Regarding the argument between MDG and SDF, I see SDF's reasoning entirely. I'm a recovering liberal; I was a Gary Hart volunteer in 1984, a Jesse Jackson volunteer in 1988, and a Jerry Brown canvasser in the primary season for 1992 elections. (I met Caesar Chavez!)The following November I voted for Bill Clinton, and justified my decision the same way MDG does. He did seem like the lesser of two evils, and I had yet to really remove myself from America's election spectacle. "Well," I bellowed at my friend, "at least he'll appoint pro-choice judges to the Supreme Court!"
"Whew, thank God!" my friend answered back, "thank God the bourgeois judiciary is going to preserve just ONE of our rights!"
I've come to agree with what my friend was trying to tell me, but I cut myself some slack for being carried away with optimism. Let's look at Clinton of '92: He was promising health care, gay rights, responsible environmental laws. To us liberals who had lived through twelve years of Reagan and Bush, having a Democrat in the White House was like the sun dawning on a new age; it was like a dream.
Well, I cut myself some slack, but today I also slap myself for having fallen for it. As everyone here knows, Clinton has waffled, lied, stroked, bombed and cut to make any Republican proud. Indeed, in my opinion the Republican party has been forced to move even further to the right, thus illustrating Freud's notion of the "narcissism of small differences."
I can't believe anybody who considers themselves progressive or socialist or anything--even liberal--could vote for Clinton or Democrat. Clinton's single contribution to history should, in my opinion, be that he was the final nail in the coffin of American Liberalism. Lesser of two evils? After Clinton, does that even have any meaning anymore? You'd have to split hairs pretty fine to get me to agree that that phrase applies.
"Republicans are worse than Democrats!" Okay, and lung cancer is worse than polio. What would you think of a system which forced you to choose one or the other?
That being said, I disagree with people who stay away from the polls.I know it's not a catchy phrase, but: We commies must vote in bourgeois elections!.
Often there are many other issues on ballots which demand our attention--English-only laws, tax referendums to use public money to build private football stadiums, anti-immigration laws and the like--that we shouldn't neglect the small voice that bourgeois democracy gives us. So, when people ask me how I voted, I'll be able to answer, "I voted No, No, No, No, No, No, No, and Green."
