>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>Hasn't that _always_ been true, though, since FDR? That's an
>>argument for ABR (Anybody But a Republican), not for ABB (Anybody
>>But Bush).
>
>The Rep party has gotten worse. 43 is far more awful than his father.
The Republican Party shows no sign of getting better, though. What if the Republican candidates in 2008, 2012, 2016, ad infinitum will be worse than George W. Bush? You'll keep supporting the Democratic Party?
>>You complain of US activist culture mirroring "the pragmatic
>>empiricism of the dominant culture," with few interested in works
>>of such theorists as Bakunin, Marx, and Fanon (Liza Featherstone,
>>Doug Henwood, and Christian Parenti, "'Action Will Be Taken': Left
>>Anti-intellectualism and Its Discontents,"
>><http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Action.html>). It's no
>>wonder, however, that pragmatic empiricism dominates activist
>>culture, for it is _the_ philosophy of submission to the hegemony
>>of the Democratic Party. You don't need any radical theory to keep
>>supporting the Democratic Party empirically and pragmatically as
>>the lesser evil.
>>
>>The Democratic Party = the Death of Theory.
>
>The party itself doesn't even represent the death of theory because
>it never had a living one that I can remember.
Precisely. As long as activists are compelled to look to the Democratic Party -- the party of no theory -- empirically and pragmatically as the lesser evil, they have no need for theory like Bakunin's, Marx's, and Fanon's -- they will be stuck in activistism, refusing to "to reflect on its own impotence" (Theodor W. Adorno, "Marginalia to Theory and Praxis," _Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords_, trans. Henry W. Pickford, qtd. in Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood, and Christian Parenti, "'Action Will Be Taken': Left Anti-intellectualism and Its Discontents," <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Action.html>).
>one could vote for a Dem yet maintain a long list of reservations
>and criticisms
Drawing upon Peter Sloterdijk, Slavoj Zizek sums up the subject of ideology in today's world: "They know very well what they are doing, but still, they are doing it" (_The Sublime Object of Ideology_, Verso, 1989, p. 29). The Democratic Party doesn't care if subjects have "a long list of reservations and criticisms" -- it only cares if they support it by giving money to it, canvassing for it, voting for it, browbeating Greens and other independents into supporting it, etc. In fact, the Democratic Party, like ideology, thrives in the very "reservations and criticisms" that subjects maintain, for the consciousness of maintaining "reservations and criticisms" allows subjects to feel that they are not naive dupes -- they are in fact cynical and critical -- even while supporting the Democratic Party. "They know very well what they are doing, but still, they are doing it."
>I wish one of you would respond to my argument that a Dem president
>provides a better discursive and organzing environment for more
>radical critiques of The System.
If that's the reason for supporting the Democratic Party, we'll have to support the Democratic Party at least every four years -- when will we have time to discourse and organize for a mass party to the left of it? What's the point of "radical critiques of The System" if they have to be shelved every four years?
Mike wrote:
>Might I point out to Yoshie and others that had Hubert Humphrey been
>elected in 1968 we would have single payer in this country, since
>Nixon vetoed a quasi-single payer law that Humphrey certainly would
>have signed?
Humphrey could have won if he had publicly opposed the Vietnam War sooner, but he didn't, so he lost.
It's been my opinion (since at least early October 2003) that Bush is finished <http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2003w39/msg00141.htm>. Any Democrat -- even Kerry -- should be able to beat Bush.
In any case, Kerry sounds more hawkish than Bush:
***** Kerry warns of 'cut and run' in Iraq Democrat assails Bush policy; aide keeps open possibility of sending more U.S. troops By Tom Curry National affairs writer MSNBC
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - In a major national security address Wednesday Democratic presidential contender John Kerry was sounding an alarm about premature U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. "I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy," Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Massachusetts senator accused Bush and his aides of a "sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal without adequate stability," which he called "an invitation to failure."
He contended that it would be "a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle" to accelerate the transfer of authority to Iraqis so as to allow "a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops."
Send more troops?
Kerry foreign policy advisor Rand Beers told reporters Kerry "would not rule out the possibility" of sending additional U.S. troops to Iraq.
"It is very clear the number of troops is inadequate" in Iraq, Beers told reporters in a telephone conference call previewing the speech.
Kerry's first preference, he said, would be to persuade foreign governments to deploy more troops to help share the burden with Americans.
But by not foreclosing the possibility of dispatching more U.S. troops to Iraq, Kerry seems to have changed his position and to have repositioned himself as a more hawkish alternative to Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean. . . .
Kerry's speech comes at a time when Democrats are moving to outflank Bush on both the doveish and the hawkish sides.
On the left, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich continues to press for rapid withdrawal of all U.S. forces, while on the hawkish side, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, just back from a tour of Afghanistan and Iraq, called for more U.S. troops in Iraq. . . .
The argument for more troops in Iraq got articulate support Tuesday from Iraq expert and former Clinton administration National Security Council official Kenneth Pollack.
"We desperately need more people. We need more civil affairs officers . . . . There are not enough of them; they are horribly understaffed," Pollack argued in a talk to policy-makers and reporters at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"We desperately need infantry, lots more infantry than what we have got right now" in Iraq, Pollack said. . . .
<http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3660748/> *****
***** Kerry says U.S. military needs 40,000 more troops December 17, 2003 BY MIKE WILSON
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Tuesday he would expand the U.S. military within his first 100 days as president, contending 40,000 more troops are needed to meet America's responsibilities around the world.
Kerry told supporters at Drake University that the occupation of Iraq as well as the global war against terrorism require more troops.
''In the face of grave challenges, our armed forces are spread too thin,'' said Kerry, a Massachusetts senator and one of nine Democratic candidates. . . .
<http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-dems17.html> ***** -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>