From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: POST-ELECTION *EDITORIAL*
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 00:52:50 GMT

[We do not generally engage in these, especially on MAP
 (misc.activism.progressive), but at this special time it seems
 important to make a statement. Responses/Op-ed sent over the next
 several days to harelb@math.cornell.edu we will try to include in a
 "Digest" of readers' thoughts on the Election and the Next Four Years
 for the dissident/progressive/radical/grass-roots movements. --HB]

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In the near future we hope to address:


    ** The Clinton Candidacy -- what to expect
            in more detail, including "re-broadcasting" the series
            on the Business Profits being put, not surprisingly,
            before the interests of the environment and working
            people (that Special Interest group making up the vast
            majority of Americans) in Arkansas.
and

    ** Activism in the next four years -- What can we do, BEFORE the
            next election?

I would like to put first and foremost Clinton's "landslide" into
perspective.

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The latest voting figures I have are:

        Bush:    38%  (interestingly adding up to 100% so that all third
        Clinton: 43%  parties combined appear to have gotten less than 1%, a
        Perot:   19%  bit suspicious even given the vast obstacles put in the
		      way of third parties in this country)

Taking these, first, at face value, we have George Bush receiving 38%
of the votes, 5% less than Clinton, in an election year in which the
deep economic recession is a major concern for voters.

The man whose Iraq-Gate secret loans to Iraq and "open invitation" for
Saddam to take Kuwait where in part exposed, including by Perot in a
nationally-televised debate; the man whose dirty Iran-Contra lies
where exposed, yet again, in no uncertain terms to have been *lies*
about having been "out of the loop," just a few days before the
election, received 38% of the votes.

This does not even delve into such territories as the S&L scandal and
the "improprieties" and profiteereing engaged in by Bush's relatives,
his McCarthy-like hysterical nonsense about Clinton the KGB
agent/wannabe, and so on.

That Bush got 38% to Clinton's 43% given all of these factors on top
of the screaming economy, speaks very loudly about how tenuous
Clinton's "landslide" really was. That the party which was able to use
its immense power and resources to extract those 38% under such
unfavorable circumstances has the White House within reach in the next
election, then, is a vast understatement.

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Consider for a moment, however, the real, hidden vote totals: a
whopping 55% of the eligible voters cast their votes in this election,
a record high in this "democracy" -- and not a very surprising
phenomenon given the political realities in our one-party, two-faction
system, Power resting with those who hold the strings of the one
American Party -- the Big Business Party.

The real percentage breakup, then, becomes:

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		X (no-vote):     *45*% 
                 - - - - - - - - - - -
		Clinton:         23.6% <--
		Bush:            21  % <--
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		Perot:           10.5%
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Those 45% of eligible voters "voted for X" meaning the choices offered
by the political system and the realities most Americans are aware of
-- of the likelihood that any *real* change would be brought by any of
these candidates -- or even, whether it *could* be, even if they
honestly meant they wanted to do Good Things, given the realities of
Power in our "best government money can buy" -- the choices being what
they are, and even discounting the huge figure of 45% to compensate
for the anti-democratic obstacles put to make it so difficult to
register to vote, clearly the winner, by a Landslide, was continuing
if not deepening disillusionment in American democracy; unfortunately,
all too well deserved.

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While the Left is scorned in the mainstream culture -- a state,
unmistakably, which is perpetuated by constant bias and loaded
language by the "liberal"ly corporate-owned press -- there is deep
distrust in the slogans the public is itself so often induced to
recite, only barely beneath the surface.

So for example Larry Agran polled ahead of or equal to both Brown and
Harkin in New Hampshire, only to disappear into oblivion after
viciously exclusionary tactics by the Free Press, starting with a
KGB-style photo-cropping by none other than the New York Times (other
details can be found in the Columbia Journalism Review article I
posted; copy by email).

Similarly, Ralph Nader drew crowds several times the size of the
Republican and Democratic "machine" candidates but he was not a
"serious" candidate -- by the Corporate Press definition, not as far
as substance -- unlike the machine "serious candidates" of the two
factions of the Business Party -- with Brown deviating substantially
and admirably, only to later participate in the black-listing process
against Larry Agran when, just two weeks after he and Clinton debated
Agran elsewhere in New York state (not *everyone* in this country is
anti-democratically inclined) he sat back in silence along with
Clinton as Agran was dragged off by police for standing up in the
audience asking that he be included in the debate. (Even with this
addition, this too is only part of the story).

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What happens over the next 4 years is largely up to us, up to the
dissidents and activists who can push for social change under a
Clinton administration that will (hopefully) engage in less domestic
repression of the Reagan/Bush variety (FBI spying, break-ins, etc) but
which is not inclined (see below) to push *forward* (as opposed to
not-pushing-backwards, e.g. preserving Choice -- this is called a
damage-control/prevention or "holding position" -- not forward
progress) on most progressive agendas like Economic Conversion and
National Health Care -- unless We The People Push them into it.

With less domestic repression, and less "fires to put out" activists
and progressives will be more responsible than ever if we fail to take
the initiative thinking that Clintonite pro-death-penalty (for
mentally handicapped African-Americans), pro-Gulf-slaughter, etc,
"Neo-Liberal" Clintonite administration is a Good in and of itself
other than offering grassroots, popular organizations more breathing
space to act as WE must act, as opposed to expecting Bill and Al to
ACT -- they will "act" -- continuing to follow the corporate agenda,
as Clinton has in Arkansas, only more "kindly and gently" than Bush
but without a fundamentally different outlook.

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For example, while an adequate "defense" budget of $150 and even $100
billion per year [$100,000,000,000.00] would leave the U.S. by far the
most powerful and secure nation on the globe, Clinton's idea of
"change" is:

*Clinton plans to "save approximately $60 billion between 1993 and
*1997" or $10-$15 billion per year "beyond the defense budget levels
*proposed by the Bush Administration" with Clinton assuring _Defense
*Electronics_ (Interview, October 1992 issue) that while:
*
*    "Over the 1993-1997 period, the President's plan calls for
*    spending approximately $1.42 trillion [ $1,420,000,000,000.00
*    --HB] on [the military]", the "Clinton/Gore plan would cost about
*    95 percent of this amount -$1.36 trillion [ $1,360,000,000,000.00
*    --HB]"

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Over the next four years, along with fighting for specific agenda,
progressives/radicals must challenge the *system* or else all gains
will be very limited,  superficial, and/or temporary. Challenging the
system means promoting *real democracy* -- necessarily, then: changing
the power-structure in this society in which we have a "dictatorship
of the corporations" in Ron Daniels words.

That includes electoral reform that will diminish the influence of the
Big Money/Big Business Special Interests (not to be confused with the
"Special Interests" the Free Press refers to -- women, minorities,
gays and lesbians, environmentalists, the working class and the poor,
etc -- in short, the vast majority of the population -- or the
"special interests" to the Corporate elites who own and run this
country, its politics, and the media) over politics.

This includes public financing of elections and taking private money
*out* of elections and legalized-bribes to "public servants" -- not
term limits that merely rotates who is down there being sold out to
the Power-Money because they have to raise so many thousands per day
for their re-election campaign and because bribing Congresspeople is
legal if done the "right way.

This includes preference-voting (see my earlier post -- letter to
Ithaca Times) so 3rd parties do not undercut one another and
*proportional representation* so they have a fighting chance in the
first place.

Finally, I hope to post to MAP (misc.activism.progressive) and ACTIV-L
over the coming months some ideas about organizing as well as details
about (and details about how to get involved in) some projects I and
others are working on.


Peace & Justice,

Harel Barzilai

Founder, Activists Mailing List (AML), parent of ACTIV-L, Spring 1990
Co-founder, Co-moderator, ACTIV-L, Fall 1990 (with Rich Winkel)
Co-founder, Co-moderator, misc.activism.progressive (MAP) on UseNet 1991


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