Election Madness by Howard Zinn

[Breeze54]

Election Madness

by Howard Zinn

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/24/7261/

There’s a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I’ve never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held-security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness” for working people. More....

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Stories like these may be reported in the media, but they are gone in a flash. What’s not gone, what occupies the press day after day, impossible to ignore, is the election frenzy.

This seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.

And sad to say, the Presidential contest has mesmerized liberals and radicals alike. We are all vulnerable.

snip-->

I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.

But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.

Let’s remember that even when there is a “better” candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.


snip--->

Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.

They offer no radical change from the status quo.

They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.

They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.

None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.

So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including
the left. Yes, two minutes. Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against
the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

More.....

[asdjrocky]

1. Zinn always gets it right.

Thanks for bringing this. Not to hi-jack, but along the same lines-
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4761484&mesg_id=4761484

[Breeze54]

3. That's not hijacking....thanks... (I love this line too)

"The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents should remind us of what people did
in the Thirties when they organized and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their
apartments, in defiance of the authorities"

We need some of that outcry today!

[Breeze54]

2. "Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy..."

Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

Howard Zinn is the author of http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060838655?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0060838655&adid=0AN70F54RP1VDJ345TFX&">“A People’s History of the United States,” http://www.amazon.com/dp/1583226281?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1583226281&adid=1H4RM3KEY8XDS04CKRX9&">“Voices of a People’s History” (with Anthony Arnove), and most recently, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0872864758?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0872864758&adid=0RG591DGRMRBD7TSRRFM&">“A Power Governments Cannot Suppress.”

[4themind]

5. Yup I've read ,A peoples history of the United States from cover to cover

It was out history textbook in high school actually, heh

[Breeze54]

7. Wow! I wish they'd had that when I was in school.

I found a free e-book copy on the net. ;)

I'm still reading it....

[asdjrocky]

8. I keep that book near me at all times, just to win arguments.

[Mark Twain Girl]

9. Oh my, that's perfect

"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy..."

We've come to believe that voting = democracy. We are given a slate of corporate candidates and pull a lever, but that is not freedom or civic involvement. Zinn gets it right (as usual).

[Breeze54]

So do you!

Good post! :hi:

[LizW]

4. Wow. k & r.

This is worth reading over and over every time I'm tempted to wallow.

This stupid poop-throwing primary Just Doesn't Matter. What matters is what John and Elizabeth Edwards are doing, and what Al Gore is doing, and what a lot of other people who are freed from the political rigamarole are now doing to save this country and the world.

Thanks, Howard Zinn.

[Breeze54]

6. He makes a helluvalot of sense.

Is he saying, "We must be the change we wish to see"?

[anigbrowl]

18. Apart from his idea that the government is supposed to guarantee jobs

Sorry, I don't buy into that line of thinking. Promoting job creation is fine but you can't make guarantees like that and still run a functioning economy. I visited Russia during the last days of communism (under Gorbachev), and while I find many things to like about the Russian people and even some things to admire about the USSR, the economic/employment situation wasn't one of them.

[Breeze54]

20. I think he's means it

in this way: 3: an assurance for the fulfillment of a condition

They shouldn't be guaranteeing that the jobs will be outsourced either! (NAFTA)

Didn't the Gov. create jobs during the depression and when Clinton was in office?

[anigbrowl]

23. In the depression, yes.

But you can't just keep building infrastructure for ever - Japan has tried that over the last 15 years and it has failed miserably.

As for during the Clinton administration, certainly many jobs were created due to expansion of the economy, and Clinton's economic policies helped a lot with that. That is in my view the limit of what government can get involved in. Please note I am not critiquing the Clinton administration here, but drawing attention to something I believe is a weak point in Howard Zinn's philosophy.

[Breeze54]

24. I understand and he (Zinn) probably

could have used a better word but as far as to "keep building infrastructure"; ours is crumbling.

There could be many jobs 'created' to fixing it. The National Grid; bridges, roads, subways, etc.

[Radical Activist]

10. Zinn makes good points. But,

I still can't help but wonder how many elections we might have won had more left wing activists gotten involved. So many issue activists stay out of elections like they don't want to get their hands dirty with politicians. Liberals go into every election fight with half of their natural allies sitting on the sidelines. Conservatives don't have that problem and its one reason why they do so well.

[Breeze54]

11. Well; all I can say to that

is that there have been a lot more grassroots efforts since 2000, to change things.

I think some are afraid of being attacked and having their names slandered all over

the place if they do run. It would seem that we all need to be more actively involved

in the grassroots arena. You're right about that! ;)

[Radical Activist]

26. Its not just running for office.

When a good progressive candidate runs they need people to volunteer and donate money. But their natural base won't do either because they work for a non-profit that can't get political, or they have to wait for their union to endorse, or they take Zinn's attitude and don't want to get their hands dirty with electoral politics. Liberals are horrible about not supporting each other in election campaigns.
We like scolding elected officials for doing the wrong thing, and organizing campaigns to contact your elected official, but we put a lot less effort into getting our own likeminded people into office.

[mopinko]

12. i predict he will be singing a different tune when president obama

has had a chance to show his stuff. he is doing exactly what howard is recommending. this tide is not about the election. it is about a movement that will stand behind him. no president can do it alone. but we can.

[Breeze54]

13. I think

he always sings a different tune... that's why I appreciate what he has to say. ;)

[ProgressIn2008]

14. I doubt it. Zinn is the real deal.

Zinn gets to the heart of the problems at the core of American society, and Obama isn't interested in those. Capitalism, corporate power and greed, military industries. I imagine Zinn would say Obama is most certainly better by a long shot than Bush. We'll see what participation this movement undertakes to change Zinn's mind.

[mopinko]

15. i can wait.

it should be interesting.

[Breeze54]

16. But why are you waiting?

That's Zinn's point in the article.

"We, the people" need to take action! Not sit on our arses and wait for change.

If you wait.... you'll be waiting for a very long time, no matter whom occupies the WH!

[mopinko]

19. i'm not "just waiting" except for the bus to cincy.

i have worked for him here. but mostly i have been ill. all fixed up now, and itching to get on the bus.

[Breeze54]

17. This is what Zinn is talking about, imho....

John and Elizabeth Edwards To Join Anti Iraq War Groups to Launch Multimillion Dollar Iraq/Recession

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3196924

[Nederland]

21. What is Zinn's solution?

I'm curious. Is he a socialist?

[Breeze54]

22. Citizen organization

See links above for more info.

[Radical Activist]

25. I don't think Zinn would want to be part of any movement

that is part of standing behind any single leader. He would want to see a movement that will abandon or scold a leader who forgets what the people really want.