Re: Nader, et al
On Aug 7, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
right. i don’t disagree, at least not very significantly (a dime’s
worth of disagreement? :-), but the logic seems pretty inexorable, to me.
when was the last time we saw a party build itself from the bottom up? the local-state model certainly hasn;’t worked for the GP on the
national level. they can’t even get someone elected to the US congress.
Part of their problem seems to be their pathological localism, and
their sectarianism, which rivals the Trots’.
the people who seem to have had some success this way are the
christian coalition, but (a) that’s different, in that they were working
within the GOP, and (b) it’s not clear to me that they’re not an exception in
other ways, as well. shouldn’t we all be running commies and socialists
as Dem candidates at the state and local levels?
I’m all for that. Division of labor, fight on many fronts, etc.
By the way, I was reminded on The Nation cruise that it’s easy for us
to minimize the diff between the parties, but a lot of people in the
USA don’t have that luxury. Quite a few of the cruisers came because
they wanted to spend some time with people who think like they do.
Back home, they may be one or two of ten Democrats (and forget
anything to the left of the Dems). And - forgive me for using the
color cliches - step out of any blue zone and you’re quickly immersed
in red. Drive 35 miles west of Ann Arbor and you’re at Ted Nugent’s
ranch. Drive a few hours east of Seattle or Portland and you’re in
far right territory. Drive 50 miles north of Cambridge and you’re on
the doorstep of the Manchester Union-Leader. Etc.
Doug