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Edited on Sun Jan-13-08 08:22 PM by jpgray
Really! Let me explain:
On any issue, activists and public officials need each other's help to make a difference. It's true with any idea or proposed policy. Without powerful people in office who are sympathetic to the idea, you need superlatively brilliant and effective activism. Without solid, committed activism, you need people in office who are superlatively committed and loyal to that idea.
The recent MLK comparison flap between our two esteemed frontrunners (:P) is a good way to show how this works. MLK was a great activist, but without Johnson's dogged support and wheeling-dealing it's unlikely his ideas would have found their way into legislation so quickly. Take a look at Susan B Anthony's superb work--it proceeded without results for so long mostly due to a lack of support in the three branches of government. On the flip-side, bereft of any kind of solid activism, Bush's plan to destroy and undermine Social Security was a spectacular failure, despite all his vaunted political capital and the many GOP stooges very sympathetic to the idea.
What does this mean? It means that if you support public financing for campaigns, a rolling back of media ownership rules, stronger corporate/trade regulations, etc., activism won't always be enough unless it is overwhelmingly strong. If you don't have a base of at -least- sympathetic politicians in office who provide a chance of turning those ideas into policy, you are extremely unlikely to see any positive impact from your activism.
The real problem is, in this atmosphere too many politicians are terrified of progressive ideas. The massively money-fueled campaign system promotes a quid pro quo with corporate power and influence centers that are anathema to progressive ideals. Odds are, the major candidates for either party will -not- directly represent your views, and will be unsympathetic in varying degrees to supporting those views as policy.
The question is, do you wait for the atmosphere to change, or do you choose to defeat the most unsympathetic people wherever and whenever you can? Defeating those who are seen as the definitive symbol of hostility and opposition to progressive ideas (unquestionably the GOP) can help change the atmosphere, but also it has the effect of putting more sympathetic people in office. By and large the Democrats are only infinitesimally more sympathetic than the GOP in terms of a true progressive agenda, but it allows more avenues for progressive activism to affect policy. It also undermines the most hostile and antagonistic bloc of official opposition to those policies. And both would be very desirable for anyone who wants change.
It does have a certain "sell-out" or overly-strategic aspect to it, since you aren't voting for values so much as trying to destroy the worst opposition to those values, but what do you think?
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