That's ridiculous. There's lots of reasons to support Barack Obama for President over John McCain.

You're looking at a Ferrari and complaining about a little grease on the paint job.

Whether it's universal health care, trade agreements that create jobs at home, protecting the right to choose, a national energy policy focused on energy independence and conservation, a foreign policy that brings the world together, a focus on poverty, and so much more... including an end to the war in Iraq... there are plenty of reasons to support Barack Obama wholeheartedly.

Let's not be silly.

It's not just the Supreme Court, its all of the federal courts, lower levels too. Since 1980, Republicans have controlled the presidency and thus primary judicial appointments for 20 of 28 years. Republicans controlled both the presidency and the Senate from 1981-87, and from 2003-2007, plus a few months of 2001 to 2003. Senate Republicans also famously obstructed huge numbers of Bill Clinton's court appointments during the 1990s. There have only been 2 years (1993-95) in which Democrats controlled both the Senate and the presidency.

This year represents not just playing defense, though it's that too, but an actual positive opportunity to begin restoring some balance to judicial appointments and reverse the programmatic ideological politicization and skewing of the judiciary by the Republicans for three decades.

However, for the same reason it is an area where Barack Obama's paeans to bipartisanship are concerning. It is a place where we really need to persuade him not to reach out so far that he falls out of the boat.

This decision is good news, chipping away claims of U.S. imperial executive extra-territorial military pseudo-judicial jurisdiction not constrained by the U.S. constitution or real judicial branch.

Kari,

Unfortunately Obama (like Clinton) is not actually proposing to end the war in Iraq. He is proposing a rather gradual draw-down of troops to an unspecified level by the end of 2010, with substantial "residual" forces likely numbering in the tens of thousands continuing the occupation. Moreover, he has specifically said that he will defer to military commanders and remains open to slowing the draw-down on their advice using criteria other than getting the U.S. out. Further still, he has explicitly refused to include withdrawing contractor mercenaries in his definition of "ending the war."

His health insurance plan is not universal. I don't think Clinton's would have proved to be either, given the failure rate of individual mandate models. But this type of plan has repeatedly failed at the state level due to the unwillingness of legislatures and governors to pay the freight (including the private profit and bureaucracy premium). It remains to be seen whether Obama will make health insurance a high enough priority, and get Congress to do so, to preserve its maximum extent.

He would have to do that in the face of great fiscal pressures created by Bush's irresponsible tax cuts, Obama's own preservation of the "(upper) middle class tax cut," his planned incomplete exit from Iraq, and his planned expansion of the military and of the war in Iraq.

If you think it is possible to support Obama wholeheartedly but critically, that's what I'll be doing, given the looming disaster John McCain represents.

But if wholeheartedness as you understand it requires suspension of critical faculties, then I won't be able to go that far.

Your generation, or much of it, apparently sees Bill Clinton in one way, understandable coming up under Reagan-Bush. I remember being insufficiently critical, and progressives being boxed in by him because we weren't prepared to have the internal debates and fights necessary for better results and to block some of his more egregious bad policies. It was noble and all for Peter Edelman and the other guy to resign over Clinton's abolition of welfare, but it didn't stop him.

I'm not going there again. I'm paying attention to where I wish his positions were different, and to places where I just don't know yet, and trying to think about how to create grassroots pressures that persuade him to follow his better rather than worse instincts. Because he is going to come under powerful pressures away from the better.

Would such pressure work? I am not sure what it says that he insists on financial contributions, especially big ones, all coming through his campaign and direct control, about his likely responsiveness to his grass-roots donors.

On the other hand I am hopeful that he will be so responsible to his rank & file backers, as he claims. I hope that the folks who feel strong confidence in him are proved right, and try to take heart from their doing so. Yet I also hope such confidence doesn't turn into accepting whatever he does because it's him doing it.

Apart from a general commitment to trying to accurately describe things as I see them, knowing that I may not see them rightly, the other reason I see for a "critical support" approach is to be able to talk to different people in different ways. E.g., while I don't think Obama's present approach to Iraq adequate, clearly different dynamics will be possible if he is president. For certain discussions I want to be able to talk about that, rather than trying to defend a statement that I don't think is descriptively true, that he is fully committed to fully ending the U.S. occupation.

This doesn't mean going canvassing with an unenthusiastic demeanor -- but it does mean looking for the sources where I can find my genuine enthusiasm to focus on those, rather than trying to express enthusiastically things I don't believe. That's about as whole-hearted as I get to anything, I suppose.

Oops, I meant expansion of the war in Afghanistan (& Pakistan? We're getting a taste now of where Obama's "hot pursuit" approach may lead).

mkd - nice line about the Alien & Sedition Acts -- you are so right on executive power creep. However, that is one area where Obama has exceeded my expectations in his forthrightness.

Yeah, Chris, I certainly don't mean to suggest that there's not a single thing worth disagreeing about, or pressuring a future President Obama about... but to suggest that we're down to just one reason to support him, well, that's silly.

At least your complaints rise to the level of (to continue my badly fraying metaphor) complaining about the power-steering being funky and the radio only including a tape deck. But I still think it's a Ferrari.

However, for the same reason it is an area where Barack Obama's paeans to bipartisanship are concerning. It is a place where we really need to persuade him not to reach out so far that he falls out of the boat.

Judicial appoints are a huge, MASSIVE deal. But you suggest--and I mean to use that word genuinely--a philosophy I don't exactly agree with. The judiciary should not be a wing of partisan hackery. Obviously, judges have records of judicial interpretation, and presidents take into account their philosophy. But they shouldn't seek out judges based on pure partisan ideology, in my very strong opinion. They should seek out judges with a subtle and deep sense of the law as demonstrated through distinguished careers.

Bush's crime wasn't only that he put hacks on the bench who would narrowly interpret law to abet his power grab. It was also in putting incompetents on the bench who have no sense of the consitution or the law, and see it as their job to serve a partisan agenda. I hope President Obama doesn't start appointing partisan hacks just because they're on our team.

Among Clinton's many errors of judgment, judicial appointments did not seem to be among them--he appointed some really stellar folks, especially to the Supreme Court.

Bill, I'll admit Obama has flaws, but you're being silly in trying to make the equation that he's barely better than McCain. You are guilty of the narrow-mindedness of which you accuse others.

Obama on the decision:

Today's Supreme Court decision ensures that we can protect our nation and bring terrorists to justice, while also protecting our core values. The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain.

You've convinced me, Bill! Gush and Bore '00 all over again.

You've convinced me, Bill! Gush and Bore '00 all over again.

Not necessarily but certainly possible.

Bill, you are clearly immune to irony. Not only was the Gush and Bore reference designed to highlight how idiotic that line of reasoning was in '00 (this from a Nader voter), but you make this comment on the thread where the news is about how the president's attempt to establish offshore gulags has been declared illegal by the Supreme Court. Right--Gore would have done the same.

A little help:

ironic, adj. - Poignantly contrary to what was expected or intended.

Jeff,

I never advocated partisan hackery, and it's quite ungenerous of you to read what I wrote that way. I do advocate that Democrats not adopt highly ideological and partisan canards about what constitutes a "subtle and deep sense of the law." For instance, "original intent" is not deep, it's shallow.

My point about the control of appointments over the last 30 years is that it has encouraged an ideological shallowing and often been characterized by hackery, that combined with stare decisis doctrine is tremendously dangerous to your desired "subtle and deep."

It took 60 years to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. It took a civil war to overturn Dred Scott.

I never criticized Clinton's judicial appointments.

What I mean is that if as we hope Obama makes strong appointments, he needs to fight for them if the Rs become obstructionist and we need to back that up. Reaching out so far that he falls out of the boat would be exactly another form of partisan hackery -- allowing the partisan hacks on the other side to define strong, qualified judges as "too liberal" on narrow ideological and partisan grounds and agreeing to "compromise" by only appointing "moderates."

There are two possible Barack Obama's on view. One is a great persuader who might change the range of what is possible and with what degree of difficulty, who brings people together by putting forward new or newly persuasive ways of looking at things. The other is merely a difference splitter in a situation where our ostensible "high degree of polarization" results from competition within an extremely narrow frame of options on a whole range of issues.

I hope for the former, I fear being disappointed to get the latter, and I genuinely don't know which it will be. I don't "fear" that possible disappointment nearly as much as I fear the consequences of a McCain presidency.

There are many places in which the actual descriptive language of Obama's openly stated policies don't match Kari's descriptions. They just don't. His rhetoric sometimes does, but doesn't match the policies on the website. Kari, you're a cheerleader by temperament. We need cheerleaders. We need other roles too.

I guess the metaphor for me would be something like a Ferrari body with a Camry engine. But maybe the engine specs on his website and in his position papers are inaccurate. I just don't see the evidence.

None of this is remotely close to saying either that there aren't quite large and important differences between McCain and Obama on many issues, and I never said there was only one. But the courts are a profound one that ramify and interact with others and remain a touchstone for me for that reason.

McCain would be a disaster and despite what Bill Bodden says much more aggressively militarist than Obama, there are large differences on many issues that relate probably to a philosophy of judicial appointments including Obama's attitudes toward the rights of women, civil rights and liberties and presidential powers, there are many differences I could list that will make it no problem to advocate vigorously voting for him over McCain.

But I have never been swept off my feet by Obama once I started looking at his actual positions, and I just don't know what the meaning of so many people being so swept off their feet (as others were by Hillary Clinton, apparently) will translate into at the point of policy. It could be a social movement that will work in a productive dynamic with him, which I take it is what the strong supporters hope. It could turn into giving him a pass in places he shouldn't get one, because it's him, which I worry about in a "social movement" that is focused on a personality. That would be in an overall context solidly better than McCain but not really the "change" we're asked to believe in. It could turn into demobilizing disappointment on a similar scale to the mobilizing excitement. It could turn into disappointment that leads to a maturing social movement not so focused on personality.

Much of this is not actually about Barack Obama himself but how people respond to him.

Jeff, thanks for the clarification and interesting discussion.

Bill B,

If I've misread you, I apologize; I'm glad you recognize that Obama and McCain remain in different leagues. My take on the AIPAC talk differs from yours, I think. You've focused primarily on what you see as its aggressive implications for Iran policy, which you raise to great heights of importance because of its threat to ignite catastrophic warfare, if I understand rightly. To me, it does not appear to have those implications. Obama has been pretty consistent in maintaining a de rigeur level of belligerency with the "nothing is off the table" nuclear blackmail line public stance. But likewise, unlike Hillary Clinton, he did not support the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, and has maintained a consistent multi-lateral diplomacy approach to both Iran and Iraq. Regional multi-lateralism on Iraq inherently requires a more rational policy toward Iran. Obama has made his disagreements with McCain over engaging in rational diplomacy rather than pure bullying one of the most visible aspects of his campaign to date. Far from dodging that issue, he is engaging it forcefully in a way that is one of the things I can get behind. IMO nothing that happened at AIPAC changes any of that -- just an opinion, of course.

What stood out from me more was his remarks on Jerusalem, some of which his campaign tried to backpedal on almost immediately, though incompletely. To my understanding his words depart substantially and in a bad way from the longstanding policies of both Republican and Democratic administrations. First was his statement that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, which of course the Israelis say, but the U.S. does not officially recognize, nor other nations, because of its implications in violations of international law and binding Security Council resolutions. Second was his statement that Jerusalem must remaing "undivided," which is where the backpedaling was strongest, but still weak. This position if maintained in effect would prevent any two-state settlement during an Obama administration, because it is quite clear that any such settlement would require both Israeli and Palestinian capitals in Jerusalem and the inclusion of East Jerusalem in Palestine.

If Obama was signalling to the pro-Likud faction in AIPAC that he would back their effective rejection of a Palestinian state and continued West Bank annexationism, that is deeply problematic, especially since Likud would be the most likely winner in an Israeli election today. It would be a huge regressive step from even the Bush II position, never mind Clinton. These problems have only been deepened by aggressive Israeli settlement extending "greater Jerusalem" into illegally occupied territory on the West Bank, and cutting those areas off from the rest of West Bank Palestine with the "separation wall" and the segregated highway system.

Insofar as such an aggressive pro-rejectionist posture toward Israel would poison the well for all the rest of Obama's favored diplomatic approach to the Near East and Iran, one can only hope that his statements will not end up embodied in policy. Where we may differ, it seems, is that I see this as an incoherence and contradiction within a reasonably well articulated overall policy stance, whose resolution is not clear, but where the weight of the overall policy would press toward diminishing the error, if not reversing it. You seem to see it as revealing a hidden "true" policy stance, in conjunction with your different reading of the Iran policy. But maybe I'm misinterpreting.

I share your admiration for Uri Avnery and will follow up the links you provided; thanks.

Harry,

Your message contains two broad brushes (which lead to smears) that illustrate why it is hard to have reasonable discussions.

First is "you guys," evidently meaning any and all persons who intend to vote for someone other than Nader or McKinney (would it be "progressive" to vote for the Socialist Party candidate if they have one as they usually do?). The idea that we all share the same views on the matters under discussion is patently false.

Second is "I understand that you guys don't really care much about any of this" (emphasis added), to wit:

"a DECREASE in militarism and military spending; an end to support for corporate crime and corporate welfare; single-payer, Canadian-style non-corporate health care; no to nuclear power, solar first; carbon pollution tax; repeal of Taft-Hartley; securities speculation tax; etc."

Again this simply is false. In addition to the false "you guys" generalization again, the assertion of not caring or not caring much about this entire list is false, whether applied to the "you guys" category or individually.

Speaking for myself, I care deeply about some of these things, considerably about most of them, and somewhat about all of them. Since you want to get quantitative about it, ("care much"), at least by orders of magnitude, I would prioritize them, though obviously there are interlinkages. My priorities would not be in the order you present, suspect yours wouldn't be either. Further, my prioritization would combine some sense of abstract intellectual importance ("If one could wave a wand and achieve 3 of these, which would you pick") with some sense of the current political state of play regarding them.

In my actual political practice, struggling to reduce militarism (largely a defensive battle IMO) and supporting public national health insurance (which is not health care, and HR 676 goes well beyond the Canadian system in aiming to make the entire health system not-for-profit) are where efforts mainly go. If I could wave a wand, Taft-Hartley would probably be next, because of my belief in political process and the necessity of building up weak political and social bases for progressive movements, though come to it I might actually go back to the National Labor Relations Act itself. In the actuality, the movement to establish card-check union organizing, which is widely supported by the non-progressives "us guys" will be voting for, seems to me to be an intermediate step to increasing the capacity of workers to organize to advocate more effectively for full workers' human rights for themselves, despite its possible warts in encouraging shallow approaches to organizing. This does not reflect caring "less" about Taft-Hartley but thinking about how to get from here to there.

In addition to the simple falsehoods of your smeary broad brushes regarding uniformity of positions and unevidenced motives aspersions about "caring," there is a third element which at the end of the day underlies problems of reasonable discussion. It has to do with understandings of the significance of presidential voting.

Basically I do not see how my voting as an individual for Nader or McKinney would in practice advance my efforts for the items I have addressed above.

As nearly as I can understand from debates I read and occasionally engage in, choices to vote in those ways or for other small party candidates emerge out of a combination of concern for personal ethical integrity in which voting takes on much greater weight than it does for me, with one of two other views. Those would be a more romantic view of voting than mine -- that casting the vote held to represent integrity will actually help change the debate by symbolizing publicly a stance in a highly important act -- or a more cynical view than mine -- that the vote is essentially meaningless, and should be cast (or even not) primarily in the context of using electoral campaigning as a means of propaganda.

My view, by contrast, is that a presidential vote in the dominant party context can serve one or both purposes of defending against putting the most deeply regressive forces in power, and shaping the conditions in which other kinds of political struggles and efforts take place. It does not seem to me to be a matter of great concern for personal integrity, because the system does not offer me choices at the level of the presidency that would embody such integrity, including the choice to vote for one of your "progressive" candidates, which to me is simply an elaborate abstention, an act which lacks a different sort of integrity from voting for someone with whom I have significant and substantial disagreements, sometimes at a pretty fundamental level.

On another thread you called my proposition that an Obama presidency would create different conditions for trying to achieve something than a McCain presidency (I forget if it was ending the occupation of Iraq or health insurance) "religious rather than rational." That seems to reflect an over-reading of my sense of hope or expectation. Because the left is so weak in this country, a difference in conditions does not imply capacity to take advantage of that difference. (Failure to make necessary distinctions as you fail to do contributes to that lack of capacity IMO, though I will freely admit that other failures related to my approach also contribute.)

Of the examples above, card-check organizing is the clearest one where different conditions of struggle are produced by an Obama vs. a McCain presidency. Under Obama, and if Democratic representation in Congress grows as expected, there is a considerable likelihood of actually winning this battle. It is not certain. Too many conservative Democrats in the House could block it. Unwillingness to play hardball over possible Republican filibuster in the Senate could block it. Betrayal by Obama could block it (though this is least likely in my view). But there is a very real chance, and better organizing around the issue than I've ever seen. Under a McCain presidency, that chance goes to zero.

On health insurance, the difference of conditions has to do with the growing capacity of the single-payer movement to force that option onto the agenda of any debate which hopes to have a pretense to realism. Under an Obama presidency, the debate will be over what kind of national system to have, not whether to have one. Within those terms of debate, the growing breadth and depth of single-payer organizing will gain scope for attention, explanation and persuasion. Under a McCain presidency, the debate will remain stuck on whether to have a national system or not, and the power of self-fulfilling "realism" arguments to keep single-payer marginalized will be enhanced, because it will raise the premium on any national "universal" system vs. none, at the expense of not making the mediocre the enemy of the good.

On militarism and war, which I think is what generated your "religion" jibe at me, I do think there also is a difference of conditions created by the two candidates, but in this area the scope is most constrained. That is partly because it is in the area of foreign and military power that large elements of the national leadership of both parties take frankly elitist and undemocratic attitudes toward popular opinion. It is also the realm in which internal Democratic criticism of Obama's aims to expand the war in Afghanistan, take poorly conceived risks in Pakistan, and raise military spending and personnel strength is most likely to be attacked as disloyal to Obama and to face concerted efforts at marginalization, as occurred during the widespread Democratic complicity in warmongering against Iraq in 2002 and early 2003. Yet even at that, to the extent that Obama is perceived as more of an anti-war candidate than he actually is, I believe it offers opportunities to improve popular anti-war organizing, if the movement takes them.

And, oddly enough perhaps, it's also the area in which I'd think people who oppose voting for Democrats ought also to see possibilities, because insofar as the Democratic establishment seeks to ignore and repress recognition of popular anti-war sentiment, and to marginalize expressions of it among Democrats, it is likely to push strongly anti-war Democrats into alliance with further left progressives and to disillusion them with the prospects of the DP in itself as a vehicle for truly ending the Iraq occupation, much less reducing U.S. militarism more generally.

Harry, we are talking past one another and I don't know that it can be overcome.

1) You read meaning into my use of "pure" that I didn't intend. It's not an entirely implausible reading, so chalk it up to my bad writing.

1a) You value "principle" more highly than I do, which I think also connects to my inference about our different views of personal ethical integrity. On the left (and here I mean that part to the left of the DP in debates entirely among its own elements as well as in blanket dismissals of the DP) "principle" is often either used deliberately and dishonestly to cause divisions, or used honestly with the same unintended effect. In particular, "we must build unity based on principle" means "we must split and divide and refuse to cooperate across differences," either in intention or in effect.

This difference may reflect different views between you and me as to our personal capacities in particular and perhaps human capacities in general to achieve internal consistency of views. To me, given the divisive effects cited, beyond a point, the effort isn't worth the candle.

If I took principle more seriously, it would set me more firmly against Nader for his footsy-playing with Pat Buchanan & his racist/xenophobic nationalist following, rather than just not being for Nader -- whom I respect for his institution-building which I see as providing a much more useful contribution than his presidential runs.

I simply disagree with you about the primacy of foreign policy in deciding about presidential votes. But if I were to accept it for the sake of argument, McCain's policy in approach and detail is so much worse than Obama's that it would make abstaining in effect by voting "third party" appear more questionable, not less.

Beyond that we get into my previous remarks about our differences in evaluating the importance of presidential votes.

2) Ok. I didn't actually assume, just asked, was curious if it meant anything that you restricted your comments to those two. I still wonder if you focus on Nader and McKinney because you see those options as most likely to gather enough votes to gain a level of visibility in dissent, and if so, whether you would argue that someone who thinks they don't go far enough should vote for them anyway, rather than say the SP or SWP or whatever candidate.

3) You say I shouldn't take what you write personally, but by the assertion advanced here, I clearly "can't be perceived as caring much" about Palestinians or Lebanese people. Since I perceive your preferred strategy as ineffective, I don't accept that refusing to go along with it actually means anything like this at all.

4) This is the strongest argument for your position, and I don't disagree with the second part of it especially. The unfair treatment of Nader is part of why I see presidential voting as of limited effectiveness as a strategy.

The second part of your argument depends on a relationship between parties and movements. The necessity for such a relationship is right, IMO, but on the whole I don't agree that the parties and presidential candidacies led the movements. In terms of abolitionism, for example, it would be very interesting to discuss Lincoln's Republican campaigns in 1858 and 1860 in terms of "principle" and "pandering" vs. both earlier dynamics of the anti-slavery movement and the arguments by W.E.B. DuBois and Benjamin Quarles and their extension by historians like Eric Foner and James Oakes about the role black self-liberation both before and militarily during the Civil War.

But this is the heart of our debate, I think. In the 1990s I worked considerably for a period to try to build the Labor Party, exactly because it was predicated on creating a relationship to a mass, organized social movement with substantial resources -- had certain things been different it held prospects for unifying with the Green Party of the day on general platform (provided "principles" weren't defined too narrowly), but alas, those things weren't different. But presidential electoral efforts focused primarily on personalities and personal prestige, which is how I see Nader's and McKinney's, don't do much to build movements and aren't even articulated in such terms. Nader in particular is to be faulted for actively refusing to take up that role in relation either to the Green Party organizationally or the "green" movement, socially amorphous though it is.

5) "My" (so-called) "health prescription" is a deliberate and actually quite insulting misrepresentation of my position. I am quite aware of the position of PNHP and have been for more than a decade -- I chose Dr. Himmelstein because of it -- and "my prescription" for health insurance reform as a component of larger health and health system reform is national government funded and provided insurance. (The California Nurses Association was a major force in the Labor Party.) Since the weight of that movement, as represented and led by PHNP, Health Care for All, CNA/NNOC and other allied organizations is focused on HR 676 as their vehicle, I support that, although my expectation is that when the movement gets enough traction that bill will end up changed. I agree with PHNP's critique of all the Democratic candidate plans, which also applies to Ron Wyden's bill.

The argument you are deliberately misconstruing has to do with the differences in circumstances and conditions for pursuing the struggle for "single payer" that would be created by an Obama vs. a McCain presidency. It is not and cannot honestly be read as supporting Obama's health insurance reform proposals.

You may honestly disagree with that evaluation, but you may not pretend that what I wrote says anything except that "my prescription" is for a national government funded government provided health insurance system, and be making an honest reading.

1. I don't believe that the anti-war movement should be organizing itself or acting primarily with reference to the presidential electoral cycle or candidacies at all. If Portland anti-war movement and specifically the PDX Peace coalition in which I work were to attempt to take a single position on the election, it would dissolve. Even short of that, working for Nader or McKinney rather than to build a movement that can't be ignored would be a wrong and ineffective strategy. My remarks refer to conditions that may come into being, but that do not exist yet fully on a large scale, involving Democratic voting activists who are not yet at the point described, including me.

What I meant under (5) is that you can honestly disagree with my assessment that the conditions of fighting for single-payer would differ under Obama vs. McCain.

Still talking past one another.

I don't think Barack Obama is building a movement. That's not why I'm voting for him.

I have argued with some Obama people here, and also on the Portside list in response to the "Progressives for Obama" loose grouping involving e.g. Tom Hayden, Danny Glover and Barbara Ehrenreich, who are taking IMO a "catch a wave/ be with the people" approach, that the whole thing is too personality focused. In the local peace movement I argue against seeing the presidential election as a vehicle for our efforts.

So the question of why Obama is building a movement and Nader isn't rests on a false premise, i.e. that I believe Obama is building one. I don't.

The point is that I don't believe that running for president very often or ever helps to build movements, certainly not as a starting point. It's a poor tool for the work that needs doing, IMO.

Insofar as I have something like "principles" in the way you use the term, they tend to be bigger scale than some of yours that come in at the level of issues in my view, and smaller scale than "never vote for a capitalist party" as some folks I work with in movement work say -- you I guess don't go that far as you see a Democrat like Kucinich as acceptable, I gather.

There are many issues over which I might decide not to vote for someone, but they remain situational to a degree that would render them "not principles" to many who use that term. For example, I pretty much won't vote for an anti-abortion candidate.

But I can imagine either a) voting against a racist/etnocentric xenophobic nationalist authoritarian demagogue I found sufficiently threatening in favor of an anti-abortion small d democrat, or b) deciding to vote in an election between two anti-abortion candidates, if there were enough other salient other issues with significant differences -- though if there weren't I might sit it out and work on building up forces to defend women's rights to control their bodies.

Opposition to racist/ethnocentric xenophobic nationalist authoritarians might be the strongest semi-principle for me. Which brings me back to Ralph playing footsie with Pat Buchanan as a problem.

I am sorry, I didn't mean to suggest an "ulterior motive" by you, in my description of how I see the word "principle" operating divisively most of the time when it is advanced as a primary political motive. The specific line you quote refers to particular circumstances when it can be a power play witin an organization, but that's obviously not a relevant context here.

However, a) sometimes it is done consciously because those making the argument want division in order to advance a cause, as they see it, much as you and Bill argue, and b) sometimes it can have a divisive effect with no intentional bad motive. It was a comment on the philosophical exaltation of principle as an idea, not an aspersion on your motives. But of course one shouldn't exalt unity too much either. Actually I commenting on the irony of divisive arguments for "unity" based on "principle" as much as anything else.

Yes, there are examples like the Republicans splitting the Whigs (after the failure of the more "principled" Free Soilers in the 1840s), or the CIO splitting the AFL in order to build a movement organizing workers the AFL had written off in the 1930s. And yes, there are examples of "fusion" with major parties short-circuiting interesting possibilities, as with the People's Party cross-nominating Bryan in 1896 on a narrow "free silver" platform that undercut their deeper analysis and radical reform proposals. But there are lots of splits on principle that haven't gone anywhere. So I can't making splitting over principle into a principle, if you see what I mean, but need to evaluate its prospects case by case.

There is nothing contradictory at all in what I wrote about Nader. The institution-building he did was outside of the context of his presidential campaigns.

In 1996 (when I voted for him) he was running an unabashed protest campaign. In 2000 he chose not to fully affiliate himself with the Green Party for reasons I don't understand, but passed up a chance to build up that party as an organization. I didn't agree with their "lead with a presidential campaign" strategy, but it was a strategy, and he substantially sabotaged its possibilities.

In 2004 Nader allowed himself to be the organizing pole for an internal division in the Greens that did them great damage. The underlying issue wasn't him per se, it was about strategy vis a vis Democrats & "spoiler" arguments in the aftermath of 2000. But I am not sure that "his" side would have had the power they did without his personal prestige and loyalties to him, and, as his Buchananite forays show, in any case his main priority was ballot access conducted in a highly unprincipled way.

Personally I don't think struggles for ballot access for a personality-focused electoral movement is a good way to move to "activating" 1000 anti-corporate rule people in each congressional district, short or long term. I don't know what Nader means by "activate" in any case. The approach seems backwards in order, and the goal ephemeral. Progressives can "activate" people temporarily periodically, viz. early anti-war mobilizations in 2002 & 2003, and even after. But creating a more permanent basis of movement organization seems to elude us. I'm skeptical that Nader/Gonzalez could do that, or that they even really will try.

I guess in a way it is a principle for me, given what I see as the limited power of presidential voting within our plebliscitary oligarchy, to vote against the candidate I see as most destructive if I see significant differences, by voting for the candidate who has the best chance of beating him.

If I had a clear idea of how to build a movement that would effectively challenge the aspects of the oligarchy that are excluded from electoral politics by hegemonic ideology in the U.S., and that way involved a presidential campaign, I'd do that. But I don't have such any idea of my own. Nor do I find anyone else offering me such an approach that is persuasive.

So I continue in my limited way to focus on movement-building as the basis for my deeper or broader reform hopes, and to see presidential politics as irrelevant to them in the present circumstances, but as having some importance at a shallower level for some things that make real differences in some peoples lives sufficient enough to pay attention to.

Palestine in a way offers an example. I wouldn't be a single-issue voter on it, but if there were to be a Democratic candidate with a substantially better position than what's on offer, that would be a serious consideration for me, even if that candidate were not exceptional in his or her general relationships to U.S. corporate power.

I fully understand and did not even attempt to persuade you otherwise what your views are about "caring" about Palestinians, btw. You asked why I took your arguments personally, clearly I personally fail your test on this.

This is an issue that makes me feel very bad, and if I met a Palestinian who said I didn't care enough, I'm not sure I would even try to defend myself against the charge. But again, I just don't see that if I were to vote for Nader or McKinney it would really amount to "caring" more, because taking actions I believe to be ineffective doesn't count for much in my book.

If I wanted hold myself to a tough standard of acting with real concern to improve the situation of Palestinians and gain Palestinian statehood, as perhaps I should, presidential votes within the possibilities on offer (bad major party candidate positions and hopeless prospects for minor party candidates with bettter positions) would be low on my list of criteria.

As an inveterate and hopeless mono-tasker, your walking and chewing metaphor leaves me unmoved.

The actual, literal, personal fact for me is that when I try to chew and walk I often end up choking and coughing, or spilling stuff on my shirt. But in any case that metaphor can cut the other way too -- it is possible to work for genuine progressive change and still have good reasons to vote for an imperfect DP candidate on a defensive basis. Two different activities at once.

(If you want to continue this discussion or others off this site, feel free to email me at clowe187 (at sign) gmail (dot) com.)