MORE FINANCIAL NEWS

Today's big news appears to be connected to the disappointing employment report. The stocks are down, oil prices are up.

And anyone who's a socialist should pay attention to Stan Goff's recent interview. After all, Goff has a cool organization. His memorable quote:

One of the things the more politically advanced in the United States can do now, and I mean advanced in terms of understanding the role of the bourgeois state, is to exercise the actual political power we have in our present state of under-development to shake up the situation--again, a Boyd tactic, make a strike, then reassess the situation for new vulnerabilities--is to deny the Oval Office to the Democrats, and make it public knowledge that this is an intentional political act.

This begins to disrupt the inertia of the good cop/bad cop routine the two party system keeps pulling on us. It says we are no longer so afraid of the Republicans that we run back to their doe-eyed body-doubles again and again. But when and if we do that, if we encourage that route of revolutionary defeatism, then we are duty-bound to be prepared and organized for the follow through. We have to be prepared to escalate our tactics against the returning Republicans. Calling on people to take risks carries with it some responsibilities.

So, if we're going to run Nader in an attempt to derail the bait-and-switch substitution of Kerry for Bush, we'll have to have some sort of strategy for "following through," and replacing the Democratic Party with an organized entity that actually opposes both neoliberalism and neoconservatism rather than being a co-opted holding pen for their opponents. Without that, we can all expect the public to adopt Tariq Ali's stance (this from Doug Henwood's radio archives):

DH: A lot of people on the American left are saying Kerry's not much
better, and that Bush not all that much out of the ordinary. Kerry
opened his acceptance speech with a military salute. He'd be pretty
much more of the same. What do you say to that?

TA: We're talking about the government which took the United States
to war. Had Gore been elected, he would have gone to war in
Afghanistan, but I doubt he would have gone to war in Iraq. This is
very much a neocon agenda, dominated by the need to get the oil and
appease the Israelis. This war in Iraq is very much something this
administration went for. The defeat of this administration would be a
defeat of the war party.

You can see that even the Marxists will select Kerry over Bush if the alternative isn't real enough.

Better get ready for next week's job hunt.