<HTML><HTML>In a message dated 11/9/04 5:29:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, lbo-talk-request@lbo-talk.org writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I have a doubt, but maybe I don't count. Who do you think could have defeated Bush? Maybe Jesus Christ himself, but short of that, who? Dennis Kucinich? Ralph Nader? Wake up, stop dreaming. Doug </BLOCKQUOTE> 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.    </HTML>