How could we let this happen?

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How could we let this happen?

Editors, Asheville Global Report,

Eamon Martin’s essay (Talkin’ Woodstock Nation Blues, AGR #305) on the post-election meeting in Woodstock, New York has generated a fair amount of controversy here in the area surrounding that world-famous town. Once the controversy dies down, however, the salient question remains, “How Did We Let This Happen?”, referring of course to the reelection of George W. Bush as President of the US of A. Let me state at the outset that I attended that meeting with Eamon, and while I believe he fairly captured the desperation and the befuddlement of the gathered crowd, and that is what has generated much of the controversy, my comments are only intended to begin to answer the question stated above. And let me further state that I am about 50 years old, which leaves me halfway between Eamon’s age and the median age of the Woodstock meeting-goers, and that is an issue not only because of the charge of “ageism” that has been raised against Eamon, but it also bears on some of my comments about “How We Let This Happen” and what we can do about it.

1. We Let This Happen because we assume that the two-party system is generally representative of us and our political viewpoints. It isn’t. Those meeting-goers were, and are, almost unanimously anti-war, pro-universal health care, and socially egalitarian. Yet the Democrats always block the candidate who puts forward these positions, and time and time again “We Let It Happen.” The meeting-goers and I can recite the list of ‘Liberal Democrats’ who have been rejected as presidential candidates since the 60s — Gene McCarthy, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown, and of course, Howard Dean — and a pro-war, middle of the road type gets the nomination(Humphrey, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, and now Kerry).

* When will we be permitted to say that ABB (Anybody But Bush) sucked as a strategy?

* How do we repair the damage that’s been done to the anti-war movement as a result of the total capitulation to the Democratic nominee, which occurred without any discussion, debate, or compromise?

2. We Let This Happen because we have a “religious” approach to our politics, that is, the Democrats are “good” and the Republicans are “evil.” It’s the flipside of the Christian Evangelical view of politics, which is that the Republicans are “good” and the Democrats are “evil.” Each point of view isn’t so much wrong as it is silly and unreal. That just isn’t how humanity works, though it’s easy and tempting to fall into these habits of mind. “We Let This Happen” to ourselves as long as we cling to such simplistic concepts, and to the frankly elitist attitude of righteous, angry virtue that filled the hall that night in Woodstock.

3. We Let This Happen because We Made This Happen! Every time there’s been a chance to broaden the political system in a way that would include minority viewpoints and third party organizations, we fail, no, we refuse to allow it. For many leftists, even those who think of themselves as “change agents,” the inertia of the status quo is comforting and safe, and preferable to the dangers and risks of real engagement with real people who don’t necessarily think like us. The “left” has more than its fair share of extremists who won’t compromise, even with those who share much in common with them, and I’ve come to believe that it’s easier for them to refuse to compromise than it is to act, and they’re happier when they can remain “above it all.”

4. We Let This Happen because we don’t have a view of ourselves as independent political actors, and we don’t seek allies so much as we demand obedience and we claim to have all the answers. The Nader experience in recent years is a case in point, and of course there’s the Green Party. Both have suffered a semi-collapse this year, both in terms of public support and organizationally, and supporters of either or both have a fair amount of soul-searching to do.

* It also seems to me that those who are still asserting that election fraud has taken place ought to add to their list of complaints the Democrats’ successful efforts to deny Nader a place on the ballot in at least a dozen states this year. The suppression of competition is an affront to democracy, whether it’s practiced by the so-called left or the so-called right.

I have labored on the political “left” since the 1960s, and I have worked with many of the people who filled that meeting hall in Woodstock in mid-November, and I will likely do so again. Many of them will go on thinking and acting in the same old ways. But maybe, just maybe, this time, the combination of their desperation and exasperation, and the advancing age of us “old hippie types,” along with the now-complete selling out of the Democratic Party at the national level, will produce a renewed determination in many of us to rethink in a fundamental way our place and role in the current system of things. After all, it was some of them who brought us the 60s, so we know that they are capable of it.

Pete Healey
Kingston, New York
healey99@hvi.net

Ukraine and Iran coverage short on critical analysis