[lbo-talk] This time it's a September Surprise on Romney

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Sat Oct 6 12:28:43 PDT 2012


Shane: "Finally on American National Elections. The capitalist establishment is determined to present them exactly as Wojtek does--as a ritual religious spectacle that makes no difference to anything important. And that is exactly what they are to them. But the populist movements (from Debs to Nader and Stein) have always, rightly, seen them in a very different way: as an opportunity that the rulers are forced, against their will, to have access (as limited as they can make it) to a national forum in which to present our critiques of, and alternatives to, their policies and their powers--and so lay the groundwork for a majority movement that can really challenge them. For us, that in itself is important; and denigrating our effort to do so, as Wojtek does at every opportunity, is not exactly a positive contribution to American political life.

[WS:] Maybe - but how do you explain the fact that no populist candidate - Debs including - never gained more than 6 or so percent of the popular vote? You certainly do not believe that the results were rigged.

The problem with elections is a part of larger group of expectations that a singular event - be it election of a new president, ascent of a new tsar to the throne, or a revolution abolishing the latter - can fundamentally alter the course of a society. Generations of lefties, drinking the coolaid of the October Revolution, subscribed to this. However, I take the view proposed by Gramsci that it takes far more than changing the government to alter the course of society, as government is only the tip of an iceberg of "civil society" - a was array of social institutions that uphold the bourgeois order independently of the government. -- Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."



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