[lbo-talk] Who Set People Up for Disappointment and Demoralization? (polls as scientific form of prayer?)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com, Fri Feb 25 15:42:50 PST 2005:
>We had this little election last year. The antiwar candidates got 
>creamed in the Democratic primaries, and the guy who started the war 
>in Iraq got re-elected. I'll try posting this again to see if it 
>makes any impression this time:
>
>At 4:53 PM -0500 2/19/05, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>[excerpt from my radio interview with Tariq Ali, broadcast Feb 10 -
>>will be posted shortly - I must confess that the "people have spoken
>>and we disagree" line is originally from Liza, not me]
>>
>>DH: You thought it was important to defeat George Bush in November.
>>That didn't happen, so what do you think of the second Bush
>>administration and the political prospects surrounding it?
>>
>>TA: You remember I pointed out - against all those who said that a
>>victory for Bush would help the antiwar movement, and people would
>>concentrate their minds on building up movements - I pointed out
>>there would be demoralization in the ranks if Bush was re-elected
>>because it would be a sign that the American public was going for
>>him. The fact that he had 2 million more votes than Kerry or
>>something like that is an indication that the anti-Bush forces had
>>failed to win the masses, to use an old-fashioned phrase. I'm not
>>that interested in the electoral vote; the popular vote is actually
>>very interesting. It was a big victory for Bush, and people should
>>take stock of that. It reflects something in American society which
>>they were not thinking about. Which is why people like me felt
>>instinctively that a defeat for Bush would be seen globally and in
>>the United States as a tiny step forward regardless of Kerry's
>>politics. The fact that [at] the inauguration of Bush the turnout of
>>the opposition, dissenting voices was so pathetic is an indication
>>of how demoralized people are, which I must say, vindicates the
>>position some of us took at the time.
>>
>>DH: It's hard to imagine what message the demonstrators would carry:
>>"The people have spoken, and we disagree"?
>>
>>TA: Yeah, exactly. Basically, if there had been a massive antiwar
>>upsurge after Bush's election victory it could have been reflected
>>in "Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupation" but that's not
>  >how things worked, alas.

But who set many people on the (broadly defined) left up for 
disappointment and demoralization after George W. Bush's reelection? 
The very intellectuals and organizers inside and outside the 
Democratic Party -- including you and Tariq Ali -- who said that 
defeating Bush by electing John Kerry was the most important thing. 
That's a recipe for diminution of anti-war and other political 
activism whichever ruling-class party wins: if Kerry had won, people 
would have gone home, thinking that the job was accomplished; as it 
happened, Kerry lost and Bush won, far more decisively than in 2000, 
and people who were led to think that electing Kerry was their main 
hope for change got their hope dashed.  Left-wing intellectuals and 
organizers shouldn't encourage people on the (broadly defined) left 
to look to the Democratic Party to do what they want, even just to 
defeat the Republican Party.  That's a false expectation.  I hope 
that you and Ali won't do the same thing in 2006-2008, but your 
post-election analysis gives me a sinking feeling that you'll do 
exactly the same thing all over again.
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>