I'm surprised by the depth of your denial. Is there something deeply embarrassing about advocating voting for the Democratic Party as the lesser of two evils, which the majority of (broadly defined) leftists -- including LBO-talk subscribers -- did? Many US leftists -- including yourself -- aren't against building social movements, provided that social movements are NOT independent in electoral politics, i.e., NOT running candidates to the left of Democrats and risking increasing the chance of electing Republicans. Essentially, that's the default model of politics on the left in the United States: a combination of politics of protest and interest-group organizing in non-election years and support for the Democratic Party in election years. Why not own that as your model?
John Kerry's defeat -- against the least popular incumbent since Richard Nixon -- should make US leftists realize that refusing to challenge the Democratic Party electorally runs the SAME RISK of increasing the chance of electing Republicans as running candidates to the left of Democrats, for submission on the left and dissolution of social movements in election years make Democrats move to the right as Kerry did, making themselves indistinguishable from Republicans and leading low-income voters to stay home and many white middle-income voters to think that they might as well vote for Republicans rather than Republican Lites.
If running candidates to the left of Democrats and becoming resigned to the Democratic Party's rightward march both run the risk of electing Republicans, why not choose the former, as the former at least gives leftists a better chance of consolidating our strength, conducting political education, etc.? The latter makes leftists lose worse than the former. -- 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/>