>Doug's constant refrain that no one running to Kerry's left could
>have beaten Bush, r, is in my view a trivialization of the whole
>Democratic Party question. No, neither Nader nor Kucinich could have
>beaten Bush. But today's political framework is the cumulative
>result of past decisions, including the repeated decision of many
>leftists to support the Democrats as the lesser evil. The Democrats,
>in turn, have followed the lead of the Republicans for the past
>twenty-five years, and were the "liberal" party of the American
>empire before that. An independent leftist party would enter
>elections not with any hope of winning at first, but with a view to
>gainig a platform for its ideas and changing the nature of mass
>politics over the course of years and decades. Such a party may also
>consider that the road to change doesn't run exclusively, or even
>primarily, through electoral politics. There is no quick fix for the
>mess we're in. Even continuing economic slide and further Iraqi
>disasters won't propel people leftward without a left political
>pole, and maybe not even with one. But definitely not without one.
>
Actually I think the trivialization comes when people say "We need a left party!," as if the process of getting one were self-evident. Yeah, of course the problem is the cumulative result of past decisions - but those decisions are also the result of our legal structure. So how do you organize this (very desirable) party under the constraints of our constitutional/federal system?
Doug