Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Feb 19, 2008, at 7:57 PM, Voyou wrote:
>
> > Now, running a third-party presidential candidate might in
> > principle be
> > an element in a genuine political mobilization, but the point is that
> > it's the mobilization which is important, not the presidential run.
>
> Bingo. Though it would seem that a presidential campaign isn't the
> place to start a mobilization, but to advance an existing one.
>
There are not a few leftists, scattered individulas and small groups, who accept the premise that political advance (whether in substantial reform or in revolution) must come through a mass movement outside electoral politics. But not very many us have any formula by which such a movement may be willed into existence, nor would very many of us, I suspect, claim the ability to predict the form such a movement will take nor the occasion(s) which might bring it into existence. Put another way, we find ourselves struggling in a war of position taking difdiverse forms and around diverse issues in different localities. What we all have in common, whether long engaged or newly activated, is that we keep trying this and trying that, and as we do so the number of experienced local organizers grows at least at a rate to replenish those who burn out or die.
Various kinds of electoral work outside the two partiess, wherever that becomes possible, always involve meeting new people, gaining experience in working together, maintaining whatever local vistibility and structure that exist. If some economic, political, military combination of events does begin to energiseand excite broader masses of people, we will be there. (Read the whole background which created a Rosa Parks and companions waiting, waiting for the right time to act the tired lady who suddenly had had enough. (Ther ehad been other such events over the years. Had her act not triggered a movement, someother similar act would have in a year or a few years.)
There are probalby several thousand people around the U.S. who know each other because of Nader's campaigns, just as there are thousdands who know each other because of various other activities over the last 20 some years. Anyone who has a better idea simply outght to go out, find a couple friends, and start implementing the better idea.
CArrol