Honeymoon? Ha!
I spent yesterday at the Durham Road Fire Station, voting point for Precint 08-08, Wake County (Raleigh) North Carolina. I arrived at 7:30 AM about one hour after the polls opened and stayed until 6:30 PM, one hour before they closed.
The rain fell all day, alternating between a grey drizzle and a gulley-washer.
I printed 650 flyers that began with the statements: “I am an not a liberal. I am not a Democrat. And I urge you to vote a straight Democratic ticket here today,” then went on to explain why — emphasizing my status as a retired member of the US Armed Forces, the oath that is taken in that service to defend the Constitution, and briefly outlining the most egregious violations of the Constitution by the Bush administration… a sort of populist appeal, with enough facts to give it a bit of real nutrition.
I was there totally on my own, having made no coordination with the Democratic Party (which in North Carolina, at the state level, is a cesspool). I didn’t have an umbrella (slowed me down, when I chased people around the parking lot), so I went through four layers of clothes throughout the day. There was one Republican operative there, with yellow voter-guide cards that he asked people to recycle to him at his desk under a Cadillac-sized umbrella. It’s a Republican precinct, as a rule.
White folks vote their color hard out here, where fashionalbe clothes and shiny mortgaged gas-guzzlers conceal a primitive ignorance and hostile, defensive insecurity even among the mostly college-educated Research Triangle Park denizens. After a full day there, I was confirmed in my belief that late capitalist culture stupifies in ways that cut us off from 90% of the deeper experiences that are unique to humanity, and leaves us trapped in the psychic Potemkin village of a hellishly vapid consumerism. (We refer to this as… “freedom.”)
At any rate, the Democrats, lacking poll-tending capacity, let this one go unattended. I was their sole representative, and dissing them in my appeal to support them. (Tactics can happen in dirty, dirty places.)
I had taken a coffee break at around noon, then re-descended on the polling station, so by the time my daughter got off work and came to vote at 5 PM, and dropping me my last change of clothing, she told me I was going to get sick. Jayme still thinks that people catch cold by getting wet. My argument that — given how much time I spent in the infantry — I and thousands of others should be stone dead of ague, has never convinced her of her error.
My conservative SWAG is that I managed to put flyers in the hands of around half of the voters. I spoiled around 50 of them during downpours, so that tells me there were at least 1,200 folks that showed up on my shifts. Extrapolating the before and after absent-times and the coffee-lunch break, we probably had around 2,000. The round-and-round parking lot became an intermittant goat-wrangle because of insufficient parking, though the lines indoors at the actual poll were very well-managed and orderly.
This was a unique and important opportunity for me to see this many people in one day who share my zipcode.
When I came home, after dropping a great heap of wet clothes on the porch to retrieve later, I demolished a plate of steak, macaroni-and-cheese, sweet peas, dirty rice, a glass of lemonade, and a quart of Heavenly Hash ice cream. My body began warming after this gluttony, and my metabolism’s tachometer dropped way back. I felt I weighed around 700 pounds, and stretched out on the floor — mentally alert, but corporeally comatose — where I began watching election returns.
The fascination of watching this cross-center shift that carries with it the power to subpoena kept me up all night, and here I am, on caffeine life-support, blogging out my contradictory feelings and a few analytical impressions (if that is not an oxymoron).
The first impresson I have to note is that the Democratic Party as an institution is a corporate-and-Wall-Street-funded behemoth of rank opportunism. They used the growing opposition to Bush’s energy war in Iraq as a battering ram, but in the process of making this breach will probably sacrifice the interests of women, African Americans, and immigrants to glide the winds of white xenophobia and thuggish patriachy that swirl over the post-Nixon Republican South.
The greatest downside of this election for the (institutional) Democratic Party is that the very issue that factored most heavily in this essentially anti-Repbulican election is opposition to a war for which have so far been able to wriggle free from responsibility. It is a downside because now anti-war forces will re-focus on them. I say that not merely as a prediction, but as a call to arms. Right now, I don’t give a rat’s ass if the Dems get figuratively slaughtered in 2008. There is a literal slaughter taking place every day in Iraq, in an unwinnable war, and we cannot allow the institutional opportunism of the Democratic Party to seek comfortable shelter behind a pending report (which is what they will inevitably do). All efforts of the antiwar movement need to be redoubled to break through the corporate media with explanations about why the US occupation must end NOW, unilaterally and completely, and to turn this into a moral and political litmus test prior to 2008 for any member of Congress. Outing Democrats for their ducking-and-dodging on this issue must be ruthless and relentless.
Note to the Democratic party: We now have you firmly in our sights, exposed. Ain’t gonna be no honeymoon. We’re not hearing that you need time. Not with the bodies piling up every day.
We also know that many Democrats are going to engage in immigrant-bashing with alarmed hyperventilations about the threat posed by the brown victims of US international policy from the Global South. Do it, and we’ll bust our asses to strip away the enhanced base of Latin@ voters who helped bring you in this year.
We know that some of them will abandon the defense of reproductive choice for women. They should be made to pay, and pay big for that. What the hell is the (electoral) choice for Choice if enough misogynistic Democrats cross-over to support the Republican agenda anyway?
I noted earlier that the most striking thing about American voters that impressed me at my polling site was the staggering ignorance of our society. Not only ignorance, but a kind of chip-on-the-shoulder defense of that ignorance. I am reminded of the VOICE song that says, “We are selfish, we are ignroant, and we celebrate these things.”
Rather than get caught on the infinitely-recycling treadmill of supporting this institution (the DP) as the lesser-of-two-evils, which frequently implies dumbing down our public discourse and evading the most embarrassing subjects, I would urge people to see this election as an opportunity to flush the Democratic Party out into the light.
It will be far more difficult now, for example, to see the US attempt to militarily redispose its forces from the anachronism of the Cold War to seize control of strategic Southwest Asia… as a Bush policy. Congress holds the purse strings to this whole project; and the Democratic Party leadership is as imperialist as any Republican. Expect to see the DP tie itself into the most excruciating rhetorical knots in order to explain what it tolerates.
What functions as the left in this country now needs to take up the mission of overcoming key aspects of our general ignorance to the point where it becomes problematic for the DP as it maneuvers over the dead bodies of hundreds of thousands of human beings to win their next goddamned election. I can make three easy-to-remember suggestions about what should be a systematic, concerted, and relentless public education effort — designed specifically to expose the DP to its own popular base, and thereby to move us closer a long-overdue and desperately-needed political crisis in the United States.
I call it the three-P’s. Patriarchy. Prison. Palestine.
(1) While the Democratic party establishment moves further to the right on the single issue of reproductive choice, there has been little effective public education on how patriarchy infects so-called liberals. They are happy to point out how the fading paternal patriarchy of the theocratic right opposes any form of the liberation of women from male-hegemony; but they are pathologically averse to discussing the fraternal patriarchy embodied in the continued sexual objectification of women in media, entertainment, advertizing, and pornography. With the effective suppression of the most radical and important sections of the feminist movement by the ersatz-feminsm of the Rophies and Paglias and the politically-averse solipsism of academic postmodernism, women have moved forward past the post-feudalism of the theocrats only to be driven obliquely back into consumerist self-objectification. Meanwhile, the vast majority of women continue to be trapped in the sexual contract of trading some form of obedience for some form of security. Given that the misogynistic superstructure of patriarchy is the fountainhead of homophobia, part of this effort must be unequivocal and aggressive support for same-sex marriage.
(2) Bill Clinton put more African Americans and Latin@s in prison than any head of state in history when he signed his Crime Bill. Politicians avoid this subject like the avian flu. Prison is the most shameful reminder that the United States is still a culturally backward and (structurally) deeply racist nation. In combination with felony-disfranchisement laws, prison is this country’s transfer of Jim Crow from segregated restrooms into a veritable gulag of highly secretive and sadistic network of invisible Hells. White American supports this status quo, and that is why both parties continually call for making this broken system that does more to perpetuate violent crime than curtail antisocial behavior… more punative, more sadistic, and more ubiquitous. African Americans and Latin@s are so powerfully affected by the US gulag that in many communities across the US, there is hardly a single family without one of its close members residing in a seething, spirit-killing lockup. Polticians do not want Americans to know what prison is really like in this country, and it is our job to make them know.
(3) Palestine is a real place, and the Palestinians area real people; and the most pivotal US ally in the region where we are paying for brutal and ultimately fruitless wars of attrition is a brutal, racist, expansionist, international scofflaw — Israel. Republicans and Democrats alike have copped to the lie that opposition to Israelis equal to anti-Semitism; and both parties fall all over themselves to prove who can be the best Zionists. This issue is near the top ot the US colossal-ignorance list. Americans — by and large — have never been exposed to anything except the Zionist point of view on the region. They still believe that Zionism is the same as Judaism, and that the State of Israel was a necessary consequence of and reaction to the industrially-coordinated murder of millions of Jews by the German Nazis. Both of these propostions are false. Beginning with public education about the USS Liberty, and working out from there, there must be a widespread, multi-media, serial teach-in effort to expose Americans to the real history of Zionism, and to the real and inhuman conditions that occupied Palestine suffers from every single day.
I hope I never go to another mass demonstration on the DC Mall; and not just because the colonized residents of DC have to empty the crappers and pick up the litter behind jillions of mostly privileged political tourists. I hope the redoubled efforts of a nascent refounded left will be focused locally, at people who share our zipcodes, and targeting politicians of both parties where they live with a War on American Ignorance. Then we might see, eventually, the emergent basis of a real politics of resistance here in the Belly of the Beast.
The honeymoon should be over before it starts. The main issue in this election was the war; and it continues to rip its way through human bodies… as women remain trapped in a psychosexual protection racket, as we exist quietly alongside the American Gulag, and while we continue to ignore the cries of those colonized by our so-called allies.
BrianR:
Wow Stan! You amaze me how you constantly redefine and update what it means to be a radical in the US. Your actions make me hopeful that we will have real popular political change beyond Dems and Repubs in our lifetimes.
I must say… I am so sick of leftists who ignore US electoral politics. ESPECIALLY local electoral politics. There is so much positive street level change possible in local government. [its deathly slow and requires hard core tenacity for sure] If we put as much energy there as we do debating theoretical politics we’d have a much better world. IMHO.
8 November 2006, 1:38 pmfalloch:
thank you for articulating the squeamish feeling I have as I read about Democrats winning (and Rumsfeld resigning) - at the risk of sounding like an old hppie (which I am), can I add one more ‘P’ to your list? Planet. If we don’t grasp the nettle soon, patriarchy will become even more entrenched, prisons will become even more populated and horrible, and Palestine will look like a picnic, as ever more horrible wars are fought over diminishing resources. The entire world with the exception of the US could change its behaviour as far as destroying the planet goes, and the effect would be minimal, because the US is so profligate.
8 November 2006, 2:21 pmStan:
Agreed. That is, in large part, what Energy War is about. I tend to think that the next obstacle on the environmental front, since there is a fairly widespread understanding that we are facing catastrophe, is to disabuse those who are already concerned of the notion of green capitalism… that there are “market” solutions to ecocide.
8 November 2006, 4:45 pmpeggy:
Stan - Thank you thank you thank you!!! You have once again shown us a plan, tactics and strategy, for what we can really DO.
Although I reside in New Zealand (where the TV news gives us more real news about the US than US news shows do) I will write to all my friends and kin in the US to read FS regularly, starting with what you say here.
8 November 2006, 6:25 pmWm. Terry Leichner:
Stan,
9 November 2006, 6:13 amI share your fear the so called liberal or progressive movement will be deluded to think there was some victory in the election results on November 7th. The elected replacements for one regime for another means little except one billionaire’s club now has its turn to erode the rights of the numbed and dumbed masses.
The media would like us to believe an incredible shift of power has taken place but when we scratch the surface we’ll find people like the former Secretary of Navy under Ronald Reagan posing as a Democrat.
We’ll continue to have the bulk of Democrats who voted to go to war and has voted to continue funding.
We have opportunist Zionists like Hillary and others who will never speak of the genocidal actions of the Israeli government in Palestine.
The electoral system is broken and won’t get up without a revolution of new political action taking place.
The revolution means the white liberal peace and justice movement needs to get out of bed with the Dems and start looking in the neighborhoods of the forgotten and marginalized to stand in solidarity with such mundane things as police brutality, diastrous school systems and lack of health benefits.
NOLA and Katrina have been forgotten except for the damn Dome being back online. Mental health problems have doubled and tripled with the mentally ill going to jail instead of treatment.
Thank you for your eloquent voice in the storm. You lead by example, brother.
Peace and solidarity
Wm. Terry Leichner,RN
VVAW Denver
ld:
Stan or anyone else for that matter,
Regarding point 1), what do you make of the fact that Ariel Levy (not eco-socialist feminist she, but hella insightful nonetheless) made a big splash and sold a lot of copies of (the poorly titled) Female Chauvinist Pigs last year? Seems to indicate that post-modern “sex-positive” (sic) post-feminism is not necessarily as culturally hegemonic as made out to be.
LD
9 November 2006, 12:43 pmAkita, Japan
ld:
Here’s what I vaguely see in the offing: the bipartisan executors of the Energy War will more explicitly and more aggressively put the Sino-Russian stategic partnership in the bullseye of their 24-hour
cable news hate campaigns. This summer, the Edwards-Kemp white paper on Putin’s Russia — bawling waaaaah! how dare they assert sovereignty over their territory and resources! “New Europe” and Yukos ill-begotten hydrocarbon deposits belong to us! in the name of universal bourgeois right! — is the sign of more to come.
LD
9 November 2006, 1:01 pmAkita, Japan
Red:
I will not add myself to the list of cheerleaders. Calling on folks to vote for a party that represents the bourgeoisie is a sinister act. Your reformism is sickening, but it’s to be expected from a former imperialist foot soldier.
The only principled approach to electoral politics in the US is to boycott them. Period.
Most working people already know that the elections are a big sham, which is why they don’t vote. They are already more revolutionary than the fake leftists who do. Trying to bring them into the dirty pigpen of bourgeois elections is then, completely reactionary.
Less votes, more action.
- Red
9 November 2006, 8:04 pmWm. Terry Leichner:
By the revolutionary reasoning of Red it seems we former imperialistic footsoldiers couldn’t be blue collar labor, union members or part of any movement beyond the bourgeois.
10 November 2006, 3:36 amIgnoring the reality of bourgeois politics is akin to ignoring the pollution that fills our lungs and contaminates our water.
The numbers of young brothers and sisters lured into the military for lack of perceived options continues to grow. Many are kids with working class parents unable to pay for education,not imperialists.
There’s no argument revolution is needed but intellectualization of revolutionary action is not revolution. Red’s solution of sitting out elections hardly seems a revolutionary act.
At least some former imperialistic footsoldiers recognize the truth and attempt to educate not only revolutionaries but the bourgeois in the realities of war and political oppression.
The oppressors count on keeping the oppressed divided by race and social conditions. Intellectual revolutionaries too often prevent solidarity with a rigid adherence to their own dogma.
Linda Jansen:
So Stan urged people to vote for the Dems who overwhelmingly have supported Israel in its genocide in Palestine and savage bombing of Lebanon.
Will anyone who didn’t see your flyer, Stan, remember anything but your call to vote Democratic?
Sitting out seems a more honorable action than supporting (Dems won’t know your vote was a “protest”) the Dems.
10 November 2006, 10:47 amLinda Jansen:
Additionally, you all joined these folks, who supported the Dems:
10 November 2006, 10:49 amhttp://www.smithbowen.net/linfame/
Stan:
Okay, I am officially excommunicated from The One and Only TruE Revolutionary Party (TOOTER), because I failed to raise the banner of Revolution!!! while talking with hundreds of people on election day. If I had, they would have instantly seen the pure and perfect correctness of Marxism-Leninism-Trotskyism-MaoThought-Bob-Avakian-is the-messiah-Whathefukever, and flocked to my banner, whereupon we would have expopriated the Raleih landlords.
Staw men and guilt-by-association… look them up, y’all. They are fallacies, counterfeit arguments.
Go back and review the Holy Texts of the One and oNly True Revolution, and you’ll find what Cde. Lenin said about “critical support” (what I suggested for the Dems in this election). The support we give them turns into a noose.
As to my personal “honor”, I couldn’t give less of a shit. Honor does not win struggles. Tactics do.
Some of the stuff above is self-caricaturing. Go out and spout that off to any of the hundreds of people I met on election day, and see how far it gets you. You are phrase-mongering to a non-existent revolutionary mass-movement… which is a bit delusional, doncha think?
And this:
“Most working people already know that the elections are a big sham, which is why they don’t vote.”
I don’t know how many times I have heard this, but there is not a scintilla of evidence to support it. It’s typical orthodox-left spin that is pure wishful thinking.
Most working people know more about Brittney Spears and Who Wants to Be a Milionaire? than they do about a map of the US. I had to practically bribe my own working class daughter to vote; and her reason was not that “she knew it was a sham.” She didn’t know how congressional committee chairs were appointed, or why that might be signficant… and she was tired after coming off the job.
10 November 2006, 12:16 pmRed:
So now the true liberalism emerges: the real problem with the system is that people don’t know enough to vote.
Hey Stan, I think the League of Women Voters accepts volunteers for their “voter education” and registration drives.
10 November 2006, 2:18 pmDoug Nielson:
Hey Stan,
10 November 2006, 2:39 pmI was thinking to launch an attack on your support of the Dems but then I thought better of it.
Instead, why don’t you post a copy of the leaflet you passed out to people. I bet I could find enough material in there to really let you have it. Please!
cj sterritt:
Many of us were with you in spirit as you stood in that rainy parking lot.
I live in CA so no need in my area at least to go the extra mile
Thnak you
10 November 2006, 6:00 pmStan:
[The flyer]
I am not a liberal.
I am not a Democrat.
And I urge you to vote a straight Democratic ticket today.
I spent most of my adult life in the United States Army. I retired out of 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), in Fort Bragg, in 1996. My first assignment in the military was to Vietnam in 1970 as an infantryman with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. There were two huge problems with that war, aside from the fact that it was an invasion of other people’s country that did nothing to make the US more secure (like Iraq). (1) The US government put itself in a position where it was politically difficult to get out, and (2) the US military was put in a position where it was militarily impossible to win. These two conditions now exist again in Iraq. I have two sons in the Army, and one has been to Iraq four times. This is a bad war, and it is not going to get any better. And I know that Democrats co-signed this war. But the Republicans, who are enjoying one-party rule, under the guidance of a dangerous clique of very warlike non-warriors, have not only overseen this bad war, they are attempting to militarize domestic policy. They want to control us. They have engaged in serial violations of international and national law, and with a lockstep Republican majority in the US Senate and US House of Representatives, they have forestalled any independent investigations of their malfeasance.
The Democratic Party is at least motivated, by the 2008 elections, to open investigations. But they must have a majority in order to take control of the committees who will have subpoena authority to conduct investigations.
The invasion of Iraq was a violation of the UN Charter, to which the US is a signatory. The detention of people (without any rules of evidence) without recourse to due process or representation in secret camps, and authorizing torture of detainees, are violations of the Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signatory. Spying on American citizens without a warrant is a violation of federal statutes. Detaining American citizens and residents without charges is a violation of the Constitution of the United States.
During my military service, I swore five times to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.†So here I am.
Voting Democratic is not endorsing Democrats right now. It’s putting the only speed bump we have at our disposal in front of a scofflaw regime that is stepping on the gas as it drives us all down the Road to Ruin.
* * *
This message is not from any political party. It is from Stan Goff, a retired Army Master Sergeant who did armed service in eight conflict areas, and a writer who lives in Raleigh. He lives and votes in this precinct.
10 November 2006, 8:52 pmStan:
Oh… and Red,
The League of Women Voters. Do you know any of them? I know a few, and they seem to be really decent, serious people. Moreover, they have more impact on society than your sectarian phrasemongering.
But then, Real Leftists wouldn’t be caught dead talking to them. They might be contaminated by their liberalism. Real Leftists don’t talk to anyone who is not as evolved as they are, unless it is to badger them with high-flown, archaic language cribbed from the St. Petersburg Soviet.
I am so ashamed that I am being excommunicated from the clique-without-a-movement. Oh, how shall I bear it?
10 November 2006, 8:58 pmRed:
More impact on society? It’s clear you lack a working class outlook, again understandable after so many years as a murder merchant for the imperialist blood suckers. Social being does determine conciousness you know.
What kind of “impact” do they have? You know absolutely nothing about me, where I am, what kind of political work I carry out, what organisation I belong to, etc., so you lack the basis to determine what impact I do or do not have.
But yes, I could only wish to have the sort of impact you did while handing out leaflets in support of one of the twin parties of the exploiters to a bunch of middle class suburbanites.
-Red
MODERATOR’S NOTE: “a murder merchant for the imperialist blood suckers”? You can go attack Mensheviks somewhere else, Red; because you are done here. Bye.
10 November 2006, 9:34 pmRequired:
to red: BUUURRNNND!
to Stan: Oh, brother, how I wish the sectarian sacks that I had to argue with would read what you’ve written.
10 November 2006, 10:37 pmLinda Jansen:
From the NYTimes:
“Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who is in line to become chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Congress must be the agent “to make it clear to the Iraqis that we cannot save them from themselves.â€
“They need to make the political compromises that only they can make,†Mr. Levin added. “We’ve got to let the Iraqis know there is no open-ended commitment.â€
“Mr. Levin has for several months advocated linking the presence of American troops to political progress in Iraq, a stance that Pentagon officials had dismissed as reckless but that is now gaining wider, even bipartisan, support. While there is no language yet for such a resolution, he indicated that it could describe the requirements for continued American military commitment to Iraq, and some specified number of months for its duration.
“At the end of this time period, we would begin the reduction of American forces,†Mr. Levin said. “I think such a resolution would have tremendous power on the president. It would not just represent a bipartisan majority of Congress, and its urgent recommendation. It would be a reflection of the people’s voice as expressed†at the polls.”
Stan, Mr. Levin does not sound like someone who is going to bring justice to the Iraq situation. He is threatening the Iraqis, the nation he and his Congress invaded illegally and have occupied killing hundreds of thousands of people. Does he talk about that? No. The Dems won’t do that. Even the NYTimes knows that.
11 November 2006, 12:08 amdoug nielson:
OK, I read your leaflet. It looks like you did a little campaigning for the Democrats.
11 November 2006, 12:12 amSo now your credibility is somewhat tied to the Democrats upcoming performance.
I have a feeling the Democrats aren’t going to be returning any favors to the anti-war community for it’s support, so I don’t look for them to be doing anything very much different from what they have been doing. Maybe you know something I don’t. You seem to think their pledge to investigate is going to make a significant difference. We’ll see.
There must be some other political vehicle down there besides the Democrats that you could latch onto or build from the ground up.-Doug
James M:
Hey Red - your interaction with Stan reminds me of one I had not 15 minutes ago with a certain pamphlet-waving Larouche-ite who accosted and harangued me outside a coffee shop. He was obnoxious, arrogant, self-righteous, and his pupils were wide enough to tell me he was high on something, even if it was just ideology. Without knowing a thing about me, he had the temerity to suggest I wasn’t doing enough to stop the Bush administration; he even repeated your charge against Stan, that we’re going to content ourselves with something like the “soft tyranny of liberalism.”
I will submit that your type of ideological puritanism, and his, typically comes from privilege — the privelege of one who’s been comfortably distanced enough from reality to have never been required to make temporary tactical alliances with enemies-of-enemies, and who’s never been faced with the hard choice, due to economic necessity, of becoming a “murder merchant” for the state. By the way, your stereotyping of the military will, I’m sure, gain you a great following with the workers of the world.
Best of luck, and good riddance.
11 November 2006, 1:01 amElaina:
Snap!
At least he’s off here. Funny how these folks will spew any and all manner of misogynist bullshit whenever their “revolutionary” masculinity is called into question here- and yet they’re somehow magically “all about the working class” when it comes to talking elections.
For the record I didn’t vote; I didn’t scratch out the time away from work to figure out that whole absentee-ballot thing. I let the damn shit slip up on me. Wasn’t any act of percieved revolutionariness on my part; but I have been plugging away at organizing the people for hours and hours on end, for what it’s worth.
Anyways.
11 November 2006, 1:12 amWm. Terry Leichner:
Damn,Stan,I thought Red was trying to recruit all us imperialistic foot soldiers and murder merchants to be part of some “newer and better” revolutionary army to purge all the lefties, liberals, progressives and League of Women Voters with all his sweet talking, well reasoned and insightful bullshit.
11 November 2006, 7:08 amSo once we get rid of all the bourgeois ranters and wannabes, what’s left…or right??
Funny how it’s some folks who use words like comrade, solidarity and revolutionary that often seem to have the more obnoxious ways of interacting with a dumbass grunt like me.
I guess I’ve not evolved to the state of self actualization yet.So,hopefully, you making a lot of sense to me won’t reflect badly on you.
Peace
Wm.Terry Leichner, Psychiatric RN
USMC combat infantryman
I Co. 3/5 ‘67-69
Required:
I would like to say that my “burned ” comment was in reference to “I am so ashamed that I am being excommunicated from the clique-without-a-movement. Oh, how shall I bear it?” That was the last post on the page when I hit submit.
I can relate to it. I’ve been trying to convince a few activists to ignore and work around the cliques-without-a-movement in my city. The argument the activists offer is that the cliques have resources. My response to that is that they don’t have anything we could get if we were creative.
Thinking about it these cliques are king of like the energy sinks Stan talks about in Energy War. You will never get out as much energy as you put into them. Mainly because they spend so much time selling papers in the most archaic time wasting way they can imagine. Cause as we all “know”, that’s what Lenin did. I wonder how many of these groups realize that their “public” forums on “what would Marx\Lenin\Che say today?” are not that far removed from the What Would Jesus Do? mentality that fundamentalist Christians employ.
11 November 2006, 8:45 amStan:
Stan, Mr. Levin does not sound like someone who is going to bring justice to the Iraq situation. He is threatening the Iraqis, the nation he and his Congress invaded illegally and have occupied killing hundreds of thousands of people. Does he talk about that? No. The Dems won’t do that. Even the NYTimes knows that.
Linda, if you will go back and read what I’ve written, there is not the slightest suggestion that I have any of these illusions about the Democratic Party. So you are tearing up a scarecrow.
I make a distinction between the Democratic Party AS AN INSTITUTION, and the DP’s popular base. That popular base included millions of people who are opposed to the war.
I am reluctant to infer the motives for those who have transformed “never vote Democrat” (and sometimes even “never vote”) as some kind of “revolutionary” categorical imperative. But I will. It is a thirst for revenge against Democratic Party operatives for doing all the bad things that they do. Carl Levin is a perfect example. He is despicable; and I have seldom enjoyed television as much as the day that Galloway took him to the woodshed. But vengeance is seldom a good tactic.
What the Dems will and won’t do is not a matter of predestination, any more than Rumsfeld’s resignation was. These are responses to changes wrought on the political terrain to which they are bound. (I suppose thinking tactically is part of my former social existence as a “murder merchant.” — not directed at you, Linda, and for the recorde ed was thrown off because he was flaming, name-calling, and his remarks about the League of Women Voters raised my misogyny-alert flag).
For the record, Barbara Lee is also a Democrat, and she has a better voting recordon the war than “socialist” independent Bernie Sanders. Cherry-picking Democratic Party actions to prove that they are Bad (1) is not totally honest, and (2) has no bearing on the argument I made for critical support for one particular election. My argument was that the Republicans with total power had no intention of ending the war and their base was fully in support of that position; the Democrats are all over the map, but they do have an “Out of Iraq” Caucus, and the majority of their popular base wants out of the war. They will certainly duck and dodge, but their vulnerability to that base cannot be exposed as long as they are on the sidelines, saying, “Oh sigh, we are in the minority, and alas there is nothing to be done.” The only way to empower the base vis-a-vis the institution was to put them into a positon to do something, so we can quit pressuring Republicans (for aforesaid reasons) and increase the vulnerability of the Democrats (now they have something to lose if they don’t respond to the antiwar movement).
DOUG: OK, I read your leaflet. It looks like you did a little campaigning for the Democrats.
True.
So now your credibility is somewhat tied to the Democrats upcoming performance.
Not true, and not even relevant. None of this was about MY credibility. In the terms of a murder merchant (I can;t resist this), what matters is the effect on the target.
I have a feeling the Democrats aren’t going to be returning any favors to the anti-war community for it’s support, so I don’t look for them to be doing anything very much different from what they have been doing. Maybe you know something I don’t. You seem to think their pledge to investigate is going to make a significant difference. We’ll see.
No, we have to do more than see. We have to aim our activist efforts directly at them. You are still talking as if they exist in a parallel universe where they are not subject to anything except their own initiaitve. The fact that they have to twist themselves in knots is proof that they do not. I don’t “think their pledge to investigate is going to make a significant difference.” I don’t even claim to know or care about any of their pledges. This is a kind of judicial episteme that wants to observe them so we can render a judgement. My own bias is for a tactical episteme that observes, figures out what is required by popular forces to cut off their avenues of escape, cuts them off, then waits for their next move.
There must be some other political vehicle down there besides the Democrats that you could latch onto or build from the ground up.
Build what? Who is latching onto Democrats to do what? People are already organized, in thousands of ways. We go to where they are organized, and “latch onto” the masses where and how they are already in motion, and contest within existing organizations for the hegmony of our own ideas and actions. I read something earlier on churches. The biggest antiwar organization in North Carolina right now, and the own with the biggest popular base, is the NC Council of Churches. They are already organized.
11 November 2006, 9:09 amdoug nielson:
Stan,
You say that it isn’t about your personal credibility. Then you shouldn’t have started and ended your leaflet by talking about yourself. It seems to me that maybe you should have replaced all the personal information in your leaflet with information about some political group that you were either part of or just starting up, something to the left of the corporate controlled Democrats. The focus of your leaflet could have been, join with me and others to help keep the pressure on after the election. You could even just start a study group, somewhere for people to have open and honest discussion outside of the stultifying top down Dem. Party.
You didn’t have to tell people to vote for the Democrats. You could have provided information the way you did and criticized the Dems and the Repubs the way you did but just leave off the part about your recommendation of who people should vote for.
People can decide for themselves what to do in the face of such shitty choices. Would you really hold it against anybody if they decided to vote for neither party.
I believe you’ve stated elsewhere on your blog that you are dealing with a lot of right-wing Republicans in your area. The way you started out your leaflet with the statement that you are “not a liberal†followed by an explanation of your military service and your desire to “defend the constitution†would seem to indicate that you are trying to appeal to this conservative element. You seem to be saying, in essence that it’s possible to be a conservative and still vote for the Dems. No kidding!
If what I’m seeing is correct you are attempting to reach over to the right of the Dems to pull people toward the Dems. It’s interesting how your strategy of looking to the right nicely dovetails with the strategy of people like Hillary Clinton and the DLC. Maybe you think this is some kind of stage thing where the first task is to get everybody into the Dems before you can get them to move further over to the left.
Wouldn’t it be better to now start building a home for people somewhere to the left of the Dems. Why is your only choice between recruiting people to, say, the Freedom Road Socialists or the Democrats. Couldn’t you start trying to build some kind of coalition between the two. You could start a coalition where people with a range of political backgrounds come together around practical activities and educate each other in the process.
In short, the Dems don’t need your help. People will be able to find them just fine as soon as they start feeling the need to move slightly to the left of the Republicans. The danger is that when people become disillusioned with both the Dems and the Repubs [some are undoubtedly already there] there will nothing out there for them to turn to other than, say, some National-Socialist group or something.
You seem to think that organizations like the Democratic Party and the Council of Churches are all we need. It’s true that they have popular bases; but in my experience they are not coalitions where people are allowed to freely disagree. They are top down organizations. If you go in there with left-wing ideas the leadership will immediately see you as a threat. They will mobilize their highly efficient and well tuned immune systems, (so to speak) and do everything to tie you up or drive you out. I don’t think you will experience a climate of healthy discussion and debate in which you can explain your left-wing ideas to the masses.
I don’t see a problem working with grassroots Dems or church people in coalitions, but to do it within these organizations without trying to build your own base on the outside is a mistake. The Dem. Party is not a home for Progressives. It’s more like a prison. It will be much easier to prepare a jailbreak from the outside. -Doug
11 November 2006, 11:40 amStan:
Doug, your first comment about my credibility was about my general credibility. Now you have shifted the premise to one about my credibility with people at my precinct.
The flyer was obviously a polemical device, and it was designed to do three things: get a few people to vote Democratic who may have been wavering, make a couple of points about specific reasons the war (and the militarization of domestic policy) is illegal, and to meet some people who were concerned enough in general to go out in the rain, orbit a parking lot, and stand in a line to vote.
I could say “I’m a local socialist.” That would win the day, for sure. I just have this crazy idea that the dissonance created by an Army pensioner calling for an end ot the war might connect with a tad more efficacy. Silly fuken me.
I did have to tell people to vote for Democrats, because that was exactly what I was there for. have you paid attention to a single thing I’ve said on this?
My call was for the election of Democrats to a majority in the House (and maybe the Senate). That entails voting for them.
(1) They can’t be held accuntable for anything as long as they are a minority.
(2) They can’t become a majority unless they are elected.
(3) They can’t get elected unless more people come out and vote for them.
The leaflet had a website address. This one. What people do with that is their own matter. I do not have time to organize aything new right now, not even a study group. You want a study group, go start one. I have been interrupted three times while writing this to respond to a crying baby.
I have never said that the Democratic Party is home to anyone. In fact, I have been explicit in saying otherwise. You are not paying attention. You are burning heretics.
I did not recruit anyone to the Democrats. I said I was NOT one; and that I was calling for a tactical vote for them. This is not even a nuanced difference. It is a bold categorical difference. Would I appeal to those on the right for a tactical vote? Damn right I would. Not to do so would be kinda dumb, given that I said I wanted to see a Democratic majority; and my precinct is majority Republican.
(For Gilles, my Congressional district went Dem by about 53%… neither of our Senators ran this year.)
One thing I will never do (and which separates my political organization, in which I am a somewhat heterodox member myself, partly because I think calling oneself Marxist-Leninist is stupid) is recruit for a socialist organization among general crowds of people. It’s too much like all the paper-peddling sects who circulate through every event with rhetoric that jumps completely over the heads of or frightens a society still steeped in anticommunism. That Freedom Road does to engage in that kind of public hectoring and emphasizes mass work and a bit of humility is part of why I have stayed so far.
If you want a recipe for failure in any real mass organizing here in the US, lead with a call for the dictatorship of the proletariat. It’s as intentionally futile and petulant as those college-educated liberals who spend all their time attacking religion.
Your comment about the NC Council of Churches demonstrates that you have no problem commenting on things about which you know absolutely nothing. They are anything except top-down; and about 10 times more democratic than most of the left organizations I know.
I’ve known two of the key directors there for ten years, who know me as an open socialist, and have not only not avoided me, one of them is one of my very best friends.
And I don’t “seem to think” this is all we need, except to you. I have never said any such thing.
My question is more fundamental. Who is “we”? When you have the answer to that, then let’s sit down and do a power analysis, and figure out what gets done to expand that “we” that will actually work. Conditions matter.
Millions of people came out for the purpose of doing what they knew how earlier this week as a STEP toward ending a war, and you are suggesting we do what about that? Tell them they were not as smart as a handful of white socialists? (In my own organization, the critical tactical support for Democrats by African Americans and Hispano-Latinas was right at 100%).
I don’t mean to be short with you, Doug. But it gets tiresome debating with one’s own political allies, when they claim to value some element of intellectual rigor, then stubbornly misrepresent one’s own arguments, instead of confronting them directly.
11 November 2006, 5:17 pmR.S. Morris:
“The Dem. Party is not a home for Progressives. It’s more like a prison. It will be much easier to prepare a jailbreak from the outside. -Doug”
/rant_on
I would argue that the entire United States isn’t really a home for Progressives. Sure, a majority of the population wants the Iraq war to end, but do most truly believe that war itself is a bad thing, or just U.S. troops stuck on the losing side of a war. Americans seem to love a good, ole’ fashioned ass-kicking…just as long as it isn’t ours.
The idealism necessary to perceiving Iraq as an occupation rather than a “war against terror” or whatever b*llsh*t label FOX News is using tonight seems waaaay beyond the people I talk with daily. People in this country are not imprisoned by one party or the other, but rather by the Patriarchal gestalt.
I held my nose over the last two years and allied myself with the Democratic Party. The reason? average people DON’T HEAR YOU when you talk “pseudo-quasi -Marxist-revolution-speak”–believe me I tried it for a little while (not that I’ve ever been truly fluent).
Stan has NEVER sold out in anything I’ve ever read by him. As a matter of fact, Stan Goff is the single most cogent writer and organizer I’ve ever had contact with (no sycophanticide intended). He speaks to former military and says “Wake up and deconstruct your patriarchal indoctrination!” and many of us can finally begin doing just that because he talks our language. It seems to me that he also speaks the language of dogmatic Marxist-Leninists and is crying for the same thing from people in that clique. Read what the guy writes from outside a comfortable dogma, just once, and you can see he deserves to be heard.
Sorry for the rant. Grrrr…
Randy
11 November 2006, 5:34 pmdoug nielson:
-First off, I am guilty as charged of not having read everything on your blog or even on this thread. I keep hoping you will release the condensed version or the Essential Stan Goff or something. I don’t have time to read all this stuff.
-I get that your purpose was to meet people and encourage them to vote for the Democrats. I didn’t ask you to say you were socialist. I specifically said you need a vehicle (a coalition) somewhere between the F.R. Socialists and the Democrats. I think it’s good that you put a link to your blog on the leaflet so people can find out more what you are about.
-I don’t get this statement: “(1) They can’t be held accountable for anything as long as they are a minorityâ€. I would agree that the more power a party has the more responsibility they have, but the Democrats already have plenty of power and therefore plenty of responsibility.
-You claim I misrepresented you. I don’t think I did, but it is true that I don’t take everything you say at face value. I give more weight to your actions than how you explain them. You asked people to vote a straight Democrat ticket. You left it there. You are not trying to organize anything outside the Democratic Party. You went out there as a lone guy not trying to organize anything. You seem to have the idea deeply lodged in your brain that people should either join something like the Dem Party or else become a Socialist. There can be nothing in between. You seem unable to think about organizing anything between the two extremes.
However, you have now stated that you don’t have time to organize anything. That would seem to be a backhanded acknowledgement that maybe you should. I hope you find the time because the Democrats are not going to do it for you.
-You claim that the NC Council of Churches is “about 10 times more democratic than most of the left organizations I knowâ€. On that point I am beginning to agree with you that we live in parallel universes. It is interesting that you don’t point to anything about how the Council of Churches operates to demonstrate how democratic it is, just that you are friends with one of the directors. Unless you are trying to tell me you are part of some kind of old boys network what does who you socialize with have to do with it?
11 November 2006, 8:28 pmYou said, “Millions of people came out for the purpose of doing what they knew how earlier this week as a STEP toward ending a war, and you are suggesting we do what about that? Tell them they were not as smart as a handful of white socialists�
What I would say is, if you think it will do some good go ahead and vote for the democrats, but personally I’m not looking for the Democrats to end this war any time soon and certainly not without a lot of pressure from ordinary people. Would people stone you for revealing a lack of faith in the Dems? Would they call you a heretic? Would they stop talking to you? I suspect a fair number of people might be willing to talk with you, a few might even agree with you.
Here in Seattle we protested the opening of our pro-war Dem party Senators campaign office with a sign that said, “War Office Open.†We got into a surprising number of conversations with people stopping by to pick up yard signs. They were not all hostile. One guy talked with us for over an hour. I guarantee you the conversations on the sidewalk were a lot more interesting than the canned pablum being distributed inside. Please don’t think I am recommending specific tactics for you where you live.
I hope I’ve confronted your views directly enough. By the way, you completely lost me in making a distinction between your general credibility and your credibility with people in your precinct, but at least we both now agree that your credibility is an issue. -Doug
Stan:
There is power and then there is power. Devil’s in the details.
The difference between a minority and a majority in Congress is that with a simple majority, one party appoints ALL committee chairs. Nothing happens in Congress period without the approval of a committee chair. They constitute a great stone wall if the want to obstruct anything.
So saying that they have great power is a bit too general. The party of the Executive Branch at this moment has the absolute power to obstruct anything and everything.
This is also the reason that — given the tactic suggested here — the records and characters of individual Democrats is not completely relevant. Even a piece of shit like Carl Levin is still counted a “Democrat,” and with that majority we will likely see John Conyers appointed the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Charles Rangel at Ways and Means, Barney Frank at Financial Services, etc etc.
Each of them, as well as Nancy Pelosi (who will run things now for House Dems), has to get re-elected in her or his home district. This subjects them to a certain amount of latent pressure from organized forces in each of those districts, as is true with countless others. One of the absolute most frustrating is in my district — David Price.
But we can mess with David Price a lot more effectively than we can the President. He won with 53% in this year’s sweep. In 1994, he lost by like 1/10% of a percent. We have two years to talk with him about mounting a challenge from an antiwar candidate within his own district from within his own party (and that is do-able), unless he gets right on the war.
This is true of every competitive district in the United States right now, if there is strong antiwar sentiment.
My issue is the war.
If Democrats aren’t going to end the war, then who is? ANSWER THAT QUESTION, and then we can go back and look at what strategic direction, and what facilitative tactics are appropriate. Someone has to order the troops home. Someone may have to cut the funds in order to make that happen.
Hypothetically, we could just engage in a general strike, but realisticaly, you and I both know that this will not happen.
Two years ago, that wasn’t the question. Antiwar was a minority sentiment. Now that has changed. Phase One: most people now oppose the war. Phase Two: Expose the only people with the legal power to do something about the war to pressure from that sentiment.
Get us out of this war, and anyone who wants to can wipe their ass with my credibility. I ain’t waitin’ for the revolution to get it done.
Your response to my abbreviated comments on the NC Council of Churches (which is different than the US CoC) is execrable. My friend with the NCCC is hardly part of an old boy’s network. Her name is Barbara Zelter.
11 November 2006, 9:13 pmdoug nielson:
In my opinion the arguments that people like Ralph Nader and Camejo came up with in 2004 of the need for independence from the Democrats still hold. I don’t think Nader is a Marxist-Leninist but maybe I’m misinformed. I haven’t heard him call for a general strike either.
Is execrable related to excrement? If so, I think you should be a little more polite? It’s a little hard to argue with someone who dismisses your ideas by calling them shit. Call it the “young girls club” if you like, the underlying concept is the same: an informal network of honchos who work behind the scenes to make decisions undemocratically. By the way, I didn’t accuse you of that. I was just wondering why you were mentioning your connections. -Doug
MODERATOR’S NOTE: execrate
Take 20 seconds to look it up.
11 November 2006, 11:05 pmpeggy:
Doug said, “First off, I am guilty as charged of not having read everything on your blog or even on this thread. I keep hoping you will release the condensed version or the Essential Stan Goff or something. I don’t have time to read all this stuff.”
Well, for heavens’ sakes, Doug, you admitted above to not having read even Stan’s leaflet. And if you don’t have time to read, it appears that you have plenty of time to write. Stan’s leaflet was not as wordy as your combined rants against it. In general, it’s a good idea to read more than one writes. Of course, that is just my opinion. But at least among the people I know, it is sign of bad faith to criticize a piece of writing without reading it first.
11 November 2006, 11:11 pmpeggy:
Oops. I made a mistake. Doug said he did read the leaflet, or flyer, or whatever it’s called. So I must take him at his word. But I must still contend that he did not read it very carefully, or he would have seen that Stan was very clearly NOT “campaigning for the Democrats” but urging that voters employ them as a speed bump only. What happens to a speed bump? It gets run over many times. Not something I would have happen to a party I supported.
Doug, when you read something, you must think about it in order to understand it. You must comprehend its clear implications. You must not use your own fantasies about it as ammunition against the writer, or anyone else, for that matter. I fear you did not have an adequate high school education, or you would have known these things already.
Concernedly yours,
11 November 2006, 11:39 pmdoug nielson:
OK, you forced me to look up the word.
Meaning: 1. To denounce, to condemn, to say bad things about. 2. To hate, loathe, to think worthy of condemnation. 3. To place a curse on, to accurse….
…This word comes from Latin execrari, execrat- based on ex [eks] “out (of)” + sacrare “to consecrate” from sacer “sacred”. Source: http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/execrate
So you condemn my statement. Not very illuminating but OK; I stand condemned.
Peggy, I didn’t say I didn’t read the leaflet. -Dg
12 November 2006, 12:53 amseb:
Here’s a condensed version. I hope I’m getting it right.
No one here is supporting the democratic party; instead we’re supporting the evolution of their base. I THINK that’s the idea.
Here’s the general flow-chart, for the confused:
The dems are as imperialist as the repubs.
Their main difference is their constituencies, to whom the parties respectively appeal to. The appeals won’t be followed through.
The major constituency that put the dems in congress is the anti-war one.
Since the anti-war constituency put the dems in congress, and the dems don’t follow through on their promises (not that they’ve really made any*), they will expose themselves to said constituency. That’s the point.
As the dissonance between the democratic party and its constituencies becomes greater, so does the area within which to drive a wedge and expose the democratic party.
I don’t get what the fuss is. Would you rather have republicans in congress, or do you want to try this?
(*But it’s assumed that the party of lesser-evil will do less evil, right? (I love footnotes))
12 November 2006, 3:38 amStan:
I think the most important point to make — on that gets glossed over in the categorical imperative approach — is that the Democratic Party has a two-fold character: Institution and popular base. In conflating the two, instead of seeking to understand the dialectical relation between them, we acknowledge Senators Clinton and Shumer and erase the existence of the millions of people who turned out to resist the Republicans, even those who resist the “lesser evil.”
I have made calls in the past for undermining Democrats electorally as a tactical lever; but in every case, that is a conflictual call for me. My life has emerged in a way that has me with one foot in white America and another in African America (by both intermarriages and politics), and there is a real risk of demonstrating arrogance when white folks tell Black folks that they are smarter than them, and imply that lesser-evilism is somehow illusory. Because white folks are not taking the same risks as others when the stake out this position.
When we conducted the vets’ and survivors’ march from Mobile to New Orleans earlier this year, many Black churches were simultaneously sympathetic ot our call to connect the war with Katrina and anxious about associating themselves with us. The reason? We were in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The only institution where Black folk had control was the church, which existed in a hostile ocean of overwhelming white socio-economic hegemony. Talk of “political independence” is received differently there, because the risks of any such thing are higher by orders of magnitude.
The base matters.
12 November 2006, 9:30 amdoug nielson:
I don’t find too much to disagree with in the last 2 comments. How about this for a non- “categorical imperative”, non- “conflating” approach: If for whatever reason you feel you need to stay with the Democrats and try to make changes from within, good luck to you. If, however, at any time you feel like joining those of us on the outside trying to build an alternative we would be more than happy to have you.
By the way Stan, hang on to your credibility. Please don’t think of it as something disposable like “toilet paper”.
Also, please don’t think of yourself as a disposable bullet aimed at the Bush regime. I see your recent action more like a bug hitting a windshield but that’s just my personal opinion. -Doug
12 November 2006, 10:39 amseb:
Okay, I really need to clarify. I come here to be thrown in a loop, so I’m thankful I’m not spared.
I was actively meandering around race, and actively meandering around the consequence of that.
I was raised guilty white liberal, and that’s the only segment of society I can speak for, and the only society I really know.
I for one think that said liberals need to be thrown in the same loop. I’m hoping that exposing the democratic institution to that particular base will help that along. I’m not trying to conflate the two at all, either, I’m trying to point it out (I GET it, I think/hope, especially the bloc perspective; it’s easy to get in over my head in the comments section, though).
If such a base exists, or what makes up that base, yada yada yada. My previous comment applies more to white liberals who feel absolved of responsibility (and thus guilt) because “their party” is in control. (”everything will be O.K., we can sit back and relax now”)
12 November 2006, 1:15 pmStan:
I was elaborating on, and not rejecting what you said.
Text is a good medium and a bad one. Allows us time to get a thought out wihtout being interrupted. Has no body language or tone of voice to differentiate emotional intent.
12 November 2006, 2:26 pmAudrey:
I see your recent action more like a bug hitting a windshield …
I went on a road trip once in a VW Thing with an electrical problem that killed the windshield wipers. Along the way, it started to snow. A snowflake is pretty damn small, especially compared to a car. The windshield on a Thing is so flat that airflow doesn’t move the snow up and around the car – it just SPLAT sticks to the windshield and won’t get off. A layer of snowflakes 1/16th of an inch thick was enough to blind us within seconds and bring us to a screeching halt.
We rigged up some duct tape and sticks and manually moved the wipers like we were operating marionettes, with numb hands sticking out the open windows and the ensuing blizzard piling up in our laps. We drove an hour or two like that, but it’s not something we could have kept up indefinitely.
Given enough bugs, the person at the wheel will eventually be forced off the road.
So here we are with the republicans driving their hummers down the road, and the democrats in their WV Things. Step one, get the hummers off the road, cause they’re doing the most severe damage. Electing democrats so they can open investigations is part of that process.
Step two, now that the Things have the open road to themselves, start flinging ourselves in their direction. And start monkey wrenching their electrical systems.
12 November 2006, 2:26 pmCharles:
Stan,
There is an argument that you did the Leninist thing. See the Holy Text _Leftwing Communism: an Infantile Disorder_ or the Popular Front or even the CPUSA discussions in this period ( Stalinists ! horror of horrors; Lou Pro may rebut here ?). I just didn’t want everybody to think that ultra-leftists and petit bourgeois revolutionists are the only interpreters of Marxist Holy Theology. Can I get an Amen ?
Tactics and leaflets change, but I was thinking the good ole American term “Independent” accurately describes your political location, and you might call yourself that at the polls.
On working with churches, believers John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King have been more effective revolutionists in our history than “Red”. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is reportedly devout ( and was a Lt.Col)
I know “Red” is gone, but it was a lowdown dirty thing for him to call you “a murder merchant for the imperialist blood suckersâ€? Despite the macho sterotypes, men have feelings that can be hurt. You have more honor and honesty than most people.
It’s not an easy thing with the Dems being _so_ funky, but the Reps lead in the rightwing swing of the last 25 years, and the one party dominance and arrogance was starting to look like a juggernaut toward fascism. The danger’s not over , but a little “separation of powers” (and the extensive analysis above) seemed all we could do right now.
Charles
12 November 2006, 3:08 pmLeninist-feminist
Charles:
I guess when I refer to “Red” I should say “it”, not “him”.
12 November 2006, 3:13 pmCharles:
If the below is true, perhaps dividing the Evangelicals, bringing out some progressivity in their thinking, is a positive outcome of the dialectic out of the election, although staying the course on support of Israel is not too cool.
(I don’t have a URL)
Charles
^^^^^
The Jewish Weekly - November 10, 2006
Christian Right Agenda In Shambles After GOP Defeat
Moderate Evangelicals seen chafing against narrow priorities like abortion, gay rights. Will some work with Dems?
Larry Cohler-Esses - Editor At Large
For a man witnessing a debacle in real time, Rev. Louis Sheldon, a leader of the Christian Right political movement, sounded amazingly
sanguine Tuesday night – even as an early AP exit poll indicated that almost one-third of white Evangelicals chose a Democrat for Congress.
“We know that in America the people are with us,” insisted the founder and chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of the
largest groups in the Christian right. “They’re just confused.”
Now, taking a break from monitoring discouraging election returns on television, Sheldon stressed that the defeat of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives signaled no decline for the movement that has been so central to GOP tenure there.
The issues that brought defeat, he said, had nothing to do with his movement.
“The issue is Iraq and the culture of corruption among a few Republican elected officials,” said Sheldon. “It’s very clear, we’re
here to stay. We’re in it for the long haul. The assault on marriage, sexual predators and abortion are not going away. So, we’ll go on.”
No one doubts this. But whether they will go on in the same way and with the same sway over the Republican Party is already a matter of
intense debate among political observers and activists.
Everyone agrees that the Evangelical right’s legislative agenda for the next session of Congress appears dead as a result of Tuesday’s
Democratic House victory. That is a source of great satisfaction for mainstream Jewish groups; they strongly opposed several measures passed by the House last session that had the movement’s backing.
These include the Public Expression of Religion Act, which would stop judges from awarding lawyers’ fees to plaintiffs who win suits
against the government for violating the separation of religion and state. Another bill passed last session would empower faith-based groups to discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring staff for
government-funded social service programs such as Head Start.
Both bills are stalled in the Senate. With the change in control of the House, “passage of these bills now becomes much less likely,” said Richard Foltin, head of the American Jewish Committee’s
Washington office.
Furthermore, he observed, with unsympathetic Democratic members taking over House committee chairmanships, the movement’s prospects
for moving new legislation forward are dim.
Even in the Senate, where the victorious party remained uncertain, many noted the defeat of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as a devastating
setback for the Christian right.
“He was the de facto leader of the social conservatives on the Hill,” said Marshal Wittman, a former official with the Christian Coalition
now affiliated with the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank. “He carried their water on key issues. He was their most prominent advocate. And he was in the Senate Republican
leadership.”
Like most of the Christian right, Santorum was a fervent supporter of Israel. But his successor, Bob Casey Jr., pledged during his campaign
that “no senator will be as vigilant or supportive as me” in maintaining the U.S.-Israel relationship. Virtually all of the new
Democratic members have taken similar stands.
Seeking Other Issues
With its domestic legislative agenda on hold, its support for Israel seen as replaceable, and a significant portion of its grassroots
voting for the Democrats, what is the future of the movement whose influence within the Republican Party has made them kingmakers?
Even before last Tuesday, emerging voices within the Evangelical movement —sotto voce — were calling on the activist faithful to expand their agenda to encompass other issues. What about the
environment and global warming? they asked. Genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and increasing economic inequality here at home?
Some now say acting on these concerns will mean working with the
newly empowered Democrats. The victorious party’s own numbers also
now include a coterie of socially conservative victors from Tuesday
night. And hoping to peel off even a few layers from what has been a
pro-GOP monolith, Democratic Party activists are plotting new ways to
welcome Evangelicals to their fold.
“It isn’t like the door is closed because Democrats are in control,”
said one high-ranking Democratic House staffer. “There may be certain
issues on which they agree with us. They’ll certainly have access.”
The staffer, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because
she was unauthorized to make statements to the press, was one of
several who saw an opportunity. Conservative Christian political
activism on sexual and church-state issues remained unstinting, she
conceded, “But in the last year, I’ve seen a huge change with this
movement. It’s fracturing.”
In Newsweek this week, President Bush’s former speechwriter Michael
Gerson, an Evangelical, spoke of a “head snapping generational change
among Evangelicals.”
Many, he wrote, “have begun elbowing against the narrowness of the
religious right, becoming more globally focused and more likely to
consider themselves ‘pro-life and pro-poor.’ Depending on your
perspective, this may be creeping liberalism or political maturity.”
Sheldon scoffed at this notion, and the idea that Christian right
activists might cultivate relationships with the newly empowered
Democrats. Some new Democratic members may be more in tune with their
views on sexual or church-state issues, he said, “But the leadership
won’t let us work with them. We can’t reorient because our issues are
issues the Democratic Party national platform repudiates.”
Drawing on his experience from years working with the Christian right, Wittman said, “The bottom line is that the social conservatives will remain a powerful force within the Republican
Party. … It’s unlikely they’ll have any significant relationship with Democratic leaders. Essentially we have one conservative and one liberal party. And the Evangelicals are part of the conservative party.”
A Tough Year
But that may be true only because Evangelicals have been content, until now, to let Christian right leaders speak for them, said John
Green, a senior fellow with the non-partisan Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
“We must make an important distinction between the Christian right per se and Evangelical Protestants,” he explained. “Moderate
Evangelicals have tended to follow the Christian right when it was about social issues. Many voted with Bush, but they are increasingly uncomfortable having their movement so exclusively identified with
him. Long-term, that’s quite important.”
With the rise of a Democratic House able to bring Democratic issues to the floor for votes, Green predicted support and involvement from
this sector of Evangelicals in an expected drive to raise the minimum wage, a key Democratic concern. “There actually is interest in
poverty,” he said.
Sheldon’s Anaheim, Calif.-based Traditional Values Coalition claims some 43,000-member churches as part of its lobby. It is well known,
well-funded and widely feared for the grassroots roar it can summon up to oppose abortion rights, gay rights, stem cell research,
pornography and sex education other than abstinence education. But it has been a tough year:
The scandals have come one after another for the political party he and others in the Christian right consider theirs: Reps. Randy
Cunningham (R-Calif.), who pleaded guilty to bribery last November; Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), who pleaded guilty to corruption and
conspiracy charges last month after accepting lavish gifts for favors; Jack Abramoff, the convicted fundraiser and briber who provided many of those gifts — and to whom Sheldon himself was linked
through payments he received from an Abramoff client, an Internet gambling firm; and, perhaps most upsettingly for the author of “The
Homosexual Agenda to Change America,” Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who was forced to resign his seat after the disclosure of his uninvited sexual communications with male congressional interns.
Then, as if things could not get worse, there was the disgrace of Sheldon’s own friend and colleague, Rev. Ted Haggard, the Colorado
mega-church leader and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an even bigger pillar of Republican support on the
Christian right. Sheldon disclosed that he and “a lot” of others knew about Haggard’s homosexuality “for awhile … but we weren’t sure just how to deal with it.”
Months before a male prostitute publicly revealed Haggard’s secret relationship with him, and the reverend’s drug use as well, “Ted and
I had a discussion,” explained Sheldon, who said Haggard gave him a telltale signal then: “He said homosexuality is genetic. I said, no
it isn’t. But I just knew he was covering up. They need to say that.”
Sheldon insisted that being in opposition in the House “will be a huge energizing factor for us” as politics shifts toward the
selection of a presidential nominee for 2008.
But even he seemed to acknowledge that the tidal wave of scandal and electoral loss would not be without some effect.
“The Evangelical community is not monolithic,” he acknowledged. “Some of us hate politics because it’s so partisan. It doesn’t have a
comforting element. It can be very divisive.
“A lot of Evangelicals just don’t want to get involved,” he lamented.
12 November 2006, 3:38 pm>
Marilyn Farhat:
I see a few happy faces after the election results, but what I do not see is the willingness to do anything different on the part of the average person or the politicians.
You had better hold on to your young adult children now. The draft just may become a more probable possibility. The founder of Veterans for America, Bobby Muller, raised the question to an audience at a book review gathering hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
There are many vets (and others) who believe that the draft is a must to “stabilize” the Middle East with huge numbers of troops and to distribute the share of the burden equally (a very unjust method of putting the lives of more people at risk so the few who are already there do not feel singled out).
The damage to the critical thinking capacity of this nation is already too great and has been taking place over the past 20 years or more. There is more disconnect between the experiences of people living in war and the civilians here. There is a disconnect between America and the rest of the world. That reality can only be grasped fully if experienced from the point of view of other nations.
Our present view of the world is constructed on a lie perpetrated deliberately over decades. It was perpetrated with the help of most politicians from different ideological perspectives for selfish and corporate motives. That reality has not changed. Add to that the fact that many people are always on the side of the winner in their nation and will always support war because of deep ideological beliefs or the desire to be identified with the “victor.” We have too many of those in the U.S.
I am sick and tired of hearing how we support the troops but not the war and am tired of hearing how troops are victims who need to be recognized for their sacrifice. I would have accepted that premise four years ago but, now, when the true motives of the imperial designs of this nation are apparent, any soldier who willingly enlists is complicit murder and self-destruction and in promoting the agenda of the politicians. It is very easy to feel sorry for people who have suffered in “service” of their country or for “Democracy”. It makes us look good and helps us feel that somehow we are doing something and standing up for something. I would put forth the argument to the parents out there, whatever their political leanings, you are complicit in the oppression of the poor of this country and other countries if you encourage your children to join the military. War is not about democracy or security. It is not about protecting oppressed people because most war victims are civilians and most war victims lose their independence and political and economic autonomy.
Short of mass peaceful resistance (boycotts of products and, companies, and individuals or groups who are pushing poverty and war), we are just engaging in futile debate.
Right or Left, most people have no clue because most people in this country have not been there and have not done it, including the politicians and many in the military who never saw actual killing and destruction from a close distance.
12 November 2006, 5:11 pmConsumer:
“Some of the stuff above is self-caricaturing. Go out and spout that off to any of the hundreds of people I met on election day, and see how far it gets you.”
…is EXACTLY the point I’m trying to make on the other thread with regard to educating white men on gender power issues.
13 November 2006, 9:46 pmStan:
That was a tactic for a national election.
This is a blog with the word “scholar” in the name; where a higher level of intellectual rigor is asssumed.
15 November 2006, 8:20 amConsumer:
Beware intellectual rigor mortis. Why do you stiffen and lose reactive flexibility when it comes to the gender issue? One’s a tactic, you say? What’s the difference? In both cases you’re trying to communicate a point to a less-than-receptive audience.
In that parking lot, you tailored your approach and message to the people you were trying to convince. But you won’t do that for white men when it comes to gender power issues. Seems intolerant to me, and ultimately counterproductive to education.
15 November 2006, 12:09 pmCurt:
Wow what a millstone. I couldnt wait to get here. This was something that I changed my name for. I was really a fool. I would have kept it the same if I would have known how little would change over close to four years.
16 April 2010, 1:06 pm