A Reply to Noam Chomsky

[Newdem@aol.com]

March 29, 2004
Dear Noam:
In "Voting 2004," posted on your blog on March 25 
(http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/), you claim that anyone who pursues the course New Democracy is 
recommending--MassRefusal to vote in the presidential elections, 2004  (massrefusal.org)--is 
ignoring the real world and "undermining any hope of reaching any popular 
constituency."
But this is untrue on the face of it. Half the eligible voters already do not 
vote. Political commentators may claim that non-voters are apathetic or lazy; 
but surely this huge popular constituency would vote if they thought that 
voting would improve their lives. I suspect that non-voters--who are mostly from 
the working class--in fact have fewer illusions about how power works in our 
supposed democracy than those who do vote. They are, one might say, well 
acquainted with "the real world."

You also suggest that those calling for mass refusal are in effect saying to 
people: "I don't care whether you have a slightly better chance to receive 
health care or to support your elderly mother; or whether there will be a 
physical environment in which your children might have a decent life; or a world in 
which children may escape destruction as a result of the violence that is 
inspired by the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Cheney-etc. crowd, which could become extreme; 
and on, and on."

I won't comment on the unfortunate nature of your claim here--that those 
calling for an election boycott apparently don't care about people's suffering. 
But I would like to examine the role of the political parties in American life.

The real difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is not that 
one is "slightly better," as you seem to suggest. The parties play different 
roles in managing the people. They both divide people and provide an illusion 
of democracy. They cooperate to play good cop/bad cop. The Republican Party, 
as the party of business, gives ideological coherence and self-confidence to 
the business classes. The Democratic Party, as the supposed party of labor, 
minorities, and the poor, undermines the ideological coherence and self-confidence 
of the working class, to demoralize and demobilize it and prevent the 
emergence of a mass movement against capitalist rule. 

The Democratic Party also does special jobs for the ruling class at which the 
Republicans could never succeed. In the real world, George Bush the Elder 
failed twice in his attempts to pass NAFTA; it took the Democrat Bill Clinton 
(who ran against NAFTA) to pass it. In the real world, it took the Democrat Bill 
Clinton to pass the savage welfare reform bill--against the interests of the 
Democratic Party's constituents. It took the Democrat Lyndon Johnson to commit 
500,000 troops to Vietnam and really begin the killing in earnest.

This division of party roles bears greatly on what is likely to happen in the 
coming years. Should Bush win, he is likely to continue his warlike policies, 
as he has promised, and there is likely to be a huge uprising here and around 
the world in response.

Should Kerry win, he is likely to continue the same warlike policies 
regarding Iraq, as he has promised to do, and continue supporting Israel's savage 
policies towards Palestinians, as he is pledged to do. A key difference may be, 
however, that, unlike Bush, he will have eager support for whatever imperial 
adventures he embarks on from AFL-CIO officials and the Democratic Party 
apparatus and from liberal intellectuals--because, after all, isn't he the lesser 
evil? 

Should Kerry win I also think that Social Security will be at great risk. 
With his tax cuts and gigantic federal deficit, Bush has set up Social Security 
to be destroyed or deeply undermined. But it will take a Democrat--someone from 
the Party of Roosevelt--to really do Social Security in. I suspect that Kerry 
is the man the rulers have chosen for the job.

So it is not true that, in calling for MassRefusal/2004 (massrefusal.org), 
New Democracy is ignoring the real world. On the contrary, we are looking at it 
squarely, and at the real forces involved. 

I do not mean to suggest that we prefer Bush to win. Either candidate will 
bring his own brand of disaster to working people. Our point is that the antiwar 
movement cannot afford to get sucked into supporting one corporate war party 
over another. We have to look to our own strengths and understand that they 
are not to be found in the voting booth or in the corridors of power. They are 
to be found in the streets, in the factories and offices and schools and 
hospitals and farms. They are to be found wherever ordinary people reject the 
warmakers and come together to support each other and plan how we can take their 
power from them and create real democracy.

With best wishes,

Dave Stratman
Editor, New Democracy
newdemocracyworld.org
5 Burr Street
Boston, MA 02130
617-524-4073