An Election Admonition

Halloween is probably the best possible day to talk about the coming elections. For anyone that pays attention to politics, and is used to ghouls and goblins running about the halls of power on a daily basis, it's comforting that there's at least one time of the year when everyone recognizes that bad things can happen to good people. Or be made to happen. And that we need to be ever on our guard against this eventuality. So in that spirit we turn to the obligatory editorial that all publications that pay attention to politics in an election season feel constrained to write.

Except that we're not backing any candidates. And we've already written a tough "No on 1" editorial; so we're not returning to that ballot question. And we're not taking positions on Questions 2 or 3 because we haven't heard especially convincing arguments from either side on either question. Certainly not in these pages (hint, hint, Question 2 and 3 advocates). And besides, everyone knows that the state legislature abhors ballot questions - unless they are bought off the way they were when rent control was destroyed by a referendum campaign bankrolled by the real estate industry back in 1995. Any question passed will almost certainly be stonewalled and dismantled; so one can only get so excited about them. [Though, to be sure, Question 1 is so monumentally irresponsible that its passage would be a truly bad sign regardless of what the legislature might do to stop it retroactively.]

No, what we'd like to put into the heads of Open Media Boston viewers this election week is something that others on the American left have already been pointing out, but that bears repeating ad nauseam.

Whatever happens on November 4th, particularly given that Massachusetts is not any kind of battleground state this time around, it's important to prepare for November 5th. It's important to think what area progressives are going to commit to doing the day after the election. And the day after that. And every day until the next major election.

Whoever wins the Presidency - McCain or Obama (or even McKinney or Nader) - or the Senate race or any races next week there will still be American troops and American mercenaries occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. There will still be the danger of wars in Iran and now Syria. There will still be a global financial crisis, and therefore a financial crisis right here at home. There will still be global warming. There will still be all kinds of big bads that need taking down.

For progressives, this raises the question that is often-heard, but rarely acted on: Are you willing to do more to build a broad left in this state and this nation that is capable of going head-to-head with the right-wing and the center for political primacy? Are you willing to get out there day after day and act to stop illegal and immoral American military adventures wherever they may be happening? Are you willing to act strongly to push progressive responses to the financial crisis and to global warming? Are you willing to act to make a better world on these and any of a hundred related issues?

We certainly hope so. Whatever candidates you back or don't back, whomever you vote for or don't vote for next week, the onus is on all of us not to drop any of the various critical political balls that will be falling after next Tuesday. There are certainly many people who think that their political activism should start and end by voting in major elections. That is a conceit that this society can ill-afford as the state of the planet gets worse.

So that's it for now. Go do your thing on November 4th - even if that thing is just drinking heavily and gritting your teeth as the two wings of the U.S. Corporate Party duke it out to see which industrial sectors will be best positioned to loot the public till for the next 4 years. But on November 5th, resolve to extend any activist streak you may possess (or at least entertain acquiring) into the far future. For only by positive action by millions of people, in Massachusetts and around the world, will the rushing tide of various ills besetting us be turned.

We invite you to join us in this crucial activity. And we sincerely hope that things are looking better rather than worse when the dust clears next Wednesday.