Kelley wrote:
>
> so, what's at stake if people spend 30 minutes next election day voting for
> almost anyone but shrubya?
>
> is it just that you don't like to see anyone talking at all about
> participating in the electoral process because, in principle, it is
> pointless to think one can vote socialism into being? ok. i understand your
> position, but i think it's kind of like pissing at a hurricane. people like
> to vote and talk about who they'll vote for and why, just like they like to
> talk about and watch (and even just follow it in the papers) sports. in
> this case, people just grind their favorite axe(s), using their position on
> a politician (or party, as in the case of Greens or Dems like Nathan and
> Brad) as the tree stump upon which they rest their axe. so? they'd do that
> about anything!
>
> kelley
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
Kelley wrote:
>
> At 12:24 AM 11/17/03 +1100, Bill Bartlett wrote:
> >You probably can't vote socialism into existence, but it can't do any harm
> >to try and might help. If it does make a difference to vote against
> >capitalism, it follows that the tactic of voting for more capitalism must
> >also make a difference.
> >
> >If you must insist on voting for one of the capitalist parties that can
> >win, then at least vote for the one that gives capitalism a bad name.
>
> Well, there I think that dems give capitalism a bad name more so than
> republicans.
>
> 1. since they appeal to more progressive voters as a font of progressive
> social change, when they don't advance progressive social change, they
> disappoint those folks. kewl. (one of the reasons why I disagree with
> carrol that the focus should be on antiwar activism is that, if his model
> is the sixties, then Doug McAdam has clearly shown how the roots of 60s and
> 70s activism were in Freedom Summer and the voter registration drive in the
> South. ONe of the things that got people pissed off when they participated
> in FS was that they were idealistic youths who believed that we could work
> within the system to create a better society. They figured it was already
> one of the most advanced societies, given the fervent America's Century
> ideology that dominated public discourse, but they were shocked to find out
> just how misleading the rhetoric was when they saw the poverty, the
> political repression, etc.
>
> 2. your reasoning sounds far too much like Yoshie's response the first few
> weeks after 9.11, http://squawk.ca/lbo-talk/0109/1356.html. Fuck that
> noise. Anti-war organizing just isn't where it's at--if you really want to
> build a wide-scale social movement -- that is, if you're off the mind that
> Marx was right when he said that what makes a socialist revolution
> different from all other revolutions was that it was advanced by a majority
> and not a minority.
>
> kelley
>
Kelley wrote:
>
> At 09:07 AM 11/16/03 -0500, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >The task of socialists is to help create a mass political party of workers
> >and our allies which is independent of capitalists' political control, a
> >mass political party that uses all practical means of political action --
> >from electoral campaigns to direct actions -- to fight for, achieve, and
> >defend what the working class already believe in.
>
> one can pull a lever in the voting booth next year _and_ do this. so,
> what's at stake. i mean, if you and carrol are actually afraid that pulling
> levers in voting booths is the reason why people are not building a social
> movement alongside you, then you're sorely mistaken as to why they aren't
> doing so.
>
> kelley
>
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