<DIV> Carrol Cox wrote: >Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >> >> >> Outside of the Democratic Party, there is no solid political party >> that can marshal enough motivated organizers to make a difference in >> 2004. >> >> Do you have any candidate for whom you don't mind busting your own >> ass doing campaign work for, say, at least 10-15 hours per week? >> -- > >The question, "Does it make a difference who is in the White House?" is >a radically misleading question -- misleading in the sense that it >suppresses (as not askable) all the questions that need to be asked. It >suppresses, for example, the question: How important politically are the >50% of Americans who will not vote in 2004. And by suppressing that >question it objectively denies the humanity of that 50%. The election >will be decided by what around 1.5% to 2.5% of the voting-age population >do during a 30 second span of time in November 2004. > >So, the real question is, not "Does it make a difference who is in the >WH?" But "Does it make a difference if leftists quit all other >activities to concentrate for the next 18 months on having a momentary >effect on how that 2% spends 30 seconds of their time?" Who the hell said anything like that? Of course it makes a difference who's in the WH. I'll bet about 80% of the world's population would agree. But you & Yoshie can't admit that, so you've got to change the subject. I have no illusions about what a Democratic president would accomplish. But it would almost certainly make things slightly less bad. It would also encourage the development of more radical politics - it happened in the 60s, and it happened in the 90s too. Right now, the U.S. state is in the hands of the most reactionary, bellicose, and repressive gang in living memory. It's like Michael Savage's id is occupying 1600. But you're so lost in your own fantasy of revolution - the revolution that you have no strategy for promoting that I can see - that you can't be bothered. Fucked up. Doug   Well, if Al Gore had taken office, the intelligence agencies would likely have stopped 9/11, so there's one important difference. I am definitely feeling a lot of guilt for having voted for Nader.  </DIV><hr SIZE=1> Do you Yahoo!? Free <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/tag/*http://calendar.yahoo.com">online calendar</a> with sync to Outlook(TM).