I part ways with Comrade Carrol on this one. Wellstone is "better than" Bush. I think it's a version of 'single-factor blindness' to argue otherwise (and strategically, the Left does nothing to help its necessary cause of reaching a broader base by being 'single-factor blind'). Whether he, or Gore, etc. are better enough is the crucial question, and given the Democratic Party's embeddedness in corporate America and policies which serve corporate America it's not better enough for me, as I've stated. I don't look to the Democratic Party to be 'that much better' because of their structural base in corporate America, their ideological boundaries, etc.... But I also don't rule out the conceivability, that with a growing mass mobilization around the issues Nader addressed (the capitalist economy figuring centrally in these; constituencies revolving around those who bear the multiple costs of that economy, etc.), the Democratic Party could be 'captured.' I am not devoting my energy (or diverting my energy) with that goal, however, as DSA does for instance. I'm working for the local chapter of the Labor Party, and send support to both the New Party and Green Party.... But, the future cannot be tightly predicted; these parties could fail in a number of quite plausible scenarios.... The Left needs to guard against co-optation by 'lesser-of-two-evilism,' etc., but it also cannot be blind to both the ultimately radical objective of system transformation and the enormous obstacles in the path of any third party effort. Ted Morgan Carrol Cox wrote: > Richard Schneirov wrote: > > > Nader voters hurt their closest > > friends and helped their enemies. > > > > But, sometimes the lessons of history have to be relearned. > > We have no friends in either of the parties. To speak of being > between them is as silly as to speak of being between Hitler > and Goebbels. There will be no progressive movement, no > substantial reforms, not breaking of the War on Crime > (currently the greatest evil domestically) until the Democratic > Party is utterly discredited. The Democratic Party is not > by any conceivable fantasy parallel to the German Social > Democratic Party. The German CP made a political error > in the late 20s and early 30s with its "Social Fascism" line. > Scattered progressives in the United States today are making > an almost equally great error by their absurd fantasy that > they have friends in the Democratic Party. Wellstone is > ultimately no better than Bush. > > Nader saw that. The parallel today to the German CP of > the '30s consists of those progressives who did not fall > in behind Nader. > > Carrol -- Ted Morgan Department of Political Science Lehigh University Maginnes Hall #9 Bethlehem, PA 18015 Phone: (610) 758-3345 Fax: (610) 758-6554
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