[lbo-talk] Liberal yuppies go ballistic over Nader petition

[Carrol Cox]

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> Quoting myself from LBO #108, already sent to Acrobat subscribers,
> and in the mail to print subscribers:
> 
> If Kerry wins on November 2, he should become the enemy on November
> 3. His inauguration should be as much a target for protest as a Bush
> inauguration would be. The left, broadly defined, has gotten a bit
> lazy over the last year or two. All you have to do to gather a crowd
> these days is to denounce the president as a lying dolt and make a
> joke about Ashcroft's name. What happens if this gang is turned out
> of office? Will Al Franken and David Corn turn into cheerleaders for
> the new regime? One hopes not, but you can already imagine the
> excuses being made. Let them make their excuses if they must; for
> the rest of us, the disappointment will be something to work with.

That is a good statement as far as it goes. My own original statement
specified, of course, _not_ just the reactionary or conservative
Democrats but the DP _as an organized entity_; and as an organized
entity, capable of blunting mass movements by absorbing both their
members and (too often) their leaders the most dangerous part of the DP
consists of the most admirable individuals within it! Real opposition to
the DP must vigorously work against precisely those DP candidates who
present the party at its best. Those candidates, when elected, as I have
argued before, cannot (with the best of intentions) significantly affect
public policy. An Obama by himself (like Wayne Morse in the past) will
not change a sentence in a single piece of legislation, or block a
single undesirable appointment to the Courts, the NLRB, or the Civil
Rights Commission. His main effect on public life will be increasing the
votes for reactionary candidates of the DP.

The DP will continue to put forth a small scattering of admirable people
-- the Obama's, the Wellstone's, the Lee's. And they will be used to
argue that "we" should work to turn the DP to the left. And hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of competent, well-intentioned left organizers will
be sucked into that black hole of turning the DP to the left. And
nothing will change. Obama will campaign hard for whatever prick the DP
nominates in 2008. And left commentators, otherwise sincerely opposed to
the DP, will attack Greens or other non-DP elements for their stupidity
in running candidates against the Wellstones & Obamas of the land.

Unless we can build a core of influential organizers unalterably opposed
to the DP as such, sooner or later any really threatening social
movement we build will be assaulted by a Gene McCarthy, a McGovern, or
an Obama as presidential candidate, and then that movement will melt
away into the DP, leaving behind scattered sectarians & other riff-raff.

Hence it is slightly misleading to write, "If Kerry wins on November 2,
he should become the enemy on November
3." Kerry is not the enemy; the DP is. Besides, if he wins this year, a
Republican will win in 2008.

Carrol