> So, I'm asking a question: do the ABBers really think of Bush
> re-election as an emergency? The answer is that they don't -- they
> merely use the rhetoric of emergency as a scare tactic, trying to
> intimidate or guilt-trip Greens and other independents into backing
> _any_ Democrat.
Well, that's one way to state this view. Another way would be this:
"Dear Ms/Mr. Green (Labor Party, etc.) Voters:
"You have a perfect right, of course, as an American voter, to vote for your candidate in your state, which has a large number of electoral college votes and where the race between Bush and the Democratic candidate is so close that your votes will throw those electoral college votes -- and given the closeness of the nationwide situation, the whole electoral college -- to Bush. And this time, probably, the Supremes won't even have to get involved.
"In return for casting your vote this way, may we of the ABB Club ask a tiny little favor? Will you give us some reason to believe that, while the Bushies are turning the thumbscrews down on the U.S. population as well as the rest of the world for four more years, your splendid efforts to organize your beautiful third party will bear such glorious fruit that it will compensate in the end for the damage you did by throwing the election to Bush?
"Best regards,
"Your ABB friends"
My problem, you see, is that, while I fully agree that the Democratic Party is largely a pile of shit (this weird Iowa caucus thing is only one example of the warts on the donkey's face -- though third parties are quite capable of pulling weird non-democratic stunts, too, as we've seen over the years), it very unfortunately happens to be the U.S. working class's pile of shit of choice at the moment. Lots of fine folks are knocking themselves out trying to organize a better party for the proletariat's interests, and their efforts should be applauded, but for whatever reason, the proletariat isn't buying what they're trying to sell. Indeed, a fair percentage of the mass of toilers is even prepared to vote for the unspeakable W over the Green Party, the Labor Party, the Socialist Party, etc., etc., or even a Democrat such as Kucinich.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to sit down and spend a little time trying to figure out why this is happening? Why the Shrub appeals to so many workers, manifestly contradicting their basic interests? Why perfectly reasonable ideas such as single-payer health care, fairer union organizing laws, a more progressive tax system, etc., are not appealing to the folks they should be appealing to? And meanwhile, wouldn't we really all be better off with even a so-so Democrat, tool of the capitalists that he might be, than the Shrub?
What the argument comes down to, I guess, is this: is the Shrub so awful that it's more important to be rid of him than to go on trying to organize a third party for a few months (given that even if tremendous efforts were thrown into campaigning for, say, the Green Party, it would be lucky to break into the 1% or 2% level in November)? Or conversely, is a 1% or 2% vote, or a bit more, for the Greens such a great trophy that we should celebrate it lustily while Bush's legions roll into, say, Syria or Iran or wherever they are planning to invade next? And the globe warms up at an accelerating rate for 4 more years? And so on? (Assuming that a Democratic president would not invade such countries and would try to do something about global warming -- iffy assumptions, I grant.)
Of course, this is a difficult judgment call. Trying to decide how to make it involves a lot of thought and in the end it might be impossible to decide on any empirical evidence. But simply assuming that the ABB people are class traitors and the third-party folks are working class heros is a little hasty, I think.
(Also, of course, if the race in November is not very close -- due to really lousy economic and Iraq situations, perhaps -- this whole dispute will be irrelevant. Knock on wood!)
(And BTW, my Plan B is to organize the resistance to the Shrub which will probably grow markedly if he is re-elected, and continue trying to figure out why the U.S. working class is so unconscious of its interests.)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax