Reply #117: I disagree, ulysses -- it's about the "curse of the New Deal"

[IrateCitizen]

By that, I mean that this problem, at its root, is about the centralization of power performed under FDR's New Deal policies, and how that has confined the fight for progressive change over the decades since.

What do I mean by this? Quite simple, really. The New Deal WAS a great program, but the means by which it was accomplished may have actually caused more problems in the overall view of things, because it was built around the idea of centralizing power within the Federal Government. All that power that was brought to Washington DC helped to get us out of the Depression, but it also helped create the Imperial Presidency we have today, along with a Federal Government apparatus that is seen as largely out-of-touch with the real problems that people face.

Additionally, since so many reforms were won under the New Deal through government intervention, many progressives came to see government intervention as the sole method by which to reform society. The problem with this thinking was twofold. First, it led to stale ideas all based on the same basic precept. Second, it provided an apparatus that made it all too easy to roll back those reforms, should the centralized state power fall into the wrong hands.

As evidence of my first postulate, I would refer you to the shift in the labor movement from the early 1900's, built around organizing campaigns and extraparliamentary action such as general strikes and perceived as much more "radical", to the post-WWII labor movement and its increasingly direct involvement in electoral politics as the means by which to affect change.

While it is foolish to denounce any importance of electoral politics, it is equally foolish to abandon extraparliamentary action as a necessary element to provide pressure on the electoral system to FORCE change. The only way to fight the system is to stop it from working as intended, and the only way to do this is to withdraw cooperation (both active and passive) from said system.

Sadly, we who classify ourselves as progressives have been woefully absent in these efforts, outside of a few scattered groups of brave souls here and there. But if we want to affect real progressive change, then nonviolent noncooperation with the system, like the general strikes of the late 1800's and early 1900's, is the first step that we ALL can do.

With regards to my second postulate, it should be painfully clear right now what has happened with the entrenchment of state power over the past 30 years under both Republicans AND Democrats.

While I can appreciate your analysis of the Nader phenomenon, I feel that his candidacy is one that I cannot support in the least, because it is not about highlighting the "left-center split" as much as it is about a stale mode of thought that is intent on abandoning exploration of all types of action OUTSIDE of direct state intervention to solve our problems, and will only really cause more harm in the end.