--- Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> There is no guarantee that your vote for any of
> these candidates will
> help provide access to health care that many of us
> don't have or can't
> afford. The Democrats promised health care in 1992.
> Lots of progressives
> got excited about this promise and supported Bill
> Clinton. Look at the
> situation after 8 years of Clinton I. And if any of
> these people get
> elected, odds are that they would give us a
> state-run health care system
> that sucks. Yeah, I'd like something, which would be
> better than
> nothing, but I see no reason to vote. As an
> anarchist, it's better to
> support activism and direct action that at best
> could win a much better
> system and at worse provoke the system towards
> reforms.
[WS:] I have to agree with Chuck on this. What candidates promise bear little relation to what they do after they get elected. This pertains to both Dems and Repugs. Bush was chastising Clinton for the use of the military for "democracy building" overseas and was promising fewer foreign interventions that we got under Clinton. This was from the man who gave us Iraq, Afghanistan and sabre rattling against Iran and a host of other countries.
I think that the fundamental error that Americans in general (including many lefties) make about politics is to see is as a celebrity contest among individuals.
This leads them to errouneously belive that if they only pick the "right" idol - things will be different. In Europe, by contrast, party politics trumps personality cults, so for Euroepans this American infatuation with personal charisma of candidates seems rather naive. What is more, Europeans, especially the "surrender monkeys" French ar enot afraid to call a general strike and go into the streets, if they do not like what their government are doing. Americans, by constrast, shhepishly swallo th ebullshit dished out to them from the pulpit, ansd wait for the next opportunity to vote for another political idol.
The bottom line is that unless there is a general mobilization for progressive causes, it will matter little who gets elected to the White House, Obama, Hillary, McCain, Huckabee, Kucinich, Gravel, or even Karl Marx himself. Since I do not see that such general mobilization of the US society is likely any time soon, it really does not mater that much how you vote in the primaries. I would still insist on voting Democrat in thegeneral elections, because Dems are slightly less obnoxious than Repugs and it does not cost anythig to vote, there is a net gain there.
Wojtek
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