Fw: Nosedive: The Democrats the Day After

Peter K. peterk at enteract.com
Sun Nov 10 09:58:10 PST 2002


Carrol:
>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.

Well, a party has a "leadership" which sometimes responds to its membership (sometimes not) so I don't think it's that off the mark.


>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_.

Nonesense. As much as I don't like the Democrats and like Nader, the Labor Party, etc., if the Senate gets 60 conservative votes - enough to override fillibusters things will get a lot worse. And I'm not willing to risk the chance that it won't go,


>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

The trick would be to hold off a fillibuster-proof conservative Senate majority *and* build a large movement outside the DP.

Peter



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