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From papadop@peak.org Wed Sep 6 10:18:10 2000
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 22:57:09 -0500 (CDT)
From: MichaelP <papadop@peak.org>
Subject: lesser of two U$ evils?
Organization: ?
Article: 104111
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http://www.zmag.org/ZSustainers/ZDaily/2000-08/21albert.htm
Lesser Evil?
By Michael Albert <sysop@zmag.org>, ZNet Commentary,
21 August 2000
The general anti-Nader argument is very simple. To vote/work for Nader
means not voting/working for Gore. That's uncontestable. In states with
close Gore/Bush ratings, Gore could lose enough votes to Nader for Bush to
win the state, and ultimately the election. That's also uncontestable.
Thus, and here is the leap in logic, if one thinks that Bush has a worse
White House agenda than Gore, one should vote for Gore and not for Nader.
In short, a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.
The most frequent reply to this lesser evil argument either (1) disputes
that Bush is that much worse than Gore, or (2) urges that voting for Nader
sends a message to the Democrats that they are missing the boat and need
to move left to win wider support.
The main problem with the anti-Nader argument is that it assumes that what
matters most about an election or an administration is the positions the
candidates and their parties want to pursue, rather than what they can get
away with.
The main problems with the noted pro-Nader replies are that (1) Bush and
the Republicans are -- because of the differing constituencies backing
them -- considerably worse than Gore and the Democrats and (2) at most the
Democrats would learn from losing a close election due to Nader's appeal
that they need to change their image a little, their reality being another
thing entirely.
What seems missing on both sides, therefore, is recognition that the most
important impact of the Nader campaign will be changing the political
climate in the country by energizing the left, and that our arguments need
to take account of this impact. Take the cases most often bandied about:
Supreme Court Justices, taxes, police violence, abortion, and
interventionism. The issue isn't can we plausibly predict that Bush's
preferred agenda for each of these policy areas would be sufficiently
worse than Gore's to adversely impact many suffering people. Of course it
would. The issue is, if lots of people throughout the country support and
vote for Nader, thereby awakening not only hope but also organizational
clout and commitment, will either Gore or Bush be as able as otherwise to
pursue their full agendas on these issues?
In other words, the real choice is Gore winning without Nader getting lots
of support and therefore with a typically unaroused populace that will
allow him to pursue his full corporate agenda nearly unopposed, versus
Bush (or maybe still Gore) winning but with Nader getting lots of support
and therefore with a highly aroused sector of the populace impacted very
positively by Nader's campaign and ready to fight up a storm. The correct
comparison isn't the will of Bush versus the will of Gore -- it is what
Bush (or Gore) will do with a 10% Nader constituency fighting on, versus
what Gore will do with no such ongoing, galvanized, and organized
opposition contesting government policy making, plus, as well, what the
emerging opposition will mean in future elections, and general movement
development.
What is odd, therefore, about the lesser evil discussion is that it stacks
the deck against third party politics by simply ruling out, tout court,
the whole reason for Nader's campaign, it's whole logic and purpose, and
thus its real value -- and not only in the long term, but in the short
term as well. The discussion most often assumes, that is, that the only
thing that matters about an election is who wins it -- not the election's
impact on constituencies supporting or opposing candidates, and on
movement organization and commitment. It assumes, in other words, that
nothing substantial can ever be accomplished electorally (or otherwise,
with just a little tweaking of the argument) unless it occurs by some kind
of overnight miracle that wins all things sought in one swoop. If Nader
could win, then it would be okay to vote for him, but we can't participate
in an extended process of work and organizing needed as a prerequisite to
later winning major gains and even eventual electoral power. The
discussion denies that with elections, you lose, you lose, you lose -- and
then you win -- and thus all those losses weren't really losses at all,
but were, instead, part of a process of building eventually definitive
support. And, more, the discussion denies that the supposed debit of
having pushed some elections in the short term from tweedle dumb to
tweedle dumber (and more vile), were not such large debits as they might
seem, either, because the electoral swing to the right was offset by the
fact that tweedle dumber then had to operate against a far more aroused
and organized populace constraining his options.
Reasonable people might still plop down on either side of this debate -
despite that given the seriousness of their efforts every vote for
Nader/Laduke seems like it will be a step in a movement path forward,
another tally toward Green electoral finances, another person likely ready
to continue dissenting beyond election day, whereas every vote for Gore
seems like it will enlarge resignation and whether intentionally or not
pave the way for people throwing up their hands as if their task is done
once the have elected Gore to gently commandeer our futures further into
the maws of big capital.
What certainly isn't reasonable, however, at least for leftists, is to let
liberals redefine the lesser evil discussion in a way that presumes that
elected officials are invulnerable to pressure, that vote outcomes matter
more than the consciousness and organization of constituencies, and that
movement organizing impacts what occurs in the short term and what is
possible in the long term only by miracles as opposed to the hard work of
losing, losing, losing on the road to winning.
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