Julio Huato added: So, the decision has to be viewed not as individual or isolated. It has to be viewed as collective -- even if the collective body to which one belongs by chance or choice doesn't quite (yet) jell as a political force. It's about political motion. By Newton's first law, little motion is better than no motion. Errors of commission are much better than errors of omission. Collectively, we learn more by committing than by omitting.
Charles Peterson scribbles: I love the image of voting as a collective, not an individualistic act. This has really changed my mind, in spite of all I've been reading here, and by Krugman, about Obama. I've flopped back to Obama for awhile anyway. I get to vote in March.
I may have little cred here, but I voted Socialist in 1996 and Green in 2000, so I'm not a knee jerk Democrat. But since then I've come to see "protest" votes as wasted, and along protest non-votes. We may have come slightly closer to privatizing Social Security under Clinton (saved by Monica) than Bush, but it's hard to say, and by and large I've never been as scared of the future of the place where I happen to live as I am right now as a result of the disasterous debacle of Republican rule. I look back to the Clinton era as a relatively upbeat era, and in fact economic inequality eased up at least temporarily. Things don't look so good now, with multiple disasters at play at once, and I include two long running wars, we could be staring down the abyss. I don't think that abyss leads to socialism, it leads to fascism, particularly in this depoliticized time.
Last year I was pushing for Kucinich. Then Edwards. Even for a while Obama. Any Democrat but Clinton.
After all everything here, and by Krugman, I was thinking for awhile that "rationality" (which I don't believe in mostly) would have me vote for Clinton. Damn, but the best economically available choice anyway.
Now I've also been hearing from one of my friends in California. A progressive in viewpoint, but basically non-political. But she really drunk the Obama Kool Aid last year, read two of Obama's books in a book club, and has since become seriously involved in the machinery of electoral political activism. I think it's been a transformative movement for many people like that. And if we leftists really believe in democracy, we ought to get out ahead of that instead of undercutting it. People are being inspired to act.
If nothing else, they're learning. They may be disappointed in the end, but that's part of learning too.
I cautioned her to keep an eye on her politico when and if he actually gets elected. Naturally, she says, he's even asking for that.
Despite Krugman's hairsplitting, I think we all pretty much agree in this case there is very little difference between Clinton's and Obama's stated "positions" (Obama mostly on the right, perhaps, but occasionally to the left of Clinton) and they don't really mean a lot anyway. But in charisma, style, electiblity (I hate that, but concede it's worth something running against media darling McCain, who has considerable independent drawing power despite being a Bush clone, it's like people never learn about these wild "straight talking" flyboys they'd want to have a beer with), Obama wins in spades. And I think Obama is attracting a more progressive base. Clinton, and her husband, have a history after all. They tend to preach progressive, and I like that better than not, but then then they turn around and do the opposite. Maybe give this new guy, and his minions of star gazed worshippers, a chance.
About Obama's "organizing"? Not much to compare on that score. Clinton had more years as a corporation defending attorney, which she now counts as "public service."
That's the system we've got, which doesn't look changeable in a positive direction without a lot more learning. Pick your classroom. As for me, I'm not up to organizing anarchists, arguing Marx, or joining and undermining the local Republican Party, though I imagine some people would get kicks out of those things. I also think it would be easier to take over the Democratic Party, a barely functioning beast, than the whole USA. There ought to be a closet socialist running as a "Democrat" (or even Republican) in every uncontested slot, especially when it looks like there may be a rout one way or the other. And there's a lot of similarity in all parliamentary systems, even "socialist" ones: corrupt insiders, populist base, and moles. Learning is transfereable, but inactivism is not.
Obama gets so much more criticism here, it also suggests he must actually be the one closer. As people get farther, you just don't care.
Charles Peterson San Antonio, TX
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