I understand and trust that you don't see yourself as promoting inactivism, but I think the practical consequence of your approach is to promote inactivism, regardless of your intent.
How did we get here? I made a proposal for action in the arena of electoral politics; not a proposal for action in the distant future, but a proposal for action relative to 2012: namely, that "progressives" should support a Democratic presidential primary in 2012. You object to the fact that for the purposes of this enterprise I characterize the American political world as consisting of "Democrats" and "Republicans," but as anyone can see from direct observation, that's the world that exists, relative to electoral politics in the U.S. at present. Now, some folks find this reality unbearable to contemplate and engage with, and as a result, they don't engage in electoral politics. Whether one agrees with this political choice or not, at least it's consistent. But you seem to want to have it both ways: you want to intervene against the proposal, but from the standpoint of an analysis that adopts a stance of denial against the objective political terrain that the proposal is addressing. This seems inconsistent to me. I understand the impulse to disengage. I don't understand the impulse to intervene on a terrain from which one has disengaged, to tell people: "don't engage on this terrain!" I see such activity as promoting inactivism. On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 2:33 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Robert Naiman wrote: >> What does it mean to say that the electoral system is "rigged"? > > I thought that this issue had been discussed on pen-l and that it was > clear from the context of my previous message in this thread. > > In Vegas, when a roulette wheel is "rigged" that means that the house > always wins. It's not just the matter of there being only a 1 in 38 > chance of a number winning at the same time that winning only pays 35 > to 1. There is some warp in the wheel's operations so that there's > less than 1 chance in 38 of winning. > > In the US electoral system, there's a systematic bias toward (1) > favoring the two main business parties (the DP and GOP) and (2) toward > favoring the interests of the rich (and other forces of the _status > quo_, such as the Pentagon and its industrial allies), so that the > electoral system alone cannot be a source of significant social and > economic change. At best, those changes come from social and political > pressures from outside the electoral system, with the electoral system > reflecting those pressures. And we must recognize that such external > pressures are not only reflected but also distorted, so that the > electoral system is like a fun house mirror, but less fun. > >> As individuals, those with more money have more political influence >> than those with less money. So? > > In practice, the one-dollar/one-vote principle trumps the > one-person/one-vote principle almost every time. If one believes in > democracy as a basic political principle, that matters a lot. There's > a lot of "what" to go along with that "so." > >> It's one thing if you want to challenge a claim that a bad policy >> enacted by the officials produced has a democratic mandate. >> But if one is speaking about proposals for political engagement, the >> "rigged" claim is the ally of the inactivist, not the ally of the >> activist. > > No, if you read what I wrote, you'd see that I did not say that. If > people want to be "active" in the voting booth, that's fine with me. > It may not be _true_ activism, but if someone wants to do it, it > doesn't hurt anyone. It helps people learn the nature of the electoral > system. (In some cases, voting can have an effect, as with > California's budget propositions. But too often we are _forced_ to > vote to knock down some really obnoxious proposition.) > >> I think the rest follows, once you take as your starting point that >> "the system is rigged." If "the system is rigged," there's nothing we >> can do. > > It helps if you read the context. You'd see that my opinions are very > different from those of the "Frankfurt school" in which we have no > choice but to endure the tightening of Max Weber's iron cage. > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own > way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
