> I have mostly ceased
> arguing with advocates of this hopeless policy, only occasionally going
> on record, as in this instance, with the prediction that the next growth
> of the will (as in the past) ignore the electoral process completely,
> focusing rather on the type of mass struggle which from the
> abolitionists to the present has been the direct or indirecet source of
> needed social transformation.
========================
The two processes - social struggle and political action - are intertwined and inseparable, though Carrol, like the anarchists, begs to differ. Let me then ask Carrol to identify those reform movements "in the past" which, as he claims, "ignored the electoral process completely". That for the universal franchise? The eight hour day? The right to organize and strike? The Civil Rights Act? The ERA? An end to the Vietnam War? Were the abolitionists whom he cites indifferent to the outcome of elections in the period leading up to the Civil War?
The struggles of workers, blacks and other national minorities, women, gays, anti-imperialists, etc. have expressed themselves not only in the streets but also electorally. We may wish things were otherwise in the US, but for want of a better alternative the Democratic party has been the chosen political vehicle of these movements for implementing their demands in the legislative, regulatory, and judicial arenas. Outside the US, the social democratic parties have served the same function. Which is not to say the DP or the social democrats have always or mostly performed this function well.