Date: Fri, 08 Nov 1996 11:36:21 -0500
From: "Matt D." <afn02065-AT-afn.org>
Subject: Re: M-I: Elections under a bourgeois system


Our self-proclaimed Menshevik writes:

>* if I refuse to vote in this (unarguably) distorted and essentially
>undemocratic election, what will happen to most people's lives as a
>consequence of people like me not voting for the reformist party?  

>My personal answer is 'vote'.  Standing back while people's lives worsen,
>in the hope of quickening a possibly revolutionary social trajectory (which
>is at least as likely to be a fascist path at this juncture) is the worse
>of the two evils.  

Hmm.  I think your characterization of the choice is a bit inaccurate.
In the U.S. today *there DOES NOT EXIST a reformist party*!  I don't see
how a party whose candidate is the most enthusiastic deployer of U.S.
troops in my lifetime, who has begun the process of wiping out even
those tiny safety-net provisions the federal government has traditionally
provided, whose answer to the problems of the inner cities is "100,000
more cops on the beat", a dramatic expansion of the death penalty, and
"three strikes you're out", whose ideas for strengthening families include
brilliant strategies like mandatory drug testing for all first-time drivers
license applicants ... <huff!> Whew! Let me catch my breath.

In any event, you see what I'm getting at?  The list goes on and on.   This
is your "reformism".  What the hell is it good for?

The majority of the U.S. electorate has already rendered its decision -- it's
not worth their time to vote.  That is a decision with which I heartily concur.
Revolutionaries should aim to increase and expand the *political* implica-
tions of the course that the people have already, correctly, taken.

>Better still, work at the establishment of a new 'social democratic' party
>which is as far to the left as it can be while remaining comprehensible and
>accessible to the constituency.  At least that'll help keep left-wing
>discourse on the public tongue - doing the revolutionary movement no harm,
>and proffering a coherent alternative for those who might otherwise kneel
>at the feet of the new Mussolinis and Hitlers.

Again, I have to disagree.  It is precisely the social democratic electoral parties
that have been shown historically to be completely *incapable* of resisting
fascism.

-- Matt "4 lb. test mass line" D.

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