Michael O’McCarthy, Greenville
Social revolutionaries and “progressives” have now come to a point more important in time other than perhaps the “War for Southern Independence,” as called by the Southern revisionists. We are now challenged to make a very difficult choice. The choice is between principles and personalities – between the principles that demand a major, structural social change vs. corporate state politics; of those candidates and democratic activists who scream “electability” which is a clarion call for yet another form of “Lesser Evilism.” That strategy may had value in choosing between capitalism and Nazism, democratic socialism and the varying brands of Stalinism, but offers no discernible hope for the change needed in this country.
There were difficult theoretical as well as practical issues in that time and of course the Lesser Evil was capitalism. Today there really is no difficulty. While the political ideologues of the corporate state would have us believe that we are either on their side, as Bush and Cheney have raved, or on the side of the hordes, (represented by the terrorists,) the real choice is between the State and the people. I choose in the interest of the people of the world.
Indeed, like no other time in modern history, we have little ideological structure or international support for either our analysis or our struggle. We are left herein to our own devices. We do so under a national government that has only contempt for the people and little other purpose than of exploiting or destroying the rest of the world.
Thus, the Duopoly and its vehicle of “globalization” and its military imperialism now face us with the consolidation of corporate state rule, not democracy. This Lesser Evilism is no longer a valid choice for those of us who know the need for fundamental social change if democracy is to survive. In fact it is a continuing path to Hell.