On May 10, 2008, at 3:12 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>> But the people who demand specific solutions, like single-payer
>> health
>> care, don't seem to think so. People for single-payer health care
>> may
>> *not* want to forget the presidency.
>
> Well, I think that's a mistake...if we're talking about serious
> political
> action, then forget about the presidency...
Mistake. The presidential election is always central to mass political consciousness in every fourth year. If supporters of Medicare For All or Justice For Palestine or Withdrawal From Iraq have nothing to say about the presidential election, that is exactly how much we will be heard and how much we be able to advance those issues. And if a candidate who retains some residual sympathy for those issues--while running on a program carefully crafted to exclude them--can take our support for granted, his commitments to the Insurance, Zionist, and Militarist lobbies will be honored in full and four years on we will find ourselves in the same sack. The only hope that Obama will do anything meaningful is if the left can apply the sole sort of pressure that politicians understand--the threat of withholding our votes. That is why the only politically effective course possible is one that offers a meaningful electoral alternative, not protest votes for candidates with zero national name recognition. And in this election that means Nader-Gonzalez.
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus."
Herakleitos of Ephesos