> And so on and so on. Yes, yes, I've heard all this many times, but I'm
> starting to lose my patience with theorists like you who don't have
any
> solution to the political problems we face besides turn your backs on
> electoral politics. Need I remind you who scream so loudly about this
> country being Nazi-like or Weimar-Republic-like that a major reason
for
> the Nazi accession to power was the scorn heaped on electoral politics
> by the Left as well as the Right? Let's not make the same mistake
> again, for Pete's sake. Even though it's hard work (much more trouble
> than sitting in our ivory towers making smart cracks about how the
> corporate elite rigs elections), we have to defeat these bastards at
> the polls, from Bush on down, or it is they who will have the power
> from now till the end of time. How are we supposed to get them out of
> power -- a Leninist revolution? Good luck!
I do not know where the Leninist revolution part is coming from - certainly not from my comments, here or elsewhere.
As to the electoral politics part - if you read my comments on Dean posted to this list, you would have noticed that I advocate a pragmatic approach to electoral politics - hence my support of Mr. Dean.
The point I am consistently (I believe) arguing against is the received wisdom of the left (voiced, inter alia, by such left luminaries as Frances Fox Piven, Richard Cloward or Ruy Teixieira) that "da people" would vote Democratic or even pwogwessive - if given a chance and stopped being disfranchises by voter registration, if a "true and principled" pwoggie run for the high office, yada, yada, yada....
That wishful think is not worth the paper on which it is written. There is enough evidence that if left to their won devices, "da people" would elect someone like Schwartz or Elvis by a landslide over someone like Kucinich or Dean. This is a fact - clearly demonstrated in CA - that needs to be dealt with, not spinned around.
Statements like the one you make above:
>Even though it's hard work (much more trouble
> than sitting in our ivory towers making smart cracks about how the
> corporate elite rigs elections), we have to defeat these bastards at
> the polls,
belongs to the same genre as a statement 'let's build a rocket a fly to the moon." How exactly?
Any planning of a pragmatic political strategy must begin, like any 12-step program, with the recognition of the problem" My name is John Q. Public, and I am a member of one of the most conservative society among developed countries that prefers a B-movie star over a left-leaning political activist." Only with that realization taking steps 2 through 12 makes any sense.
Wojtek