(*) Michael Albert is an editor at the Z Magazine Collective in Boston, Massachusetts and the author of
numerous books and articles, the most recent being Parecon: Life After
Capitalism (New York: W.W.
Norton & Co, 2003) which was translated into French under the title: Après le capitalisme : Eléments d'économie participaliste (Agone, 2003).
I am constantly asked, nowadays, what should we do about the
election? More often, I am told to work for Cobb, work for Nader,
or work for Kerry.
When I reply, I am often berated as an ultra left loon or a sniveling democrat,
as the case may be.
At ZNet I also see a stupendous volume of written election
commentary. I see so much that even if most of it wasn't highly fractious and
redundant, I would wonder if all the time going to eyeballing, debating,
celebrating, investigating, and otherwise hyperventilating the election wasn't reducing
attention going to other pursuits.
In
reply to queries, my own views are:
(1) For
Bush to lose will be a whole lot better than for Bush to win. Holding one's
nose and voting for Kerry in contested states is a good thing to do, though I
can certainly understand third party votes, even
in contested states.
(2) It
makes sense to run radical campaigns to build movement infrastructure, raise
consciousness, and push mainstream candidates left. To these ends, I prefer
Cobb to Nader because Cobb is about movement building
and Nader has demonstrated since 2000 that he is a
poor movement builder. Still, I can understand someone feeling differently.
(3)
With hundreds of millions of dollars going to the campaign, and with every
notable commentator left of Attila the Hun (stay tuned for imminent outpourings
from Hollywood and Rock and Roll) helping Kerry, the idea that endorsements
from serious leftists are going to somehow make a meaningful difference on
Kerry's behalf, seems preposterous to me. In fact, the benefits to Kerry of
aggressive left support seem so minuscule (if they are even positive) as to
make it politically inefficient for people well left of Kerry to move their
attention away
from long term priority activities toward his campaign.
(4) Indeed,
it may even be electoral suicidal to put aside long term work since the
deciding factor in the election will likely be elites' perceptions of the
probability that Bush can function without disastrous movement and
international response and derivative destabilization. Leftists setting aside
our antiwar and other activities will diminish rather than increase elite
fears. Instead of boosting Kerry we need to provide visible signs that militant
opposition is growing.
(5) In
any event, a self-proclaimed leftist relating to the campaign in a way that
implies that Kerry or
Clinton or Gore were or are good guys, and that considers any of these
Democrats honest much less exemplary, and that fails to reiterate the ills of
the Democratic Party, of our system of government, and of capitalism, is
something I cannot understand.
But
beyond my take, what do most leftist agree about and what's left after that, that many leftists are intently debating?
There
is a presidential election coming. We all agree on that.
One or
the other of the two mainstream parties will produce the next president. We all
agree on that too.
Both
Bush and Kerry represent corporate and other elite interests and agree on
preserving inequity and corporate domination. Neither candidate is a friend to
working people, women, minorities, or to anyone poor or weak. To extol either
candidate as virtuous, wise, moral, or exemplary, much less as a tribune of
justice and peace, denies the logic and morality of being progressive much less
of being anti-capitalist. We can agree on that too, can't we?
Still,
presidents affect the composition of diverse bureaucracies, courts, policies,
and programs, and perhaps even affect the balance of power between society's
contending constituencies and classes. I think progressives agree about this
too.
Regarding
this election, it is at least plausible that who wins will matter more than
usual - perhaps even monumentally -- both in the policies that ensue and in the
psychological and cultural messages heard by elites and electorates around the
country and around the world. Where the Bush camp and the Kerry camp differ is
over how best to maintain or expand society's defining gender, cultural,
political, and economic hierarchies. We leftists may reasonably disagree about
the scale of the difference between class enemy Bush and class enemy Kerry, but
we would be delusional to claim there is no difference.
Kerry
is a vile warrior happy to defend corporate interests. Bush believes military
might produces diplomatic right, offense is everything, and all obstacles and
negotiation must be damned. Kerry will weakly defend past progressive domestic
social gains and under sufficient pressure may plausibly expand some. In a
second term Bush will wage unrelenting war on virtually every progressive
domestic social advance of the past hundred years, even as he also elevates
right-wing fervor and fear with unknown repercussions.
Thus,
another fact of this season's electoral calculations is that whether Bush or
Kerry wins will greatly affect various people's immediate well being as well as
broader domestic and international prospects.
It
seems we still have found only generally agreed insights...but there is more
ground to cover.
How
electoral campaigns are conducted can also have many and varied effects, even
beyond who wins. Regarding the two dominant parties, mainstream campaigns of
course overwhelmingly disenfranchise and depoliticize people. This is why the
media obliterated Howard Dean despite that Dean is no less an ally of elite
interests than Kerry is. I don't know why Dean's campaign morphed to the point
of threatening to
politicize young people and perhaps even poor people, but it
did, and since that is the penultimate violation of elite interests in American
politics, Dean's campaign had to be derailed, and it was.
Evidencing
the same underlying dynamics, Kerry will try to win the election not by
contesting the allegiances of the 50% of the population that typically doesn't
vote, but instead by fighting to win a majority of the 10% or so of swing
voters in each state. In fact, if we count only swing states, this election
will probably address primarily 4% of the voters and only 2% of the population.
More,
Bush and Kerry's battle for swing voters is actually not even a battle over the
informed decisions of those individuals. It is a battle for support from donors
and media moguls who provide the means to manipulate swing voters.
Kerry
will campaign vigorously for the tiny swing group but will largely ignore the
massive non voter pool from which he could plausibly garner landslide support.
This is because Kerry just doesn't want support from those sectors. He won't
risk arousing them because to do so would threaten his larger agendas. Anyone
who doesn't understand how structurally complicit in injustice the Democratic
Party is has only to fully comprehend this single fact to have the truth
clearly register.
Back to
the issues at hand, beyond the manipulative system-preserving machinations of
the major parties, third party campaigns can raise activist consciousness and
increase activist commitment and organization. I suspect this claim too is
generally agreed among progressive commentators or, at any rate, it ought to
be.
So the
article after article, interview after interview, and letter after letter about
the election that are being written by leftists and published in left venues
aimed at other leftists seem to me to be either confused or to be about the
only things left to disagree over:
(a) The
relative value of leftists apportioning time and energy to third parties to win
organizational and consciousness gains, versus apportioning time and energy to
beating class enemy Bush in order to win the lesser evil benefits of electing
class enemy Kerry, or
(b) The
efficacy of electoral focus of any kind compared to getting on with other uses
of our time - for example continuing our on-going anti war work, anti-corporate
globalization work, feminist work, labor work, anti-racist work, etc.
Now
here is the thing. Whatever each person believes about these matters, at this
point there is undoubtedly more benefit in his or her doing what he or she
finds most warranted rather than wasting time berating other leftists for
having a different viewpoint.
By now
the berating of other leftists is useless. Pretty much everyone on the left
knows where they stand. Few if any leftists are likely to significantly change
their approach. The only relevant new information that may surface between now
and November will be indications of likely election voting, not positions of
candidates or evidence of efficacy of campaigning. So let's just give up the
left on left electioneering, is my advice. By doing so, we can collectively
save a lot of time and avoid a lot of needless arguing.
Next we
have the endless stream of commentary by leftists telling non-leftists to vote
or to work for Kerry. Even for those who think piling up votes for Kerry is of
world historic importance, can this allocation of astute and capable leftists'
time make sense? Do we really think that the non-left world is going to hear
from us something that they will feel has more credibility, more persistence,
and more passion than what they are going to hear, endlessly, from liberals? Do
we really think that our (hopefully equivocal) noises about voting for Kerry
are going to swing anyone who won't be swung first by much more aggressive
electioneering done by people they know and respect much more?
I don't
believe it. And I certainly shudder every time our redundant efforts to beat
Bush take the form of saying anything remotely nice about Kerry, who deserves
nothing other than our steadfast opposition - hopefully when he is President,
to be sure. And I shudder as well when our redundant efforts to beat Bush, or
to urge others to do so, seem to be crowding out attention to the war,
globalization, movement building per se, and so on.
In
short, I guess what I am saying is that whatever your electoral inclinations,
at this point repetitive, redundant entreaties about Kerry and Bush from
leftists to other leftists, and even about Nader and
Cobb from leftists to other leftists, and probably also entreaties from
leftists to more mainstream citizens about Kerry/Bush, are most likely not the
most efficient way to productively manifest our insights and utilize our
energies.
So we
are down to one debatable disagreement, it seems. In contested states should
leftists spend any time trying to increase the vote for Cobb or Nader instead of being quiet or aiding Kerry? This is
contentious. Logically, writing and speaking about it could affect people's
choices. But I bet those who are for aiding Cobb or Nader
are not going to convince those who are against doing so that they should start
doing it. And I bet those who are against aiding Cobb or Nader
are not going to convince those who are for doing so that they should stop
doing it. So what is the point of reams of back and forth debate that can sour
otherwise positive relations, I wonder?
At this point, the arguments have been made. So why don't we just do our things, hopefully including non electoral things, leaving one another alone, and letting the results of our separate efforts impact subsequent choices? I bet all sides will be better off for it.
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