Electoral Dilemmas Re: Color of Anarchism

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Jan 2 19:27:54 PST 2003


At 9:03 PM -0500 1/2/03, Doug Henwood wrote:
>The Reps are the party of white pride!

That may be in part a function of the first-past-the-post system. The absence of proportional representation means that the far right, rather than organizing their own parties a la Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, mainly remain within the Republican Party.

***** Le Pen: populist who rose from ashes Paul Webster in Paris Monday April 22, 2002 The Guardian

...The Socialists are particularly bitter about Mr Le Pen's success, as it was François Mitterrand, president from 1981 to 1995, who opened the way for the Front's political successes by introducing proportional representation for parliamentary elections in 1986, albeit as a ploy to check Gaullist ambitions.

The Front, which was also given access to state television, won 35 seats, nearly all of them lost when Mr Chirac changed the election laws, setting himself up as the target for Mr Le Pen's invective....

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,688468,00.html> *****

The French experience just shows you that electoral reforms are no solution for leftists (not that there is any chance for electoral reforms in the USA to begin with).

On the other side, many leftists in the USA get stuck in the Democratic Party or its loyal opposition:

***** African Americans in the Anti-Imperialist Movement

By Jim Zwick

...Along with African American troops from the regular army, two regiments of African American volunteers served in the Philippines from 1899-1902 during the Philippine-American War. They served in a war of conquest abroad that was often defined in racial terms during a period of acute racism at home. The war took place while Jim Crow laws were being established in the South and a resurgent wave of racially motivated violence against African Americans was spreading throughout the country. Many of the racial prejudices, stereotypes and slurs prevalent within the United States were exported to the Philippines during the war. This put African Americans in a particularly difficult position: should they support the war and imperialism to prove that they were patriotic citizens who deserved respect at home? or should they oppose policies that they thought would result in the extension of oppressive Jim Crow laws over other peoples of color in the colonies? Should they continue to support the Republican Party because of its former role in ending slavery despite its new commitment to imperialism? or should they support the Democrats with their anti-imperialist position even though they were leading efforts to disfranchise Black voters in the South? Not surprisingly, the African American community was deeply divided over these and other questions raised by the war and imperialism....

<http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/ail/afamhist.html> *****

Many blacks (and leftists in general) today face a similar dilemma (though the roles of the Republicans and the Democrats concerning race have been reversed since the 1899-1902 period). The party that is _slightly_ more responsive to black concerns, female concerns, etc. -- the Democratic Party -- is also the one that can practice imperialism more effectively than the other. -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>



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