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Vote-swapping for progressivesVote-swapping for progressivesVote-swapping for progressives 09/20/2004 10:42 AM You may remember the vote swapping strategy from 2000: Friends in "safe" states offering to trade their Nader votes for Gore votes in hotly contested states. A Web site called VotePair.org says it is uniting progressive voters in various states so they can manage such a transaction in 2004. "In vote-pairing, swing-state progressives whose first instinct might have been to vote for Nader or Cobb announce their strategic decision to vote for Kerry-Edwards instead; Democrats (and others) in 'safe' states whose first instinct might have been to vote for Kerry instead announce their strategic decision to vote for Nader or Cobb as part of the VotePair movement." This is a GrokNews Entry: (what is grok?)Vote-swapping for progressivesGrok Headline matches for Vote-swapping for progressives""the GOP is already calling a vote for
|
 A few
interesting lefty sites to look at as weekend reading:The indomitable Bill Moyers tells why progressives should be angry, and not complacent, about what has happened to the political, social, educational and economic systems in the US in the past few decades. My favourite excerpts: A profound transformation is
occurring in America: the balance between wealth and the commonwealth
is being upended. By design. Deliberately. We have been subjected to
what the Commonwealth Foundation calls “a fanatical drive to
dismantle
the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the
intellectual and cultural frameworks that have shaped public
responsibility for social harms arising from the excesses of private
power.” From land, water and other natural resources, to media
and the
broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical
breakthroughs, and to politics itself, a broad range of the American
commons is undergoing a powerful shift toward private and corporate
control. And with little public debate. Indeed, what passes for
‘political debate’ in this country has become a cynical
charade behind
which the real business goes on –the not-so scrupulous business
of
getting and keeping power in order to divide up the
spoils...Let’s face
the reality: If ripping off the public trust; if distributing tax
breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the poor; if driving the
country into deficits deliberately to starve social benefits; if
requiring states to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor; if
squeezing the wages of workers until the labor force resembles a
nation
of serfs – if this isn’t class war, what is? It’s
un-American. It’s
unpatriotic. And it’s wrong...What we need is a mass movement of
people
like you. Get mad, yes – there’s plenty to be mad about.
Then get
organized and get busy. This is the fight of our lives.
And he quotes this gem from Time magazine: “When powerful interests
shower
Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they often get
what
they want. But it’s ordinary citizens and firms that pay the
price and most of them never see it coming. This is what
happens if you don’t contribute to their campaigns or spend
generously
on lobbying. You pick up a disproportionate share of America’s
tax bill. You pay higher
prices for a broad range of products from peanuts to prescriptions.
You
pay taxes that others in a similar situation have been excused from
paying. You’re compelled to abide by laws while others are
granted
immunity from them. You must pay debts that you incur while others do
not. You’re barred from writing off on your tax returns some of
the
money spent on necessities while others deduct the cost of their
entertainment. You must run your business by one set of rules, while
the government creates another set for your competitors. In contrast,
the fortunate few who contribute to the right politicians and hire the
right
lobbyists enjoy all the benefits of their special status. Make a bad
business deal; the government bails
them out. If they want to hire workers at below market wages, the government provides the means to do so. If they want more time to pay their debts, the government gives them an extension. If they want immunity from certain laws, the government gives it. If they want to ignore rules their competition must comply with, the government gives its approval. If they want to kill legislation that is intended for the public, it gets killed.” This is part of the Demos website. Thanks to Ge ntleBreeze's excellent blog for the link. And once they're angry enough, American Progressives now have an organizing body to do something about this travesty: The Progressive Vote PAC's United Progressive Alliance is working at the grassroots level to reform the Democratic Party into a genuinely progressive party, or at least get some progressive planks in its platform, from the bottom up. |
| The choices
of the principled progressive voter in the November US elections are
looking more and more dismal. I've been reading the damning reports on Ralph Nader's egomania, which has now led to a falling out with the US Green Party. Nader's attempt to get on the ballot in all fifty states has attracted a cynical coalition of nihilistic leftists and split-the-left-vote rightists. Unlike some of his moving speeches in the 1990s, Nader's recent diatribes seem spiked with bitterness, spurious argument and ludicrous idealism. Depite his plaints to the contrary, there is almost no doubt that in a first-past-the-post electoral system, the few people who will be inspired to come out to the polls just to vote for Nader (who otherwise would not vote at all, and who might cast votes for other progressives while they're at it) are miniscule compared to the number that might vote for Nader instead of Kerry, and risk a repeat of the 2000 disaster. Or for that matter, a repeat of what happened in Canada last week, where the two progressive choices outside Quebec, the NDP and the Greens, split the vote and between them got 20% of the votes but only 6% of the seats, in the lowest-turnout federal election in over a century. Meanwhile the US Greens aren't looking any better. They were bitterly divided on whether to 'endorse' Nader again in 2004, even though he's running as an Independent whether or not he gets their endorsation, and even though he refused to attend the nominating convention. The alternative was to nominate instead David Cobb who pledged to run only in states where either Bush or Kerry has a large lead in the polls. They opted to nominate Cobb, but now it appears he is planning on running, like Nader, in as many states as possible, including swing states, so there are now two progressive candidates who could siphon off anti-Bush votes from Kerry. The US Green Party websites (there are several, which is confusing), are a mess -- badly laid out, self-contradictory and full of broken links, and unlike the situation in 2000 where the Platform was a work of art, the party looks strictly amateur this year. And after some promising early missives, the Kerry campaign is looking more and more right-of-centre, to the point of being almost indistinguishable in substance from Bush's. Progressives looking for a clear endorsement of the Kyoto Accord, a repudiation of NAFTA and other pro-corporatist legislation, immediate cancellation of the despicable Patriot Act, serious political campaign finance reform, an end to the grossly undemocratic and disenfranchising scourge of gerrymandering, the introduction of proportional representation and instant runoff voting, or a plan for a swift military exit from Iraq and Afghanistan, will look in vain on the Kerry website, that is instead filled with platitudes and vague homilies. Progressives have said the Democrats are just as beholden to rich corporate and military imperialist interests as the Republicans, and there is nothing in Kerry's messages so far to deflect such criticism. Such a squandering of the opportunity to unite and rid America of the worst president in its history and present voters with an unmistakable choice and contrast in 2004 is inexcusable. To hope and expect Bush to defeat himself by sheer incompetence may be a viable election strategy, but it is a cowardly one, and an insult to the electorate, which deserves assurances of immediate and unequivocable rollbacks of this miscreant president's ideological and criminal agenda of the past four years, and decisive constitutional actions to prevent their recurrence. It is almost as if Nader, the Greens, and the Democrats are daring progressives to stay home on election night. It is foolish and naive for progressives to ignore the realities of the current political system and to run candidates who cannot possibly win or even get reasonable press and public attention for their causes by running. Nader and the Greens should be furiously lobbying electable progressives in the Democratic and Republican parties (yes, there are a few progressive Republicans) to vocally support and work towards specific legislation and regulations that will improve the social and environmental welfare of America and the world, defeat corporatism, and improve the political and electoral system. The power isn't all in the presidency. Focusing so much time and attention on futile attempts to get individuals elected diverts energies from broadly-supported programs to being about legitimate, urgently needed and sustainable progressive reforms to the social, political, economc, regulatory, judicial, financial and tax systems of America. The only responsible approach for progressives to take now, and in November, is to fight at the grassroots level for better legislation, and enforcement of legislation, that advances the progressive cause, and to vote for the most progressive candidate in each contest, from the presidential race on down, who has a reasonable chance of winning. Instead of running Quixotic campaigns, Nader and the Greens should be providing progressive voters with comprehensive, well-documented lists of recommended candidates in every race in the country, and then, when a disproportionate number of those candidates win, getting those candidates to return the favour by supporting progressive legislation and enforcement of it. Dennis Kucinich was the only candidate with a clear progressive voice during the 2004 campaign. Progressives need to give him their total support, and work hard to keep him and his ideas in the limelight. The idea that he is unelectable is nonsense -- he is far more moderate in his views than Bush, and while his views are threatening to the corporatist establishment, that establishment has no more power than the grassroots of American politics. He is certainly more likely to be elected than an independent or fringe party candidate in a system rigged to favour just two parties. Kucinich can reform the system from the inside, and there are important precedents for this in American history. Rallying around Kucinich, giving him a continuing voice in the IndyMedia, encouraging him to be the spokesman for the progressive movement, makes far more sense than wasting a precious vote on a candidate with no chance of winning, and no significant influence in the halls of power. |
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