[lbo-talk] When all that choice means having no choice

[Kevin Robert Dean]

John Bizwas wrote:
> Does choosing between one of the two beliefs below help us to take on the pro-war, pro-business, anti-democratic forces who rule the US?
> 
> 1. We can defeat them by supporting a real progressive in the Democratic Party. This would require getting involved in the workings of the Democratic Party.  It's interesting to note that, if national convention delegates of the Democratic Party represent an elite, just how much of that elite was flat-out against the war in Iraq (NOT pro-multilateral war or pro-UN-sanctioned war). Still, the best they could do was go along meekly with a bandwagon that said the Dems had to choose Kerry, since pro-Kerry people rigged the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire to create the Kerry bandwagon, and Kerry wass supposed to be electable with right-wing Democrats, independents and swing voters. 
> 
> 2. We can defeat them by standing united outside the two parties (seeing the Dems as the worse enemy of progressivism, popular fronts, and revolutionary politics). What I'm not clear on is how this is supposed to be done in the current US. Third parties or movements that get any media attention in the U.S. actually seem to give more voice to nationalist right wing types than leftists. 
> 
> Will a major Kerry defeat help to bring about the end of the Democratic Party as we have known it for the past two decades? Will a major defeat in Iraq and subsequent economic crisis bring about an end to the two-party-as-one system(all those oil states and E. Asia won't want to buy anymore US federal government military debt)? 

I don't know about #2, but there were quite a few people on this list 
who felt that one of the only candidates who actually stood on a solid 
progressive platform was too weird because he also happened to believe 
in something that had to do with forest creatures.  Rather, they felt 
since he was not part of the religious main stream, it was better to 
support a candidate that wouldn't support most of what is needed for 
social change simply because he was a Catholic.

So if you are an atheist or someone who isn't part of main stream 
religious ideology and are at the same time a leftist--forget about it!