i can't believe a man with your intelligence can state such nonsense. after decades of watching and participating in (evidently) the democratic party's race to the bottom, you still fantasize that with just a bit more activism you can change a sow's ear into a silk purse? the triumph of hope? over knowledge, common sense, experience, reason and practicality.
>For all I get portrayed as a Dem-Clinton apologist, I spent much of the
>1990s organizing against him on many issues, from NAFTA to welfare reform,
>probably doing more actual organizing against Clinton than many of his
>bashers on this list. To me this is the norm of politics-- you don't
>elect the perfect person, you elect the best person you can, and keep
>organizing, often against the candidate you campaigned for.
right: you elect a person so you can spend the next four years wasting your energy and time fighting his right wing agenda. you spend four years pissing in a rain storm.
of course you don't elect a perfect person. there are no perfect people. however, nathan, your agenda isn't to elect the best person you can. your agenda is to elect the person the democratic party winds up nominating. you falsely believe you have some impact on this decision.
you support someone like kuspinach in the primaries in a futile effort to preserve the remnants of your dignity, but wind up allied with whoever the party spits out until it's safe to be the loyal opposition.
organizing against clinton isn't the issue. the issue is the kind of moribund party that would nominate a DLC, right wing neo-dixiecrat in the first place. and keep on doing it. the kind of a clown the republicans can tie up regarding an idiotic issue like his affair with monica lewinsky. a man who puts himself above everything. a man who helped drive the nails into the struggling democratic left/liberal wing, of which i assume you believe you are a part.
from NAFTA to welfare reform covers a multitude of sins, including Waco. did you loose every one of the issues you organized against?
>The rhetoric of avoiding the lesser evil is a kind of electoral utopia.
>Instead of the election being the beginning of organizing, it's seen as a
>kind of endpoint where organizing is then unneeded afterwards.
no more utopian than the fantasy of a progressive agenda in the democratic party.
nathan, you've already written that you're going to vote for the lesser of two evils. did you forget?
it's impossible, as anyone knows, to avoid a choice of lesser evils when the dominant parties in the USA are the republicans and the democrats. as nader said, the choice is between the evil of two lessers.
>I fully expect Kerry to be inadequate on a range of issues.
care to start naming them?
> I just expect
>that my organizing and the organizing of other progressives will be more
>effective with him in the Presidency than Bush. The rest of the story
>will be up to the strength of progressive organizers to be effective.
>
>nathan Newman
if your idea of effectiveness ranges from zero to one on a scale of ten, you just might.
what impact are progressives, as you call them, having on kerry now?
R