Jim Simons : Ralph Nader Was Right

Graphic from AboveTopSecret.com
Ralph Nader was right:
No more voting for the 'lesser evil'

When will we stop doing the same thing every four years and marveling that the results are not different?

By Jim Simons / The Rag Blog / September 19, 2012

“Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you’ve got to choose
Ev’ry way you look at it, you lose”
-- Simon and Garfunkel (from “Mrs. Robinson”)

[We believe that Jim Simons' opinion piece published below expresses well how a substantial segment of the left feels about the Obama presidency and the current state of electoral politics in the United States. It does not, however, represent a Rag Blog editorial position on the 2012 presidential election and should not be construed as a recommendation on our part to vote for a third party candidate.]

These words were written 40 years ago or more. I remember I wrote a small piece for The Rag about that time to the effect that we were not going to win anything by electoral politics. Yet, every four years -- even today -- we forget this historical truth and embrace the lesser of two evils as though a new age is dawning, never so passionately as we did in 2008.

Remember Hope and Change? What changed -- or should I ask, what changed for the better? I was as guilty as anyone. My brain told me not to buy into it, my heart took a leap of faith. There was a long fall from that leap as we watched Obama continue Bush’s foreign policy and violate almost every promise the golden tongued orator made, from Gitmo to electronic surveillance in our own country.

Whistle blowers are being prosecuted far more than under Bush, transparency in government undermined at every turn, power usurped by the Republican president is eagerly exercised by the Democrats. A wholesale increase in immigrant summary deportation has occurred. The Democrats and Obama have ignored or capitulated to plunder the environment.

The argument is that we should vote for Obama in spite of his betrayals, none worse than giving up on even the public option for health care, because he is better than Romney, even though from the standpoint of progressives he is at best the lesser of two evils.

This is the ploy that has kept us chained to the pale and lame horse of the Democrats in every race since 1964. Why must we choose from evils? Why can’t we have a real choice? Sallow-faced liberals sigh and say this is the reality, we must face reality. Bosh. Here is the reality: the system is broken; it is rigged to permit only the two wings of essentially the same party to constitute the choice.

I grant the Republicans are bad. That is why we are always backed into the same corner; it is self-perpetuating. When, in what Presidential election, will it be any different? There will always be the argument that we must prevent the really bad guys from getting into office by voting for another candidate who does not represent our views.

At this juncture we are ill-served by the supposedly two-party system. And yes, public funding and shortening the length of campaigns are also essential or all our elections, after Citizens United, will be up for the highest bidder, always big corporations and the 1%.

The only solution to this perennial waltz of the lemmings is to have a choice on the ballot. More and more people (see Bill Moyers’ show -- "Challenging Power, Changing Politics" -- on PBS of September 7) are recognizing that we need a divorce from the ineffectual, compromising-without-a fight Democrats. We need other parties on the ballot in all 50 states.

There is an array of laws in the states (election law is primarily state law) on ballot access. Not surprisingly, Texas has one of the most draconian laws designed to insure that no third parties will get on the ballot. It will not change until we demand a change and stop blindly supporting any yellow dog Democrat. This is the position of not thinking, simply knee-jerking into the same way of doing things election after election.

I am through (again) voting for Democrats -- at least in the presidential election -- and being shocked by their retreat and abandonment of progressive principles once elected.

This year I worked briefly to get Rocky Anderson, a true progressive, and his Justice Party on the ballot in Texas. It was too onerous a hurdle with time shortened by redistricting cases. Also, the two parties have all the resources. In other words, there was insufficient money and time to wage a court battle to get Rocky on the ballot. That is what it would have taken, what it has taken in the past in the few instances when a third party succeeded. I have litigated such cases in the past with mixed results.

The first few times out the Justice Party or the Green Party are not going to win and that is not the point. We need to build toward a future when there is a true choice. Strong third party or parties with left politics could also have an effect on the Democrats who would need to appeal to poor (truly the forgotten population) and working class voters, as well as educated liberals in academia and the professions.

I like the two women who are on the Green Party ticket for president and vice-president, Dr. Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala. If I see them on my ballot I will vote for them. I have no idea whether they will be on the ballot in Texas. I hope so but I doubt it. Barring that, I will write in Rocky Anderson.

When foreign countries decree that certain parties or certain candidates may not run for office we say it perverts democracy. Yet that is exactly what is happening here in setting up huge roadblocks to any party that represents liberal or radical views. The faithful, if complacent, remnants of the Democratic Party who still read the Texas Observer and speak in their middle-class dens of the need to change things yet steadfastly go to the polls to vote against the greater evil, are not going to bring about any change unless it is ever moving Democrats rightward.

They don’t seem to realize that they could vote against a McCain or Romney while not rubber-stamping an Obama. The drilled in mind-set is that in order to vote against the bastards, we must vote for the so-in-sos. We must start now, in this election and beyond, to build progressive alternatives and get them on the ballot. And to change ballot access laws. Only a truly independent party based on principle, not one bought off by Wall Street, can create change or even fight for it.

Back in those misty days of the Movement we accepted the mantle of radical because what is wrong in this country will require more -- as we have dramatically seen in the last four years -- than getting another lesser of two evils elected. Organizing on the basis of issues at the grassroots level is still what will bring real and lasting change.

However, I now believe we don’t have to abandon electoral politics to the likes of the Koch brothers. But the prerequisite for having democratic government is changing the stranglehold the Repubcrats and Democans have on the system which nominates and elects the legislative and executive lawmakers. That could make a big difference.

When will we stop doing the same thing every four years and marveling that the results are not different? Isn’t that the definition of insanity? I am sick of yellow dogs and blue dogs -- of government going to the dogs.

[Jim Simons practiced law in Austin for 40 years, representing many movement activists, including anti-war GIs. Jim served as a counsel for members of the American Indian Movement who were arrested at Wounded Knee in 1974. After he retired he published his memoir Molly Chronicles in 2007. Read more articles by Jim Simons on The Rag Blog.]

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Green Party Scandal : Dime's Worth of Difference

A difference between Democrats and Republicans? Ask FDR.
And furthermore:
There IS a dime's worth of difference

By Thomas McKelvey Cleaver / The Rag Blog / July 5, 2010

[On June 30 The Rag Blog posted an article by Tom Cleaver titled "The Texas Greens: Making a Deal With the Dark Side" about the recent controversy concerning the allegedly Republican-directed and corporate-funded petition drive to get Green Party candidates on the Texas ballot for the upcoming fall election. Tom here elaborates on his contention, disputed by some of the Greens and their supporters, that, even from a progressive perspective, there is much more than a "dimes-worth" of difference between the Democrats and Republicans.]

In answer to those who might have disagreed with my previous post about the political immorality of the Green Party, ask yourselves if this is the America we’d like to see after the November elections:

According to the Republican leadership, their first priority would be repeal of the health care reform act. Yes, it’s not anywhere close to perfect, and on more than a few points, it’s not even good. I would remind all of you, however, that when Social Security first passed in 1935, the only jobs covered were those “traditionally” held by white males, and not even all of them. However, by the time I got my Social Security Card in 1958, pretty much everyone was covered.

The Medicare Act that passed in 1966 was a shadow of the program that exists today. In both cases, what happened was progressives got their foot in the door, and then proceeded in the following years to work to amend the law and expand coverage. Right now the GOP plan is to repeal and if they cannot do that, to refuse to fund the Affordable Care Act, something they can do if they gain control of the House.

Their second priority would be to reduce regulation of business and industry beyond where it is already. To the Republicans, the problem in the Gulf of Mexico is not that BP has wrecked the environment for the coming century, but that the government regulated the oil industry at all. They want MORE of what caused the problem, and they’ll be happy to apologize to the oil companies for anything done against their interests.

The same is the case with Wall Street reform, which they characterize as “using a nuclear weapon on an ant.” Their plan is to keep everything as it was before, all the programs and policies that led to the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression.

Their third priority would be to kill any environmental legislation that attempts to deal with climate change, which they say is a “liberal plot” to destroy capitalism. They would also take away the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse emissions.

They would gut the Endangered Species Act, some would destroy the EPA, and “drill baby drill” and “dig baby dig” would be the policies of the day. The result 50 years from now, when the "tipping point" has been passed and profound change is irreversible, would be a "revolution" for sure, but not one I think anyone would want.

Their fourth priorities would be to start legislating choice out of existence, and to not only maintain current restrictions against gay people, but to further criminalize the state of being gay. (Think I am kidding? The GOP-dominated Montana legislature right now is debating a bill to make homosexuality a felony.)

I think we can see what they would do to education in the current follies of the Texas School Board.

So, for those who think there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, welcome to Republican World.

I am sure there are those (my wife included) who will say I am being an alarmist, that the necessary majorities won't happen this November, but all it will take is 39 seats changing over in the House (and they only have to win by one vote in each) and the Reaction begins.

Whatever happens, this election is going to be close, and the decisive races -- whichever way they go -- will be by razor-thin margins. Remember the last six years of the Clinton presidency, with the Republicans in control of the House? That will be a Sunday school picnic, compared to what will happen this time. I'll be happy to be proven wrong on November 10.

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Marc Estrin : Tea For Two

Image from Twin Towers New York.
Tea for two:
Peradventures in duopoly capitalism

By Marc Estrin / The Rag Blog / June 20, 2010

Many voices on the left complain about our “one-party” system, the Replutocrats, the entrenched and ubiquitous party of the rich. And indeed, for the media, the word “bipartisan” comes haloed in angelic light, while with the selfish and ragged “partisan” comes the stink of sulfur.

“Bipartisan” -- that is, both-parties-as-one -- is the way of virtue in contemporary America. Yet -- as if we still had two parties -- we continually witness a gaudy display of accusers vs. defenders, of hand-sitters vs. applauders, of gloaters vs. clobberds, and the nation seems relieved that power was balanced, that “democracy” triumphed, that the system worked. What’s going on? Do we have one party or two?

The answer is not as simple as the question, and for a subtle analysis we might best turn to Jean Baudrillard, the fabulously inventive and therefore despised postmodern French philosopher, best known for his analysis of false realities. The word “democracy” is a language-sign to be interpreted, and as with all signs, there are four Baudrillardian functions it can serve:

1. Some signs are "reflections of a basic reality" -- as is common in scientific or referential language.
2. Some signs "mask and pervert a basic reality" -- as when an MX missile is dubbed “Peacemaker," or the current economy seen as “strong."
3. Some signs "mask the absence of a basic reality” -- as when highly processed supermarket foods are labled “natural and delicious."
4. Finally, some signs "bear no relation to any reality whatsoever: they are their own pure simulacrum" -- as in the incessant contemporary production of images with no attempt even to ground them in reality. Do you drive a Lexus, an Acura, an XL300...?

So then we have the word “democracy." What of democracy, the great Enlightenment goal? Is there now only a democratic simulacrum, combining elements 2, 3, and 4 of Baudrillard’s list?

The Two Towers

As might be expected, Baudrillard takes a unique approach to this question. Democracy, finally, is a system of choice-making in which a supposedly informed electorate chooses its representatives from among a menu of ideological options.

Most critics focus on the dumbing down of the electorate, the false consciousness purveyed by the media, etc. Baudrillard, however, focuses intently on the menu. He asks a strange and pregnant question: "Why were there two towers at New York's World Trade Center?"

All of Manhattan's great buildings, he says, were once happy enough to affront each other in competitive verticality, the result of which was an architectural panorama in the image of the old capitalist system -- all buildings attacking one other.

But this image has changed completely in the last few decades. Buildings now rise compatibly, no longer suspicious each other. The new architecture speaks of a system in which competition has been traded in for the benefits of collegiality. The fact that there were two World Trade Center buildings symbolized the end of old-style competition, the end of all original reference.

Paradoxically, if there were only one building, or competing forms, actual monopoly would not be incarnated; we see how it stabilizes on a dual form. For the sign to be pure, it has to duplicate itself.... (see Simulations, pp. 135-6)

No more competition. Can this be true? Is this Capitalism as we know it? And how can democracy function without choices?

The Obama phenomenon bears out, and best illustrates, Baudrillard's predictions from the Eighties. Is Mr. Hope and Change a Republican or a Democrat? Will his possible passing in the next election change anything? Short of small symbolic gestures, would a President Palin serve a different master? Clearly not. The government may change, but the State allows no such changes: Power is not Power for nothing.

But a buck-naked monopoly of power will never do. Wrong symbol. Not palatable to the masses. Instead, the state is run by a system which gives an illusion of choice.

"Advanced democratic" systems are stabilized on the formula of bipartisan alternation. The monopoly in fact remains that of a homogeneous political class, but it must not be exercised as such. Because a one-party totalitarian regime is an unstable form, our “democracy” is accomplished in the back-and-forth movement of the two terms which activates their equivalence, but allows -- because of their minute differences -- a public consensus to be formed and the cycle of representation to be closed.

The "free choice" of individuals which is the credo of democracy, leads, according to Baudrillard, to precisely the opposite: the vote becomes a functional toss-up, resembling Brownian movement of particles. “It is as if everyone voted by chance, or monkeys voted.” (Simulations, p. 132)

There are "polls," there is occasional alternation of power "at the top," a simulation of opposition between two parties -- never mind the equivalence of their objectives, and the reversibility of their language. The Dems can bail out the bankers, the Repubs can claim to represent "the people." It could and should be the other way round, but...

Marx predicted that open competition would lead to the large devouring the small, up to the end result -- monopoly. Baudrillard counters that it is not monopoly which is the end stage, but duopoly, the twin towers, the "tactical doubling of monopoly."

Power is absolute only if it is capable of diffraction into various equivalents, if it knows how to take off so as to put more on. The same money finances Democrats as Republicans. Whoever wins the vote, Power wins with the winner. As Jay Gould once asserted, “I don’t care who people vote for, as long as I get to pick the candidates.”

Baudrillard's notions of duopoly seem to me to be indisputable, and a related comment of his seems both hopeful and ominous: “You need two superpowers to keep the universe under control: a single empire would crumble of itself.”

[Marc Estrin is a writer and activist, living in Burlington, Vermont. His novels, Insect Dreams, The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, The Education of Arnold Hitler, Golem Song, and The Lamentations of Julius Marantz have won critical acclaim. His memoir, Rehearsing With Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater (with Ron Simon, photographer) won a 2004 theater book of the year award. He is currently working on a novel about the dead Tchaikovsky.]

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Ragamuffin Reverie : Star Wars and Repubs

Republican singles bar?
Enough crooks to go around...

On the left as well as on the right, there are those who anthropomorphize 'government' as a criminal conspiracy that has existed since H. sap crawled out of the slime.

By Steve Russell / The Rag Blog / September 23, 2009

Am I the only one who wonders how the Republican Party got to looking like the cabaret scene from Star Wars? Or the only one that sees the lack of a sane and loyal opposition as bad for the country?

I've never been so much a Dem as an independent who saw the Dems on the correct side most of the time. But I never voted a straight ticket in my life until the midterms before Obama, when I was so pissed about the Iraq War that it overwhelmed everything else and led me to cast a vote that I knew would disadvantage perfectly competent local officeholders.

I guess I couldn't be a yellow dog Dem because I grew up in a one party state where all the crooks were Dems. When the FBI ran the Brilab sting they nailed at least one county commissioner in EVERY county in Oklahoma. Sheesh.

We're now, nationally, in a position where there are about as many high profile Dem crooks as Repug crooks and I will be surprised if the Dems do not take the lead before the next presidential election.

One party rule is just not a good idea. Never has worked in the public interest and never will. China is prospering now but if you think that's really a one party state you don't get out much.

I know some will answer up that both U.S. parties are bought by the same folks. That's certainly true in a sense, but down at the lick-log those of that opinion are not as interested in government as they are in dogma. There are mundane choices to be made that affect people's lives but are not susceptible to the Monopoly board theory of government.

On the left as well as on the right, there are those who anthropomorphize "government" as a criminal conspiracy that has existed since H. sap crawled out of the slime. They think it is something other than those among our neighbors who choose to show up and offer to do what needs doing. That way lies a proud irrelevance.

Luckily, most of the Ragamuffins [folks involved with The Rag, Austin's 60's-70's underground newspaper and The Rag Blog's antecedent and inspiration], not being lazy, involved themselves on the local level such that we progressed beyond the days when we discovered that the only black person to ever serve on a Travis County grand jury was a porter at the Cadillac dealer. Austin had a major duke-out between preservation and progress-at-any-price and over who shall pay the costs of growth.

We won some and lost some and no, I'm not totally satisfied, but I think the fight probably produced a better result than would have come from the downtown boosters just walking away and leaving us to run everything.

I guess the best possible outcome would be that the loyal opposition to Obama comes from the left, and I do see some stirrings of that in those races in Arkansas where the left has produced ads whacking the Blue Dogs for being bought by the insurance industry. Blue dogs, yellow dogs -- I call that green shoots.

Green shoots of democracy.

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'Two Party' or Not 'Two Party' : A Rag Blog Discussion on Change

The following is part of a discussion among members of Austin MDS about the election of Obama, the possibility of real change through the Democratic Party, and the efficacy of the third party option.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / November 16, 2008

'I have come to believe that because of the lack of proportional representation in the American political system, a two party system here is almost a law of physics.'
By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / November 16, 2008

See 'Two-party system: You can't correct faulty blueprints by hiring new construction workers' by Scott Trimble, Below.

I have voted for third (or fourth) party candidates for president eight times. I did not do so in 2008, but I may do it again if I feel a protest vote is in order. However, I have come to believe that because of the lack of proportional representation in the American political system, a two party system here is almost a law of physics. Each of those two parties will be relatively centrist in order to capture a majority.

There have been historical examples of American third parties being “successful” by some definition other than becoming the majority and governing party. The Dixiecrat rebellion against the Democratic Party that began in 1948 triggered by Truman's integration of the military became the cornerstone of the Republican's majority embracing racism in 1968. The anti-slavery Republicans emerged to replace the Whigs in 1852, but the two party system remained with the Whigs disappearing altogether. Unless the basic rules of American democracy are changed, we will always end up with a competition between two only slightly ideological political parties. This is also the case in Europe when you have a winner take all situation, such as in France between “Guallist” Sarkozy and “Socialist” Royal.

European democracies have forms of proportional representation and, therefore, many established political parties representing all significant political tendencies. Proportional representation is the key to multi-party democracy. With a winner take all system, you will always end up with just two parties, which define and fight over the center.

For most of my life, the left having access to a presidential administration was realistically a preposterous notion. Whoever thought that we might be accepted into the councils of any Republican or any Democrat since FDR? That is not the case with Obama, and in that way the times have profoundly changed. The peace movement was a very important element of his base. We deserve a continuing presence among his advisers, but we will have to continue to win that role by continuing to build mass movements for change.

I hope that in a couple of years many of those now taking shots at Obama over positions he took in order to get elected in a system where competition for the center is the only game in town (.eg., Afghanistan) will be singing a new tune. In the meantime, many of us can’t get over a lifetime of being on the outside with no key.

Two-party system: You can't correct faulty blueprints by hiring new construction workers.
By Scott Trimble / The Rag Blog / November 10, 2008

Many things that have come to pass once were considered impossible. Just because our political system has failed to produce a third or fourth party does not mean it cannot happen. Very simply, if one-fourth of the population were smart enough to vote Green and another quarter voted Libertarian, then the Republicans and Democrats would have to split the remaining half, leaving us with four relatively equally supported parties. It is not likely in the next couple of years. It will not happen by itself. But that does not mean it is impossible. It has got to start with those of us who are paying enough attention to realize that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have had a century and a half of shared power, and have utterly failed to represent the people of this nation, except when we have forced their hand by getting out in the streets and/or by winning cases in the courts.

When it was a new party, the radical wing of the Republicans partnered with activists to bring certain civil rights to former slaves, although those rights were still subverted for nearly another century. Neither party helped us break the injustice of child labor. Labor unions helped us achieve that, as well as the forty hour work week with weekends. Neither party gave women the vote. Women themselves had to fight for it. And the realization of those civil rights for the descendants of slaves (or anyone who looked like them), while originally put on the books in the era of the Radical Republicans, did not come about until black Americans worked together to fight for them.

Of course, these gains required more than just the activists on the front lines. They also required cultural shifts in the general population. Women gained the right to vote nationally by a constitutional amendment, which of course, required the support of most of the country. Blacks could not have won their civil rights in the sixties if the rest of the country had still believed the Jim Crow laws (and the oppressive and violent actions of the police) were justified.

Similarly, we will not have a viable third (or fourth, or fifth) party in the US until we have a shift in public opinion that one is needed. When (not if) Obama fails to really change anything in American politics, we may have a small opening. However, in reality, we have to expect a much longer fight. Nevertheless, we cannot wait to begin it. That is part of the reason why I have insisted (many times on this list) that those of you who understand enough to recognize that a vote for either Republocrat in the presidential race here in Texas (or anywhere else in the old south, except Florida) was a wasted vote should have voted for Cynthia McKinney (or for those who lean more right on economic policy, Bob Barr, or for those who lean more right on social policy, Chuck Baldwin). Unfortunately, apparently, some of our best and brightest still failed to heed my call and supported the Democrat. Possibly worse, here in Travis County, about 900-1000 progressives were smart enough not to vote for Obama, but about 700 of them voted for Nader, which was also a wasted vote, and only about 200-250 were smart enough to vote for McKinney. Oh well. We fight on.

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