You wrote:
>The question that leftist should be asking is why each POTUS is worse than
>the last one on big-ticket items (e.g., class polarization, US citizens who
>don't have health insurance, scales and frequencies of foreign wars and
>interventions, etc.) since the mid-1970s, rather than thinking of minor
>differences between the two ruling-class parties' candidates, and what we
>can do to reverse the trends. If the only thing that leftist do is to
>compare the two ruling-class candidates and choose the lesser of two evils,
>we will be not only unable to reverse the bad trends but rather
>contributing to their reinforcements.
>Leftists should be building our own movements and organizations independent
>of the Democratic and Republican Parties, so that we will be prepared to
>fight on, whoever gets elected.
I agree that the whole political terrain has shifted to the right since the mid-late 1970's (see last message to Woj), and of course both a) slavishness to the Dems, including DSA- style "inside-outside" strategies and "left wing of the possible" approaches and b) 18th Century electoral structures and rules have deprived the US left of an autonomous home. And I agree that third party-building that does not take a breather once every four years, in tandem with pushing for IRV and/or other mechanisms of proportional representation is crucial. I was merely musing out loud about the entirely trivial matter of one person's voting decision (i.e., mine), taking into account the constrained choices of the present.
All that said, I detect (perhaps wrongly, please advise) a slippage away from a profound internationalism in your analysis. While I do not believe in categorically subscribing to Chomsky's refrain that "small differences translate into big consequences" given US might (especially when the character of those differences is one of tactics rather than orientation), I do not categorically reject it either. What I have my sights trained on (perhaps narrowly) is the semi-peripheral peasantry and working class (especially China's peasantry and working class) as the global system's proto-revolutionary class. Accepting the miserable reality that either Bush or Kerry will win the election, which outcome opens up the most space for China's sweatshop proletariat, its 200 million floating migrants, its downsized SOE toliers, etc. to agitate, to organize, to erupt. Bereft of sufficient theoretically-savvy empiricial analysis, I certainly don't have the answer, and it is entirely possible that the election of one versus another regime in the US does not yield an outcome that passes a meaningful threshhold, but I think these are the kind of questions that are meritorious to pose and to answer among dyed-in-the-wool internationalists.
>The rich and powerful Democrats are simply making use of the AnybodyButBush
>rhetoric. They will try to keep and exploit the mailing lists that they
>built through this election cycle and use it to defend the John Kerry
>administration from social movements and against any challenges from the
>left in future election cycles, recycling this cycle's rhetoric and tactics
>and inventing new ones. The question is how many of rank-and-file Democrats
>will break company with the Democratic Party elite and how soon they will
>do so.
Well, yes and no. There are reprehensible figures like Soros (who has no qualms about the democratic implications of personally bankrolling the "loyal opposition") and his hangers-on (the despicable Hollywood liberals, the Al Frankens and Janine Garafalos, the makers of _OutFoxed_, etc.), and then there are the avowed "hold your nose" ABB'ers, who consciously recognize that after early November, the heat must be turned up. You may vigorously disagree with the latter crowd, but it is a mistake to conflate them with the former.
John Gulick Knoxville, TN
_________________________________________________________________ Don’t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/