Some questions about the maxim: "The worse the better"

[JVS]

It is often stated here that the Green party ran in 2000 on a policy of "the worse the better". People say that Ralph Nader would have rather seen Bush become president than Gore because at least with Bush as president, people would be upset by his actions whereas Gore would get a free pass as the "lesser evil". Basically that a Bush administration would anger Americans who would then join a leftist backlash. Thus we suffer Bush to get people to the left, the worse the better.

What has come to my attention lately is that in threads concerning the draft, some DUers support reintroduction of a draft. One of the reasons for this is that they think it will make the country wake up to the malaise that is the Bush administration. Is this not another case of 'the worse the better'? Does this not hope to exploit or even inflict suffering to bring the country to the left?

So I have several questions.
1. Is the maxim 'the worse the better' correct?
2. Was Nader correct?
3. Is the supporting a draft to politically wake up the country correct?
4. If one of 2 and 3 is correct but the other is incorrect, why?

One additional comment. I do not intend this to be a debate about Nader's intentions. For the purposes of this thread let us assume that those who attributed the goal of provoking a backlash against a Bush regime is true. That debate could be a topic of numerous threads and is not necessary for this discussion. Thank you.

[Syrinx]

1. Are you saying we lefties are disorganized and "Balkanized?"

If so, I totally agree. DU is doing a bit to change that, I think.

[JVS]

2. Not only Balkanized but losing touch with our ethics

We are defining ourselves too exclusively in terms of opposing the current regime, which although a good uniting point for the left, is not a basis for making all decisions. We cannot let our ethics be replaced by "Anybody but Bush" We need to be able to take firm positions without the justification being opposition to Bush.

[Pert_UK]

3. I think that there is some degree of fatalism / pessimism too.......

It's almost like people would be disappointed in Dubya didn't introduce the draft, dig up all Alaska, declare himself king, nuke North Korea etc. etc. etc.

I know what people mean about getting the US to wake up, and that something like the draft & martial law might finally get the pigshitignorant gung-ho Republican supporters to finally recognise that Bush et al are taking their rights away.

However, this is dangerous - there's no fun in being smug about being right about the evils of Dubya when your treasury has been ransacked and your public services undermined.

P.

[BurtWorm]

4. About the draft

There's a good reason or two for supporting it. Without it, we have an army of mercenaries fighting our wars for us. This divorces the military from the people, creating a military class that relies on war (or international policing) to justify its existence, and alienating the people from the consequences of their ruling class's decisions to employ military force. A democracy really ought not to be in such a situation, though such a situation is perfect for empire.

[German-Lefty]

6. Yes that's the German argument they had for military service

In the cold war every able bodied man had to put in a few months (I think 2 years at one point) to defend us against the other poor Germans on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

It's an interesting argument. Make the military more democratic. Still I don't know if this really happens. We did have a draft in the US, and it's not like Dubya servered.

You're always going to need some people doing a whole career in the military, and you're always going to have someone that will profit from any conflict we're in.

[BurtWorm]

8. Without a democratic army, there's no political consequence

for being a chickenhawk.

[gottaB]

5. I don't think the arguments are reducable to the maxim

Here's my take.

On the Draft. Let's go back to Charlie Rangel's proposal (link to his initial announcement). Rangel talks about shared sacrifice, and while that hides a lot of his partisan motivation, I think it's essentially on point. He's arguing against the notion that the war in Iraq will be a cakewalk. He knows it's going to cost. He knows it's going to hurt people. But the true costs of war were not really part of the debate in Washington leading up to the invasion. Not enough anyway. It was and largely still is a classist politics, in which one class of people bear the burdens for the decisions made by another, dominant class.

The point is not that Charlie Rangel wanted kids to die. The point is that if people in Washington, along with their dearest and most loyal supporters, knew that they would have to pay the true costs of war, they would not make reckless decisions. The "backlash" he was aiming at was not a matter of "the worse the better," but rather a call for fairness and honesty, a reconsideration of the case for war.

Now, in August, there are people talking about a draft, and hoping for a backlash. I'd like to believe that most people don't really want to see carnage and destruction and all the attendant ills of soldiering in an imperialist war visited upon the young people of this nation. Because there is still time to change things. The UN can brought in. Our allies. We can eat some humble pie and try to make the best of this. So again, the point is not "the worse the better," but rather a call for fairness and honesty, and a reconsideration of how to proceed in Iraq.

Because--and I think there's not much disagreement among informed citizens on this point--because if there isn't a drastic change in White House policy pronto, the deaths will continues to mount, the soldiers will suffer, the Iraqi people will suffer, peaceful government will not be established in Iraq, and our regional interests will be further compromised. We will bear the costs of these bad decisions. We are bearing those costs now, although you'd scarecely know it from watching the cable tv. And of course it is the lower classes who are paying the most. It's just an outrage.

As for Mr. Nader, and the green vote in 2000, I think you have to realize the depth of disappointment and disaffection among progressives. At times it seemed like they had absolutely *no* voice in Washington. For example, on the Kyoto protocol, it was Clinton's guy Frank Loy who took a pie in the face at the Hague--and not without cause. The treaty was being rendered useless in negotiations that involved protecting U.S. polluters and all the usual shenanigans.

So where is that issue today? Bush, of course, abandoned the negotiations and did indeed take an extreme position. It seems like every Dem vieing for the nomination wants to use Kyoto as a weapon against Bush. Now they're talking about global warming like they mean it. Now they're making commitments.

In the meantime, the situation with the global climate change grows worse. There are more instabilities, evidence of destruction. And people are waking up. There's every possibility that a stronger, more meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emisions might emerge out of the next election. It's by no means a certainty. The calculations involve making lots of assumptions, but there is an argument there that the resulting agreement will do more to curb emisions in say the next ten years than a weakened Kyoto would have.

So, again, it's not quite "the worse the better," it's about getting honest about our situation, and being fair in accepting responsibility for reckless acts. I don't believe Greens want to see the environment destroyed. They want the powerful in Washington to be responsive to the real interests of the people. The "backlash" agrument is in this light kind of a shorthand for "realigning one's polical affiliation to be more representative of the broad base of citizen interest," or some such.


Interesting question. Thanks.

[tameszu]

7. I'm impressed by any thread that uses the phrase "about the maxim"

Sorry, it's the Kant-training in me.

Uh, and I liked gottaB's post a lot, especially the first half. I totally agree with you regarding Rangel's position; I don't know if I buy your analysis of the Greens. In this case, it would seem that the Greens require something more on the order of casuistry. But very well thought out nonetheless...

[JVS]

9. It isn't my analysis of the Greens

but rather a common criticism of the Greens that appears on this board. I'm just using it because if it is true it is quite similar to the other situation. I don't know if that is what the Greens want to do, but I do know that anyone who is upset at Greens doing it should also be against Democrats doing it.

[tameszu]

17. I was talking about gottaB's analysis of the Greens

I think that Greens have more a tendency to think the way you suggest they do than the Dems, because they realize that they are an "outsider" movement.

[Mairead]

10. It's complicated

What would it take for people to look into the future and decide they don't like what they see? Because I think any analysis will show that, beginning with Carter, we've moved steadily toward a banana-republic model in which a very few have everything substantive and the rest of us, nothing.

When I say 'substantive', I'm not talking about color tvs and suvs. I'm talking about, the means to live, legal rights, political power, etc.

With every election in which we accept a choice limited to two evils, we move further toward that end. If we keep going, eventually we're sure to get there, and by that time it will be too late.

So what will it take to scare people enough so that they decide they'd better stop listening to those who want is to continue moving to the ever-shifting 'center' and a BushCo-style future? The draft? Maybe. Election of BushCo? Maybe. Patriot 2? Maybe.

Or maybe not. Maybe we've already passed the point of no return.

[sandnsea]

11. "It was their choice to join"

This is used as an excuse by a few on the left and more on the right to have no compassion for the conditions the troops are in and or for the deaths of the troops or the suffering of their families. On the left it is more of a they made their bed; on the right it is more they chose to make the sacrifice. Neither one of these are sufficient excuses not to be concerned about the ramifications of this war and they wouldn't be there at all with a draft. The real discussions about war have been deemed unnecessary by too many because nobody's dying that didn't sign up to die. Which ignores so much that doesn't need repeating here.

I have a 17 year old, no I'm not in favor of the draft. But this volunteer army is a weird thing too. It's changed the dynamics of the debate and that is scary.

And while sometimes in moments of frustration I feel like the idiots ought to just get what they deserve, no I do not see any benefit in promoting bad ideas in order to punish the idiots. It's like letting your kid run out in the street so he knows what it's like to get hit by a car. There's less painful ways to learn.

[BurtWorm]

12. Well said.

[Booberdawg]

13. Good questions

"1. Is the maxim 'the worse the better' correct?"

No it is not correct. And the Green Party can now see it didn't work if they are honest. It didn't cause the leftish backlash they wanted.

"2. Was Nader correct?"

No:eyes:

"3. Is the supporting a draft to politically wake up the country correct?"

Hell no! Use the lives of Americans to make a political point?? WTF?? That's obscene!

[sweetheart]

14. the long march

Clearly the maxim is true, if you consider revolutionary tactics in politics. Without the terrible japanese occupation (and american complicity - thanks TR), surely mao's long march would have been futile.

If they keep it up, surely we can get our own mao to lock up all repuliblicans in camps and shake them all down for the money they stole from the treasury... before the firing squad.

Methinks you don't wanna go there.

burtworm mentions about a professional army... largely believed by historians as a contributary cause to ww1... that if a conscripted army were present, at least the public would have been forced to engage the reality of bad warmongering.

Regarding the green foil nader.... water down the drain. There is no power in getting things worse... things just get worse... and people leave... sort of like bad neighborhoods... until all of america is a ghetto with a few pockets of good governance, and a whack insane federal.

I agree with the maxim, but geesh, do we really want to get that far.

Scenario:

say that awol steals the 2004 election. He starts up hardline on north korea and then china siezes the moment and launches a full scale invasion of taiwan. American hubris starts a shooting match with american forces in the taiwan straight. Suddenly, los angeles, san francisco and seattle vanish in a flash of thermonuclear fire. America then nukes 3 chinese cities in response... and ultimately backs down over the taiwan straight. In the following election, the war mongers are put on war crimes trials, and 30 years of corrupting republican insurgency is put in prison... A true leader (kucinich) sort of person takes the helm of america and leads radical reform that our society never again get nuclear war'ed. However, kucinich is the benign sort... likely the american diet for sicko's will not stop and someone like rush limbaugh takes the plunge and interns all the communists in ann coulter camps.... where they are exterminated.

What i'm sayin' is that there is no limit to how bad it will get.... and that there is a point of no return in empire collapse... and we're past it.

[JVS]

15. Kicking

I'll be in tonight to discuss further if anyone cares/

[RichM]

16. Good questions. My take is generally that the maxim has much truth to it.

I think Nader was quite right, & also that reinstating a draft would have a beneficial effect overall. The 2 things are closely related because the main problem in both cases is 1) the colossal ignorance of the general public, & 2) the ease with which it's possible in modern American life to insulate oneself entirely from facing the consequences of ongoing political processes.

To the extent that both instances of the "harsh wake-up call to reality" would result in people realizing that politics really does matter in their lives, such wake-up calls would be beneficial. Its benefit lies PRECISELY in the point that both measures would be extremely painful. If they weren't painful, they'd have no effect whatever.

[StandWatie]

18. hmmm...

Karl Marx supported Free Trade (yes, this debate has been going on a long, long, time) and he did so for a number of reasons.

He believed that in creating a capitalist world order you could A)Remove cultural and religious barriers and B)The whole thing would drive workers worldwide into poverty and ready them for a worldwide revolution.

I don't know if I'm down with that idea but obviously if you can't get what you want (a real attempt at humanizing and defanging capitalism) you may as well make lemonade out of lemons and watch the whole thing burn down.