> Brad Mayer wrote:
>>
>> Man, the ABB crown is really showing its true colors: Screw progressive
>> politics, lets court rightwing ideology instead.
>>
> ABB applies to those leftists (or "leftists"?) who at the beginning of
> the year proclaimed that while they repudiated the DP in general, this
> year was different, and (a frequent expression) "they would hold their
> nose" but vote for the DP candidate. It is true that as the campaign
> heated up, many (most, all?) of them increasingly argued not for
> "Anybody but Bush" but for "No-one but a Democrat," and implicitly more
> and more their arguments were not even specific to this campaign but
> were arguments which, if held to, will continue endlessly into the
> future: they will join Nathan, completely rejecting the progressive
> course of building a mass movement independent of the electoral arena.
This happens every election cycle, but this cycle was particularly severe.
What concerns me now with all this talk of appreciating the "moral values"
issue, is that a sector of the ABBers will now tack permanently to the right
and into the Democratic Party. Perhaps that is what Doug means by "facing
up to the world as it is, man". But is is consistent with Clintonism.
>
> The DP did, wonderfully, fulfill it's central task for the last century:
> it blunted and absorbed the anti-war movement, which now must be rebuilt
> almost from scratch.
>
> [A real mass movement of the left obviously must be much more than
> purely an anti-war effort, but (as always) that "much more" is not (nor
> should it be) part of the initiating thrust. And (as always) we build a
> more comprehensive movement _within_ a Movement that Says NO!.]
I think the priority for the immediate period should be to pull together the independents from the MWM, Greens (which as a party probably needs to be dynamited, it is hopelessly compromised - not to mention heavily white middle class, not uncoincidentially- its time is past), etc and found an independent political party. Now. And agreed, it should not be purely an electoralist party, especially in the US context.
I'm not keen on demos for the sake of demos. A demo at the Bush Ignorable (sp? :-) will just look like sour grapes and fit right into the rightwing frameup. This is different from 2000, which should have been physically prevented from happening, given its illegitimacy. But not this time.
Demos should be reserved to counter specific acts of aggression by the ruling political regime, for the time being.
-Brad Mayer