[lbo-talk] When Social Democrats Don't Vote for Social Democracy. . . .

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>[lbo-talk] Social Democracy
>andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
>Mon May 30 14:01:13 PDT 2005
<snip>
>we do have a product to sell, a whole line in fact, I should not 
>have to remind you:
>
>National health insurance
>Genuinely adequate pension protection
>A shorter work week
>Higher wages (sorry, Mike B, we are talking realism here)
>Retirement at 60, not 67 or 70
>Free or highly subsidized higher education
>Peaceful and respecful relations with the rest of the world
>A more progressive tax structure with fewer loopholes.
>A revitalized union movement
>Stronger environmental protection
>More public transportation
>A public school system that is equitable and effective
>
>It aint revolutionary socialism, but if we could win three of those 
>goals in the lifetime of our youngest reader, we'd have succeeded 
>enormously.

Winning even JUST ONE of the above goals would be a great victory for 
American workers, but the problem is that social democrats in the 
United States do not advocate voting for social democracy. 
Ironically, it was mainly leftists to the left of social democrats 
who favored the candidacy of a man who put forward a social 
democratic program that incorporated not just one or two but most of 
the above goals, whereas social democrats by and large opposed it 
vigorously.  I know, I know -- if only Ralph Nader had looked and 
dressed like Omar Sharif, (or if only Dennis Kucinich had looked and 
dressed like Martin Sheen), and if only the Republican presidential 
candidate had been Lincoln Chafee, Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, 
Olympia Snow, George Voinovich, or some other man or woman who 
doesn't scare the living daylights out of them, instead of George W. 
Bush, they would have all advocated voting for a social democratic 
program rather than a BIG FLOP (formerly a flip-flopper) from the 
Democratic Party.  Since we will never see such a happy coincidence 
of a moderate Republican candidate and a presentable third-party (or 
far-left Democratic) candidate, however, it is safe to conclude that 
social democrats won't vote for a social democratic program in 
actually-existing electoral politics -- at least not in the near 
future (2008 being the contest of Jeb Bush vs. "Walking Eagle"). 
That being the case, what should US leftists to the left of social 
democrats do?
-- 
Yoshie

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