> As a white, relatively well-off leftist who's denounced the Dems as
> an obstacle to human progress on many occasions, I have to wonder
> whether that attitude depends on my own privilege. As I recall, back
> in 2000, Rakesh quoted his wife as having no patience for Nader
> supporters because black people look at a Republican and see a
> Klansman's bedsheet, so they couldn't take the "not a dime's worth of
> difference" attitude. I've kept that in mind ever since. While we can
> lament the awfulness of the Dems, the group of Americans who feel
> most vulnerable to the possible good or evil that state policy can do
> take the partisan difference pretty seriously. An organizer for the
> Working Families Party in NYC once told me they pretty much had to
> endorse Hillary for Senate, even though she's precisely the kind of
> Dem that independent/third-party organizers should be targeting,
> because their black constituents are so fond of her. And the WFP's
> constituents are the core of any nonsectarian left movement. Anyone
> doing political organizing, rather than mere opinionizing, would have
> to take that seriously, no?
If you are talking about political organizing within the system, then yes, you'd have to take this into account.
If anything, the fact that around 80% of African Americans support a party which is essentially no different than the other party means that leftists should stop putting African Americans on pedestals. We should criticize this political position just as we should criticize those African Americans who talk about religion all of the time.
The problem here isn't so much that woman or African Americans are stupid and can't see through the Democratic Party con, but that they haven't been through that radicalization process and paradigm shifts that we've been through. They don't know that there are alternatives. They are firmly planted in the Matrix-like bubbleworld of American politics wich tells them that Republicans are evil racists and Democrats "care about people."
For example, did anybody see the Daily Show segment last night about political children's books? Many of you have probably heard about that hilarious book "Mommy, there's a liberal under my bed." The Daily Show, in another display of brilliant fairness, found a guy publishing "liberal" children's books. This liberal guy showed off some book which used cute furry animals to convince kids that liberals "helped people." The author of this book isn't much different than the conservative guy in that they firmly believe in the fantasies about their own parties.
Chuck