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Stewart Alexander, the Socialist candidate for president who was on the ballot in only a few states, published the following concession letter he sent to President Obama after the election:
http://stewartalexanderforpresident2012.org/campaign/concession-letter/
Instead of the usual congratulations and “let’s all good Americans unite behind the Leader” meme, Alexander’s expression of good will extends only to Obama and his family’s health and happiness and that’s about it. Alexander clearly could not bring himself to wish Obama success in carrying out lesser-of-two-evil policies that are still self-evidently evil. I find that refreshing. The letter’s not very long, so I’ll only snip this one bit:
It is customary in these letters to wish the victor success in their endeavors, but I hope you can
forgive my inability to do so… I could not hope for more wars
to fought for fossil fuels nor for our meager social safety net to be scaled back further, leaving
those most in need with even less. No, I’ll be hoping for success for the people of the United
States and for working people across the world rather than financial success of Wall Street.
Thanks, Stewart Alexander. I’m glad I voted for you in Ohio. You accurately represented me in that letter.
I know, I know, he only got about 3000 votes here while Green Jill Stein got just under 18,000 and Libertarian Gary Johnson got 47,000, as compared to Obama’s 2.69 million and Romney’s 2.58 million(source: Ohio Secretary of State). I fully expect to be jeered by those who mock the percentage of the vote racked up by third party candidates and call Alexander and the others irrelevant at best and vanity candidates at worst.
Still, the population of a large town or a small city in Ohio collectively said “A pox on both your houses” to the two candidates of the Fascist duopoly parties. I thank them, too, for voting their consciences.
In a few weeks, we’ll have a better idea about what third party candidates did nationally. In the meantime, we have a second Obama Administration to live with and, I think, to oppose, for Obama definitely deserves opposition from the left.
He’s earned it, after all.
45 Comments
Wonderful… especially this:
Some will point out the virtually non-existent third party vote as if third parties should “move to the center.” Perhaps such strategies could yield greater electoral success; to yield on matters of conscience, however, could never yield the success we seek.
Great diary entry, Barbarian!
I too, voted for Stewart Alexander.
Highly rec’d!
That was well said by Stewart Alexander, Ohio Barbarian. You must be proud of your vote.
Recommended.
In 1912, Eugene Debs got 901,551 votes (5.99%) and no electoral votes. His best performance was in Nevada, Oklahoma, Montana, Arizona, Washington, California, Idaho, Oregon, Florida, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin–in that order. The largest number of votes were in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New York. That was the electoral high point for the Socialist Party. In 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act — the same one that Bradley Manning faces. In 1918, Eugene Debs was convicted of violating that act and sentenced to 10 years in prison. In 1920, running again as the Socialist candidate from prison, Debs received 913,693 votes or 3.41% of the total. He performed best in Wisconsin (80,635 vote or 11.50%). In 1936, Norman Thomas received 187,910 votes (0.41%), coming in behind the Union party (a coalition of Father Coughlin, Huey Long organization’s Gerald L.K. Smith, and Frances Townsend.)
The Palmer Raids occurred in 1919 and the Red Scare began in 1946. Both had the effect, if not the purpose, of delegitimizing any political thought to the left of the Democratic Party.
The art of politics is defining the center. The struggle in politics is over moving where the center of American politics actually is. Anyone asking a party to “move to the center” is asking that party to capitulate instead of to persuade.
Here’s Alexander’s complete letter.
Thanks for bringing it, Barbarian; it’s short and barbed, as it should have been. Rec’d.
Nicely said, TarheelDem.
I don’t know how other factors – political positions, organizing strengths, quality of candidates – can overcome the initial hurdle of current ballot access laws. Until disaffected partisan voters and non-voters are willing to invest in voting for a less than perfect candidate and party, that “can’t win” in a particular year, in order to build up enough of a percentage for the party to get on the ballot as an “established” party, it seems like every year is starting out at square one, just to get on the ballot.
Ballot access laws are a handicap for top-down organizing, they are no problem for a groundswell of support. The Socialist Party strength I pointed to above came about because of a long-term development of the Socialist movement in the US over several decades and the establishment of grassroots demands that became part of the party platform. And by working all parts of the geography even if it was not immediately productive.
The ballot access laws were the least of the legal problems that the Socialist Party faced as it gained power. And it did not have the local or state power to counterbalance the national efforts to shut it down. Outside of the City Council of Milwaukee and one Congressional District, that is.
Thanks, I was hoping you’d reply with some reality. I don’t know the history, of course, or how and when the ballot access laws became as restrictive as they are. I’m starting to see how the political party has to be an expression of a larger movement, where the strengths of the policy goals, organizing, mass appeal, etc. have to come from.
Stein seemed to get this in some of what she said during the campaign, though time will tell if that translates into action in the relationship of the Greens to a larger movement, or if it will come from somewhere else. Then, I guess, gathering and coordinating all those signatures becomes a function within the overall network of the movement, not something the political arm has to take on by itself. Thanks again for the insights.
It doesn’t matter as much whether Stein or Stewart Alexander get it as whether Greens and Socialists are ready to do the hard work of politics as it is instead of how they would like it to be.
Yes, definitely. I don’t know if she was said it as something that’s her own insight, or if it reflects something simmering in the Green Party. In any case, I don’t think electoral politics can be a vehicle for change, no matter how hard you’re willing to work, even working way smarter and better than in the past. You can’t get past the numbers barriers that need to be overcome for ballot access, funding, alternate media, etc. without a larger, more diverse movement that sees the party as a useful part of the movement and worth investing some of its infrastructure and energy. Maybe. What do I know? :)
Thanks for this post. Recommended.
I certainly hope the President reads that letter.
Don’t you just love it when WD comes in with the Whole Letter. I do.
Well, we’re all different in the way we structure our diaries.
Hopefully some time soon, the third party supporters will help the third party candidates to do the authentic work and start early, like Now.
Thanks for keeping the weeping keeping on.
Fair is fair folks.
Very well put. It was the rise of the Socialist party that forced FDR to enact all the New Deal legislation.
But the resistance to socialism comes most strongly – of course – from the south and midwest who see it as the ultimate of government interference.
That being said thought, it’s those countries with the most socialist governments – like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands…that are the least likely to tell you what eat, drink, smoke or what not. They have the most personal freedom.
I’m with you TD, but you know the Tea Party is saying the same thing.
So I’m having difficulty resolving the definitions of capitulation with that of compromise; and suppose its a question of degree and how far the center flag moves in the political tug-of-war.
The next six weeks should have plenty of discussion of these definitions.
That’s just it. It takes a lot of hard work and time to build a political movement from the ground up. I’m not going to say that most Americans are just too lazy to do that, though a significant minority definitely IS too lazy, but the majority of Americans have a lot on their plate these days.
Trying to keep a household together when the household has less money coming in and more expensive essentials that need to be paid for somehow going out is incredibly exhausting in several different ways. Hmmm…maybe I ought to write something about that because I’ve seen it close up many times.
My point is that until Americans perceive that they can or must commit their own valuable TIME to saving their country from this despicable class of parasitical sociopaths who now dominate our government and economy, a successful populist movement of any stripe just won’t happen.
Which means you just made a completely accurate point.
…X 2
Well, that’s true. The problem is that the accepted definition of “center” has been systematically moved to the right ever since the 1980 election.
But that does not mean that the conventionally accepted definition of “political center” is accurate. I don’t think it is. I think that corporate interests have done a masterful job with a sustained propaganda campaign that has actually succeeded in changing longstanding accepted definitions of political terms in the English language.
In fact, I think the whole “left-center-right” model of political science intentionally misses the point that the politics of power are always “upper-middle-lower”.
It’s just that so many people think in those terms that I try to do the same in order to communicate, but sometimes the model just doesn’t work.
And this is one of those times.
Yeah. I guess I could have just said, “Right on” and left it at that.
Actually, the resistance comes from the business owners who have constructed a narrative of libertarianism, which attracts the would-be individualists in the West, Midwest, and South.
In the South, socialism failed with the suppression of the 1938 Textile Workers strike. A lot of working-class folks got burned in that because the national unions were a feared of desegregated locals. A lot of Midwestern areas, once hotbeds of socialism are still cringing from the Red Scare that separated socialism from the labor movement.
None of those are engrained in the culture, which is why Rush Limbaugh and other rural radio talkers make the big bucks to keep these areas in line.
The fallacy is the attempts to anchor the center of politics to a specific “pro-business” polite “centrist” ideology of “moderation” that does not exist.
Yes, you are exactly right. Whichever model you use, pro-business political power is as radical as it is brutal. Why do you think so many industrialists embraced fascism over 75 years ago and still do today?
Fascism is good for big business. And vice-versa.
Whether our actual government is far right or top heavy for the 1%, it is not in the center. It’s extremist, in fact. Compared to the Koch Bros. Karl Marx is something of a moderate centrist.
Although over time this intellectual solipsism will grow tiresome, for the moment it is mildly amusing.
Yeah, I fall into the same trap because the labels sometimes make it easier to communicate.
Think in terms of a tax on wealth or, better yet, confiscation of extreme wealth. I suppose the “center” would be defined as a slightly higher income tax on the wealthy. That’s what Obama is pushing. So, from one perspective, you could say that calling for confiscation of all wealth above some number, say $10 million, would be a position of the polar left. But, wherein it’s not even discussed anywhere in the MSM or anywhere else in the national discourse, it really has no position at all on the political spectrum. Essentially, the position doesn’t exist.
Think in terms of climate disruption and the views of 350.org. What is the centrist position if science tells us that we could end up destroying all life on the planet if we don’t get “extreme” about reducing CO2 output? What position, really, is the extreme position? So, I come along and call for the banning of most fossil-fuel-driven autos. I don’t think of this as extreme at all. I think of it as rational. What’s extreme is what most would label the political center on the issue. They consider reasonable climate change policies to be “recycling” and screwing in those twisty little light bulbs.
It’s really hard to think in terms of views along a political spectrum, i.e. left-center-right, when our ability to discuss all views is so badly compromised by our corporatized mass media and our politically-dulled populace.
Unlike your posts which have to work their way up to being tiresome.
Yes…is top to bottom with a middle…not side to side with a middle… with you on this being so OB
I voted for Rocky, but would happily vote Green or Socialist.
Although I cast a lot of my votes for the Dems this time (having no real alternative on the Texas ballot), in general I have resolved to vote for the most progressive candidate and let the chips fall where they may. The Dems abandoned me in 1980 and I have voted to their left ever since, whenever I had the chance.
Where we need to try to make inroads is not with the traditional Democrats, Republicans, or even Independents, but with the 40% or so of eligible citizens who don’t bother to vote. Until leftest parties have a block of voters large enough to sway an election, we, the people will continue to have no voice in the operation of the country.
We lefties didn’t change a lot of Obamabot minds even here at the lake. What we have to do is drag some previously uncommitted people to the polls. That won’t exactly be easy, but it will be easier than slamming into the brick wall of minds already made up.
Is it solopsistic in here, or is it just him? ;o)
PS: … and impervious to facts and reason.
A reminder:
Do you see an epithet? I don’t. I see post-modernism.
FWIW, the basis of the 1%-99% image is the folks whose economic power lets them dictate politics and a good part of culture—over against everyone else. There is no middle ground. Either one can dictate decisions or one cannot. You know which one you are in.
I, for one, thank you, not for you, but for the wit and adroit humor your comments have drawn out. lol
Neither, just an attempt at reverse alchemy – gold to lead – courtesy of the old gold!
(wendydavis grins, hoping some here have seen the T-shirt my comment fractured a li’l bit by way of honoring of oldgold’s silliness.) ;o)
The mockers have been roaming the threads of late…
The new, whether a seedling, human, or social movement is always weak at the beginning. To the old senex, the new is just something to be eaten – a reference to Chronos/Saturn eating his children. We’re seeing this here on the threads, and in the world, in the state’s response to Occupy and the Arab Spring. Archetypally, we’re in a cycle linked to the 1960s, 1896-1901, 1845-1856, and the 1790s, to name a few. These were all revolutionary eras. This is the right time, the ripe time, meaning to about 2020, for radical changes and revolutionary movements from the bottom up.
Thanks for posting this, OB. rec’d!
Waving…Hi Wendy, will check out the link you left for me on another thread! and thanks!
One correction: The third parties’ performances are nothing to be jeered at. Take the example of Green party’s Jill Stein. She had only $400,000, compared to Obama’s $1 billion. Considering that, she did AS WELL AS, if not better than, Obama!!!
AND she and other third party candidates were IGNORED and boycotted for the most part by mainstream media. So, not only did she have little money, she had NO mass media exposure, unlike Obama. If she had gotten into just the debate, her support level would have shot up to 5% right off the bat. (Stein also did three times more votes than the Greens candidate in 2008.) No one knows who Jill Stein is, because of the news blackout. Most of my friends have not heard of her, because of the MSM boycott.
There is now concerted propaganda to dismiss their performance–beware of that. So, considering the lack of money (Jill refused corporate funding) and the media boycott, the third parties did VERY WELL!!!
That’s awesome framing. I hope you don’t mind if I use it. My area of the world is red and I have a lot of work to get people past the red and blue mentality. Re framing may help.
http://stewartalexanderforpresident2012.org/campaign/concession-letter/
Of course you are free to use that frame. It’s far older than even I, going back at least to ancient Athens. Any patents expired long ago :)
I’m a native Texan. I left decades ago because I couldn’t stand the weather; meteorological or otherwise.
Thanks. I don’t know why I sometimes have so much trouble creating those pretty blue links.
Others here have already taken care of you rhetorically, and that warms the cockles of my heart. I’ll just say that I find you only mildly nauseating right now, and leave it at that.
Now I will continue to enjoy my paid day off. If you are as well, you’re welcome. In addition to being many things that you are not, I’m also a veteran. I’ve seen firsthand what military intervention in the defense of Corporate Oil profits can do. It ain’t pretty.
Which means your hero in the White House isn’t, either. For some reason your comments on this and other threads remind me of an original Star Trek episode, “And the Children Shall Lead.” It’s far past time for you to see how ugly those you support actually are.
You make a good point, as you usually do. Thanks for making it here, and I will follow your sound advice.
You’re right of course. I think your historical parallels are American ones. I’m reminded of another one, but in early 1780′s France.