--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
I do agree that leftists can achieve nothing, even more minor reforms, by working in or with the DP. If minor reforms are to be gained through the DP, those reforms will be gained without any participation of leftists, who are too few to effect either general or primary elections."
No doubt about this statement. Sometimes it's possible to elect a somewhat progressive democrat to the state assembly, but as soon as he/she wins the party primary, he/she will be deluged with business money for the main election.
As for the minor reforms, that's precisely the raison d'etre of the DP -- the little tweaks that keep the people happy with the present system.
BobW
> There are quite a few things in this post I disagree
> with, but I also
> think it constitutes a highly useful survey and
> analysis of "Where We
> [Leftists] Are Now." As such it offers a useful
> framework for further
> consideration and discussion. I do agree that
> leftists can achieve
> nothing, even more minor reforms, by working in or
> with the DP. If minor
> reforms are to be gained through the DP, those
> reforms will be gained
> without any participation of leftists, who are too
> few to effect either
> general or primary elections.
>
> Carrol
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [Marxism] Cretinism, electoral and
> otherwise
> Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 22:55:22 -0400
> From: Joaquin Bustelo <jbustelo at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Activists and scholars in Marxist
> tradition<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu>
> To: unlisted-recipients: ; (no To-header on input)
> CC: 'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition'
> <marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu>
>
>
> Nestor and other comrades have expressed surprise at
> Luko's outburst
> against "electoral cretinism" on this list, and ask,
> "what is electoral
> cretinism anyways?"
>
> "Electoral cretinism" is a form of a disease first
> described by Doctor
> Karl Marx as "parliamentary cretinism" and it is
> perhaps useful to go
> back to Dr. Marx's original description of the
> condition. He spotted a
> particularly virulent outbreak among the Left or
> Democratic party in the
> Frankfurt Assembly, a parliamentary body set up
> during the German
> Revolution of 1848-1849:
>
> "They had, from the beginning of their legislative
> career," Marx wrote,
> "been more imbued than any other faction of the
> Assembly with that
> incurable malady Parliamentary cretinism, a disorder
> which penetrates
> its unfortunate victims with the solemn conviction
> that the whole world,
> its history and future, are governed and determined
> by a majority of
> votes in that particular representative body which
> has the honor to
> count them among its members, and that all and
> everything going on
> outside the walls of their house—wars, revolutions,
> railway-constructing, colonizing of whole new
> continents, California
> gold discoveries, Central American canals, Russian
> armies, and whatever
> else may have some little claim to influence upon
> the destinies of
> mankind—is nothing compared with the incommensurable
> events hinging upon
> the important question, whatever it may be, just at
> that moment
> occupying the attention of their honorable house."
>
> "Electoral cretinism" in its purest form is
> parliamentary cretinism by
> proxy. It is the delusion that the (usually
> extremely distorted)
> parliamentary reflection of the clash of real social
> forces IS the
> actual battle, and therefore that the outcome of the
> battle depends on
> who the Left succeeds in getting elected to
> legislatures, rather than
> the outcome of the parliamentary battle depends on
> the relationship of
> forces in broader society.
>
> However much THAT disease may be rampant on the U.S.
> Left (and there is
> no question but that it is, the
> QUANGO/non-profiteers, labor
> bureaucracy, and Stalinists of various flavors being
> more-or-less
> permanent reservoirs of infection) that is clearly
> not what Luko meant
> nor is it something you'll find much of on this
> list.
>
> I believe that what Luko was referring to is the
> derivative of
> "parliamentary cretinism by proxy," in other words,
> electoral cretinism,
> the illusion that some electoral initiative or
> combination can somehow
> reverse the deepening crisis of the U.S. Left.
>
> I believe the use of the term "electoral cretinism"
> is legitimate,
> because the illusion arises from the idea that since
> so many of the
> masses suffer from full-fledged "electoral
> cretinism," by going into the
> electoral arena we can attract the attention of the
> masses, some
> followers, and thereby reverse what appears to be a
> death spiral.
>
> Like Luko, I just plain don't believe it, and
> postulating some magical,
> Deus-ex-machina united left ticket in 2008 is simply
> one MORE way of not
> facing up to the crisis.
>
> * * *
>
> Decades ago, I think it was in the 1977 interview
> with Barbara Walters,
> Fidel was asked whether he thought there would be a
> socialist revolution
> in the United States, and he answered yes, but that
> he thought it would
> take 300 years, although perhaps American
> revolutionaries would not
> agree with him on that.
>
> I remember thinking then that Fidel was wrong, or
> perhaps he was just
> trying to telegraph that he was being diplomatic
> with his aside about
> American revolutionaries. And that certainly, not in
> a few years, but
> within my lifetime, there would be a revolution in
> the United States.
>
> I have since developed a much keener sense of the
> possibility for
> historical twists to surprise me, but also, I think,
> a keener sense of
> actual historical possibilities, or at least
> likelihoods.
>
> And looking back at the 30 years since Fidel made
> that statement, I'd
> have to say that history has once again absolved
> him.
>
> Looking at it socially and politically, and not
> chronologically, we'd
> have to say we are further away from a socialist
> revolution is the
> United States today than then. The left of 1977 was
> qualitatively
> stronger in every way than it is today. The unions
> were stronger. The
> social movements were stronger. The socialist
> political organizations
> were stronger. And it's not a question of how many
> decades or centuries,
> the essence of Fidel's assessment was that it was so
> far away you
> couldn't even see it from here.
>
> There are objective reasons for this, but there are
> also subjective
> ones, and they are the ones I worry about. The left
> in the United States
> squanders the BULK or its potential and resources.
> Our organized
> socialist groups have dozens, hundreds or perhaps
> --in the case of the
> ISO-- one thousand members. I believe there easily
> could have been a
> socialist group in the United States today with
> five, ten or fifteen
> thousand active members. The people exist, even
> today. What doesn't
> exist is the group that would make it possible. Nor,
> I have become
> gradually convinced over the past few years, do the
> OBJECTIVE conditions
> exist that would make it possible to easily or
> quickly overcome the
> SUBJECTIVE reasons that make that unity impossible.
>
> So my conclusion is that it is going to be a tough,
> hard road that we
> will have to travel, a road that will have to be
> made by walking, but
> that it will be possible to advance on only with a
> machete
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