> If the Democratic Party has a base, wouldn't it be best for the left, such as it is, to focus its attention on that base?
MG: My viewpoint, of course. But I'd qualify it by adding only if with patience and respect and a conviction that party supporters are no less capable than we once were of advancing beyond a liberal political consciousness, in the context of a struggle and with the assistance of others. On the other hand, better not to pay attention to the party base at all if you are seized with contempt and look down on it with an air of smug superiority encapsulated in Micheal Smith's infelicitous remark yesterday that DP supporters are "termites". This level of hostility and alienation can't be disguised, and doesn't win friends or influence people. Such interventions only discredit the left and are counter-productive in unions, union-based parties, and other working class organizations.
> Michael Y.: And if this is so, then there are many ways to do this, and especially now that various mass actions, such as OWS, the Wisconsin uprising, and the like, have shown that the base is restless and ready for action. Why hurl insults at one another? People in the cornfields can do what they can there, and people in the big cities can do the same. Some are good at big things, some at small, but aren't all needed? Some are good organizers, some are good writers, some are good at logistics, and so forth. And maybe the fact that some have had to make compromises to secure unity isn't relevant to others in other circumstances.
MG: Yes, and this also corresponds to my view, which I've expressed on many occasions. Struggles in the streets always seek to attain their objectives through legislation, so electoral activity is inseperable from mass action, rather than in opposition to each other. It would be better if the workers had their own parties as they once briefly did, but in this historical period both the US and European social movements have sought to realize their demands through the liberal bourgeois Democratic and social democratic parties respectively, while attempts to revive socialist parties continue to fall flat. It is not sufficient for radicals to harangue workers to break with these parties from the sidelines; the workers will have to go through their own experiences, inside and outside of these parties, to begin moving away from them. But to underscore your larger point: recent events indicate that growing numbers of beleaguered Western workers are restless and ready for action in the streets without having yet abandoned their party allegiances, and the important consideration is to make contact and work with it in whatever arena it expresses its discontent.
> Michael Y.: I will say one thing that I am pretty certain about. The Democratic Party is the enemy of the "base." It will never not be the enemy.
MG: If you're consistent with what you've said above, you'd reformulate this to say the DP LEADERSHIP is the enemy of the base. The Democratic Party also includes its supporters. They still for the most part identify with the party and its leaders, and oppose those who are hostile to it, which speaks to the pitfalls of indiscriminately attacking the party. The party's supporters are comprised of the left's historic natural constituencies - trade unionists, blacks, women, academics, etc. - and are the left's actual and potential allies. In other words, the DP is a CONTRADICTORY formation whose leadership and base have conflicting impulses which can potentially bring them into conflict, and it seems to me that the US left should try to exploit this contradiction, rather than turn away from it.
> Michael Y.: So let's not decry the evils of capitalism and then hold our noses and vote for Obama and the Dems. That's talking left and walking right.
MG: I have a lot of respect for list members like Charles Brown and Julio Huato, for example, and reject any suggestion that they "talk left and walk right" because because they support Obama and the Democrats. In fact, I consider them to be far more serious political people than the armchair wiseacres on this list who not only talk left, but like to shout it from the rooftops, without having anywhere near the history of engagement with community and working class struggles - and the knowledge gleaned from this practical activity - that Huato and Brown have. Just so there is no room for misunderstanding, I also regard yourself, Henwood, Farmelant, and others as serious political people, without regard to yourself stance on the DP. That's the point: the orientation to the DP does not matter much at this stage, one way or another, in the absence of an internal struggle in the DP or the appearance of a viable third party to its left.
> Michael Y.: Better not to vote. I last voted for a Dem president in 1972. And even McGovern is now an asshole. Fight with and for the base.
MG: This is to make a fetish of the vote, and to pay too much undue attention to the McGoverns and Obamas and Blairs at the top. I doubt anyone on this list has "illusions" about these party leaders, so you are wasting your time trying to dispel them. Again, it simply doesn't much matter at this time whether the US left calls for a vote or abstention because it is not in a position to influence events, and even the most sympathetic Democrats are unlikely to break with the party in the absence of an alternative, for reasons I've explained elsewhere. The only effect of this perennial discussion is to provoke heated debate and division on the US left, with nothing productive that I can see resulting from it.
When I was active in the NDP - the Canadian counterpart of the Democrats - I sometimes voted for the NDP and at other times I abstained, depending how the mood struck me, and always on the understanding that it wouldn't make much difference, from my perspective, whether the party won or lost. But it was an important venue for reaching the organized workers and social activists, and I didn't rub my differences with the party and its leadership in their faces. I neither wanted to, nor could I, hide my differences but, working in conjunction with comrades and disaffected party supporters, I tried to broach these "defensively", recognizing that the majority of members were still fundamentally loyal to the party, its program, and its leadership, whatever gripes they invariably had.
Things didn't turn out inside or outside the party as I had hoped, but I didn't consider at any time that I was "talking left and walking right" and doing anything other than "fighting with and for the base".