Marty Jezer wrote: > ... I despair for the left when > anyone who tries to present a balanced, that is objective, picture of where > America is today is read out of "the movement," which increasingly seems to be > like a fraternity more than a movement, where you have to cheer lead 100% and > know all the right ideological -- and I would say, knee-jerk -- constructs. Presenting an "objective" picture is itself a difficult proposition given what each of us consider to be the criteria for making an objective analysis. We also cannot be expected to have identical criteria for defining who is or isn't a part of the movement but we each have a right to set our own parameters. Mine are based on my own years of political experience. > SNIP Jeff wrote: > >Genuine campaign reform is no more likely to happen under one administration > or another and Marty replied: > > It's passed in one form or another in four states. And yes, as I said, it will > take a mass movement and grassroots pressure to have a chance in Congress. If > Jeff has given up on one of the necessary structural reforms that would make > other reforms possible, what's the point of being involved in politics? There are other forms of political struggle that do not focus on working within the two-political system that are not only far more rewarding in terms of the personal relations involved but more productive as well. For example, in San Francisco, on Tuesday, a grassroots coalition backed by only $132,000 was able to pass a proposition that will put the brakes on the current program of gentrification, and ethnic and economic cleansing that is making the City uninhabitable and unaffordable for anyone making less than $100,000 a year. They were up against Mayor Willie Brown and a pack of developers who spent at least $2.3 million dollars on slick mailers and TV and radio ads to defeat them. The coalition was made up of mostly, but not exclusively young people, Latino, white, African-American, Asian, gay and straight, Greens and anarchists, and a quite a few disaffected Democrats. The $2.3 million was the most ever spent on a local ballot proposition. Not only was this effort successful, a number of anti-Brown, people's candidates were successful in getting to the run-offs for the supervisors seats now open under the reinstituted district elections. As for genuine campaign reform, it will remain a chimera as long as it is opposed by the AFL-CIO--they're the folks who brought us the PACS back in 1963--and as long as the majority of politicians can get their campaign coffers filled. Each year, as I wrote, we see the same charade illustrated by the same headlines with the same conclusions. Since the Supreme Court declared donating money an act of free speech. most giving is protected. As far as four states passing reforms, that has little to do with the national government, since the public has no opportunity to vote directly on any issue. Jeff Blankfort >
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