Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: > > Even if the Green Party were to succeed in > electing Green mayors in all cities in the United States, for > instance, an impact of such a dramatic change in local politics on US > foreign policy won't be even minimalist -- it will be practically > zero.
Not necessarily. One can't judge that _If_ as though in a laboratory where one element changes while all other elements remain constant. The conditions under which the GP could elect mayors in several hundred substantial (150k+ population) cities around the u.s. would be conditions which could not occur without profound reverberations elsewhere from the activities which brought about the electoral victories. You and I have both complained about those comments on revolution which presuppose that revolutionary action would occur with all other conditions (as now experienced) remaining constant. (E.g. someone once asked the silly question of how we could ask the working class to risk everything for overthrow of capitalism, when of course "we" would never ask that but conditions, now unpredictable and undescribable -- perhaps of rising expectations, perhaps of utter chaos, perhaps of something we cannot describe now--would do the "asking.") I tend to agree that the local politics route to national power is illusional, but in considering it we can't consider it in a vacuum. The mass assault on u.s. foreign policy which is needed can't demonstrate in D.C. every week (this is a caricature but take it as a gesture towards a more complex reality), and the energies recruited and ultimately aimed towards national impact could well be (partly) nourished and enhanced through local political initiatives, including perhaps the election of mayors or (perhaps though I doubt it) even through contesting for power in local DP organizations. Carrol
