> I am, yes. 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.
One big problem with the whole Carrol-Brad-Yoshie (can we abbreviate it as "CBY"?) line is their failure to analyze objectively and scientifically the reasons for the present nature of the U.S. political system. They do not have a sufficient appreciation for the historical process by which we have arrived at this juncture. Therefore, they suppose that all that is necessary is repeatedly to exhort the citizenry to line up behind them.
The first step that a really clear-minded leftist would do is to learn to look at the world through the eyes of that most despised person, the average, not-so-brilliant American. That view of the world is very different, indeed poles apart from, that of Nader, Camejo, Cobb, and other Greenies. But unless you can understand that world-view, you will never understand how to appeal to the mass of Americans in a way that will win their support.
(BTW, I just got back from voting, and indeed I did vote for the state-wide Green candidates (except for the DP candidate for Senator). So I'm not doctrinally opposed to Greens.)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________________________ It isn’t that we believe in God, or don’t believe in God, or have suspended judgment about God, or consider that the God of theism is an inadequate symbol of our ultimate concern; it is just that we wish we didn’t have to have a view about God. It isn’t that we know that “God” is a cognitively meaningless expression, or that it has its role in a language-game other than fact-stating, or whatever. We just regret the fact that the word is used so much.
— Richard Rorty