[Peace-discuss] Parnarauskis to speak on campus

[Tom Mackaman]

Mort:
    
    We are not "hiding the truth"!  On a purely tactical level, of course  the Democratic Party is concerned about losing votes.  That amounts to  a truism, and doesn't advance us any farther than mainstream news  coverage of third party candidacies.  And, as anyone who is familair  with the wsws.org can testify, we have a long track record of exposing  the anti-democratic machinations of the Bush administration and the  Republican Party.  A far better record than the Democratic Party and  what passes for liberalism, I hasten to add.
    
    But three points need to be made.  
    
    First, the prospect of losing votes does not exist in a political  vacuum.  If Joe's candidacy were not credible in the least, then the  Democratic Party would not have gone to the lengths it has to remove  him from the ballot.  And they have gone to unprecedented lengths:  original case law has now been written based on this campaign, and the  Democratic Party is not done yet.   So obviously the concern is that  Joe will win a sizeable enough share of the votes to swing the  election.  And what is it that this fear is based on?  That Joe's  campaign articulates some of the most pressing political concerns of  voters in the district, including opposition to the war in Iraq.   Frerichsa and Meyers, the Democrats and the Republicans, insist that it's not a local issue.
    
    Second, the attempt to remove Joe from the ballot has gone so far so as  to discredit Frerichs, on whose behalf the entire effort was  launched.  Evidently Frerichs has fallen behind in the polls, and he  has now gone so far as to drop his opposition to including Joe in the  debates.  In other words, now even if the logic were simply based on  short-term political self-preservation, it would be time for the  Democratic machine to call off its dogs.  He can't come out openly  against his sponsors, but I bet Frerichs wishes Madigan and Jones would  end this fiasco.  It's clear that the Democratic Party's fear of Joe's  campaign must be explained on a deeper level than the most immediate  electoral calculations.  That is why we point to political and  historical factors.
    
    Third, our campaign is an independent campaign.  We are not seeking to  pressure the Democratic Party from the left.  We are attempting to lay  the groundwork for the building of a party of the working class in  opposition to two-party system and their shared agenda of war and  oppression.  The Democratic Party, whether or not it's Clinton or Gill,  Lieberman or Lamont, etc., starts from the basic assumption that there  exists such a thing as a "war on terror" that is designed to benefit  the American people.  In fact, the entire framework of the war on  terror is the axis on which imperialist aggression and social reaction  pivot.  
    
    You make the point that "not all Democrats" are part of  "the power  structure."  Indeed, the vast majority of rank-and-file Democrats are  utterly powerless, systematically stripped of their voice by their own  party.  Their opposition to war and reaction has to find a new home.
    
    
    Tom
    

"Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com> wrote:  Hello Tom,

Are  you being naive or hiding the truth that the main reason the Dems don't  want Joe P. on the ballot is because they think he will take votes away  from their candidate. On the other hand the Repubs are for his  appearance on the ballot because ….  As for the other reasons you  cite, of course many Dems, especially the politicos, are part of the  power/corporate structure, but not all are. I think honesty is  important in creating a movement, and one must face the facts that our  electoral system is lousy and loaded against non-major parties.  Nonetheless, we must persist, and I wish you luck.  


--mort



On Sep 19, 2006, at 1:10 PM, Tom Mackaman wrote:

The  Democrats are everywhere terrified of any political movement that  expresses the sentiments of the broad majority of the population,  including opposition to the war in Iraq and the attacks on democratic  rights, as well as popular anger over the staggering growth of social  inequality. This is because the Democrats, like the Republicans, have  always defended the interests of the rich and big business—the same  interests that are behind the drive to use military power to plunder  Iraq and prepare new and even bloodier wars of aggression.



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