I am deep in the heart of taxes these days. While working, I often have podcasts or radio shows on in the background, but seldom really hear what is going on. However, yesterday Chris Hedges managed to catch my attention.
The subject was whether or not progressives ought to leave the Democratic Party. Hedges says yes, that in fact we should have left in 1994 when Bill Clinton passed NAFTA. The radio hosts were a bit perplexed, as leaving the party seems to cut off the only means by which we can affect positive change – elective office.
As usual, Hedges offered deeper insight. Lefties, he said, cannot hold the reins of power. It is not our role. If we go that route, we simply become the office holders and are bound to carry forth the corporate agenda. That is, after all, the price of attaining office. Those who do buck that system are quickly jettisoned or marginalized.
Those who seek power are not, by definition, progressives. That is not our nature. Our role in this system is to buck this system from the outside. We seek to stop power in its tracks. And in fact a brief glance at our history shows this to be the normal course of events. The movements that ended slavery and child labor, formed unions and started the nascent movement to preserve our habitat – yada yada – none of this came about because we had people in elected office to get things going.
Leaving the Democratic Party is no more foolish or counterproductive that stepping out of a parade. We cannot stop it by being in it. We need to be somewhere else, doing other things, while that pointless march goes forward. Being a Democrat is not a useful activity. We are the parade stoppers – not the marchers.
Piece of Mindful 
Hedges may be right, and then again he may be wrong. I agree there is no place in the Democratic Party. That doesn’t necessarily mean there is no place in electoral politics – the system – for non-Democrats. If “winning” is all there is, well then the fear of marginalization and being jettisoned matters. If one takes a broader view, a strong case can be made for engaging and organizing voters, withholding votes in protest, raising issues the system wants buried, educating citizens, and all the intangibles that can not easily be quantified. Nader, McKinny, Perot, Ventura and others have had an impact. With 300 million American individuals scrambling for meaning in their lives, anything is worth a shot. Anything, even running for public office.
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Valid points. Thom Hartmann and David Sirota recently debated this issue at length here in Denver, but I could not get tickets. I don’t know if it was recorded. Sirota said leave, Hartmann stay.
Hedges said that those who seek power are by definition mediocre people. I’d like to see the syllogism that led him to that conclusion. He’s a good writer and thinker, but has become quite cynical in the last five years or so.
Go to Media Matters with Bob McChesney to hear an interview with Hedges – you have to go down deep in the broadcasts to find him, as it was several months ago. I transcribed the interview, which you can download there too.
http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters/
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