What are we gonna do?
In an article entitled Taking Impeachment on the Road, Dave Lindorff details two recent experiences with disparate elements of the anti-Bush universe. And guess what? He thinks we're more on target - we who want engage the electoral process to reform the Democratic party from below - than the International Socialist Organization and those who pooh-pooh electoral politics.
Lindorff is author of the newly published The Case for Impeachment.
First, ISO et al.:
On Friday, I debated my Counterpunch editor, Jeff St. Clair, in a forum that was part of the International Socialist Organization conference at Columbia University in New York. Jeff crushed my argument in favor of impeachment at that forum with a brilliant monologue of one-liners that made John Stewart's "Daily Show" seem like a Dick Cavett re-run. Declaring that Bush had in five years managed to destroy the U.S. military, U.S. imperialist strategy, the U.S. economy, and any remaining credibility that the New York Times might have once had, he asked the assembled radicals in the audience to "just imagine what else he could accomplish in just two more years in office!"
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Against such an onslaught, particularly one presented with such biting humor, I was hard-put to make the impeachment case--particularly because the self-styled radicals in the audience were for the most part predisposed to dismiss electoral politics as futile or, even worse, as a diversion designed to trick and placate the masses.
Lindorff analyzes the dangers of the outlook of many at that event:
I would argue that those on the left who reject electoral politics in this era are making a possibly fatal error. Jeff's mocking account of Bush presidency's incompetence was truly inspired, but I see this administration in a much more dangerous light than he does--or at least than he did in that debate. My experience living in the military-fascist Chinese state during the early 1990s, and my experience living in West Germany in the mid-`60s when memories of the rise of the Nazis were still fresh, convince me that the past five years in the U.S. have represented a concerted march towards fascist dictatorship--a march that calls for a broad, multi-fronted resistance, both electoral and extra-parliamentary.
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It is a historic mistake, I believe, for the left to walk away from that electoral process and from those millions of potential opponents of authoritarian rule.
Next day he's with kossacks and fellow travelers - a different story:
Saturday found me, together with my co-author Barbara Olshansky, at a church on the New Haven green, talking about impeachment to an audience organized by Squeaky Wheel Productions, a group that produces the syndicated radio program "Between the Lines."
This audience was composed almost totally of people who are committed to Democratic politics. The wild applause that ensued on several occasions when I endorsed their efforts to back insurgent Ned Lamont in his effort to deny the Democratic Party nomination in Connecticut to incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman made that clear. Lamont, by some accounts, now has the backing of as many as 40 percent of the state's Democrats, to the point that Lieberman has already said he would run as an Independent if he should lose the primary this August. That said, it would be an astonishing victory for the left if the pro-war, pro-Patriot Act Lieberman were defeated by the voters of his own party--and such an event would send shivers down the cartilaginous spines of every pro-war, pro-Patriot Act Democratic member of Congress.
And how do we stack up?
Of the two groups, I have to say I have much more respect for the efforts of the activists at the Squeaky Wheel gathering than those at the ISO. It's not that the ISO activists are not committed and hard working. Many of them are certainly investing much more of their lives into their political struggle than those in that church in New Haven. But I'm convinced that for all that, the Democratic Party activists have a much better chance of halting the country's slide into fascism than do the ISO radicals. There is certainly an important role to be played by those who organize in the street (a role that could become even more important if electoral efforts fail), but at this point, with no viable Third Party, and no significant opposition in Congress to the Bush power grab, those who mock electoral resistance should reconsider their stance.
The entire article is worth reading.
I have to say I have always loved Alex Cockburn (big cheese on Counterpunch) for his uncompromising and funny eviscerations of the powerful.
But it is foolish to turn our backs on electoral politics. It's not like we have so many other great options out there to turn things around here. Elections, including vital primaries, offer a way for committed reformers to change the American politcal landscape.