[lbo-talk] Tariq Ali Endorses Kerry . . . for the Battleground States

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Tue Nov 2 06:50:16 PST 2004



>But I think people like Carrol, Brad, and Yoshie think that the
>tasks are self-evident: "smash the DP, build an independent left."
>This is very very hard. There are massive organizational, legal,
>and ideological constraints on doing so. You can't just shout at
>people, "Vote for Nader!" when they think that voting for Nader is
>like pissing in the wind. You can't organize a MWM two weeks before
>the election by telling people to get over their attachment to the
>DP. You can't fight the deep structures of American "common sense"
>by exhortations.
>
>Doug

I don't think that the task is self-evident. If it were, there would be no need to discuss it. Nor have I said that it would be easy -- rather, I discussed extensively here what leftists who are willing to work to build an alternative to the Democratic Party (in contrast to those who are committed to reforming the Democratic Party) should be doing in concrete terms, without avoiding discussion of structural constraints against which we will have to push.

One thing ought to be clear, though. You can't fight "the deep structures of American 'common sense'" by trying to reinforce them, e.g., by helping the Democratic Party avoid important issues and evade popular solutions, by helping the Democratic Party rebuild its electoral base, and by exhorting everyone to vote for Kerry everywhere, doing what you can to deny all anti-war candidates any votes anywhere. -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * 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/>



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