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This Time Round, Mind the Ballot. Too Many Lives Depend On It |
Current rating: 0 |
by Bill Templer
(No verified email address) |
30 Oct 2004
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Antiauthoritarians and other progressives should vote to ensure the defeat of the Bush regime |
I argue briefly that given the critical situation and its political fall-out, at home and abroad, antiauthoritarians stateside should recognize three priorities for the immediate future, and move beyond electoral abstentionism on Nov. 2:
(1) Defeat the forces represented by the Bush regime, one of the most dangerous and destructive in U.S. history. In working to vote Bush out, the American left needs to cobble together what is commonly called a "popular front" at the level of the national electoral game. That includes antiauthoritarians.
(2) Grow the Greens at the local level wherever possible, seeing this as one avenue to advancing our own broader anti-capitalist struggle -- the Green movement, locally, nationally and internationally, is an expanding diverse structure in which to do mass political education and outreach. More anarchists need to be inside their movement, working side by side with Greens for change. Now’s the time to forge that connection. And to deepen it after November 2.
(3) Continue the work in building an antiauthoritarian, anti-capitalist movement for social, economic, racial and environmental justice that shows people direct democracy is a lot more than casting a vote every two or four years. Yet remember, as Chris Crass emphasizes, that anarchism and electoral work can go hand in hand, especially in grassroots local-level campaigns. He states: "I believe that our politics of non-engagement in so many crucial struggles involving the state, electoral politics among them, have in the end done more to de-legitimize anarchists than to de-legitimize the state. Furthermore, I have worked with community-based struggles that have both turned out the vote and attacked the legitimacy of the state."
Full article on George Salzman's website at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Discus/2004-10-27.rtf. |
This work is in the public domain |
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Re: This Time Round, Mind the Ballot. Too Many Lives Depend On It |
by vote for kerry
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Nov 2004
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from johnkerry.com - Speech at Temple University 24 Sept 2004
"As president, I will fight a tougher, smarter, more effective war on terror. My priority will be to find and capture or kill the terrorists before they get us. ... President Bush was right to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban. I supported that decision. So did our country and our allies. So did the world. ... Instead of using U.S. forces to capture Osama bin Laden… the President outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who let bin Laden slip away. That was the wrong choice. ... Instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan… the President rushed to a new war in Iraq. That was the wrong choice. ... Instead of proposing a Department of Homeland Security … the President actually opposed it – and then exploited it for political purposes. That was the wrong choice. ... Instead of facing the urgent nuclear dangers in North Korea and Iran… he allowed these dangers to mount on his presidential watch. That was the wrong choice. ... Yet, in the face of all the misjudgments, all the miscalculations, and all the mistakes, the president still says he wouldn’t do anything different. I would. I will make very different choices in the war on terrorism. I know what has gone wrong… and what needs to be done. ... I begin with this belief: The war on terror is as monumental a struggle as the Cold War. Its outcome will determine whether we and our children live in freedom or in fear. It is not, as some people think, a clash of civilizations. Radical Islamic fundamentalism is not the true face of Islam. This is a clash between civilization and the enemies of civilization; between humanity’s best hopes and most primitive fears. The danger we face today will become even greater if the terrorists acquire what we know they are seeking – weapons of mass destruction, which they would use to commit mass murder. We are confronting an enemy and an ideology that must be destroyed. We are in a war that must be won. ... Americans know this. We understand the stakes. On September 11th there were no Democrats, no Republicans. We were only Americans. We all stood together. We all supported the President. We all prayed for victory, because we love our country and despise everything our enemies stand for." |
