unified individual of rational choice theory. Hence the common practice of personification (cowardly/couragegous etc) is rather similar to daily stock market reports in which "the market" gains enthusiasm, feels tentative, etc.
But leaving that aside, this mode of description of the DP goes back a long ways -- that is, describing in terms of its cowardice, ineptness, opportunism, etc. its "failure" to carry out its (implied) _real_ aims. This was my own theory (mostly spontaneous rather than conscious) when I was first dipping my toes into activism (and did not even dream of ever becoming a marxist). I recall the first conference I ever attended of civil-rights activists in Illinois (probably in early 1965). All I remember is at some point there was reference to the inadequate leadership Senator Paul Douglas was giving to the fight for civil rights, and I remember coming up with the suggestion that we should "clobber our lukewarm friends." What I had in mind was that we should thereby give them courage to carry out what I still supposed were their "real" intentions.
Isn't it at least worth considering seriously that the balance of social relations in the DP is such that the Party is seriously dedicated to the results which it produces. The figures on turnout Yoshie posted a few days ago seem to support my speculation that the DP lost this year primarily because it didn't turn out its own voters. But it could have turned out its potential voting strength only by violating its fundamental principles of support of corporate exploitation of labor and imperialist aggression. Those are its principles. It won't violate them simply to win an election.
Leftists _must_ build a new left that forever breaks with any hope of operating through or with the DP. Probably that means simply, for the time being, ignoring the electoral arena _entirely_.
If this is true, the place to start is refusing to support DP "liberals" such as Wellstone. That tendency is utterly destructive of the future hopes of a strong left in the U.S.
Carrol