Your argument  that nobody who argues for a flat retail tax is progressive made me think automatically of Alexander Cockburn. Back in 1992 Cockburn whooped up Jerry Brown\'s flat tax idea and I\'m not sure but I thought he was kindly friendly towards Mike Huckabee\'s national sales tax. Of course, even if you accept the arguments for these regressive taxes that the poor would get enough loopholes, exemptions for food, etc to make it managable for the poor,the amount of money available for needed infrastructure, social programs, etc. would wither away. Doug Henwood had a good critique of Jerry Brown\'s economic proposals, the horror of which Cockburn and others seemed not to grasp, back in 1992: http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Jerry-Brown.html

I\'ve been amazed at how even some radical leftists take Obama as a genuine canidate. Rahul Mahajan has been talking about campaiging for Obama in order to pull the young people that he has "inspired" in order to radicalism. I think that 9 times out of ten electoral politics is a dead end. I think electoral politics is a comfort zone for many people because you don\'t have to do anything--you can argue for or against a canidate\'s policies and vote and then keep waiting and hoping for serious change. People sort of don\'t want to admit to themselves that the society and government  they have grown up in and become a part of is hopeless , and so they get hopeful and  way more excited than they should about elections. Elections seem to be the most politically active time for alot of leftists.

I remember when Norman Solomon, Daniel Ellsberg, and Medea Benjamen came to my undergraduate institution, Pacific Lutheran University in the fall of 2004 as part of their nationwide tour to urge people to vote for Kerry against Bush. There was probably about 70 oeople in the audience and only a few of the people had probably ever heard of Medea or Normon.  Most of the audience was not very politically aware students who  got extra credit for attending.. The three put forth some general observations against Bush, as if they were reciting editorials from the Nation. I was the first in the question and answer session and started rolling off the litany of abuses in foreign and domestic affairs that Clinton had engaged in and Solomon responded with something about how outside of elections, we need to put mass pressure on Democrats when they have white house, congress, etc.

 I doubt it made any impression on the students at all. I heard some murmuring from students afterward that they expected it to be some sort of academic presentation and not a couple of exhorters spewing vague liberal-- left platitudes .At the end of the session, Medea got up and started hollering "A vote against Bush is  a vote against torture and bombing of civilians, selling off of Iraqi economy." Of course most of the students present got nothing from such oratory, they probably weren\'t even aware that there was such an idea that U.S. was butchering civilians and looting the Iraqi economy.

Thanks for clarifying the \'putrid\' remark. I hope that goes for \'total scum,\' too. Please remember that Gravel is the man who filibustered the draft with success and read the leaked Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record at his own risk. I remember those days, and how important these things were and are.

I am in essential agreement with the argument made in your post. Personally, I\'ll vote, but for Nader (hopefully) or otherwise someone who doesn\'t approve slaughter, as an example to my kids that we have the right to choose our government, and the right to choose candidates other than mass murderers. (My remark about Znet bloggers was not in reference to your blog, but to my memories of how Znet bloggers gravitated to Kerry in 2004.)

I don\'t disagree with you that any sales tax (or flat rate tax) is, in theory, more regressive than income/wealth taxes - that\'s pretty basic. When Steve Forbes proposes a \'flat tax,\' it clearly is a trojan horse to line the pockets of the wealthy at the expense of those not. However, when Gravel proposes a \'fair tax,\' that is not the aim and it is not his vision of how the tax would affect society.

To understand this, you need to look at Gravel in context - he does not come out of the socialist left tradition, but a jeffersonian/populist one. He has much in common with Nader, including an underlying belief in an idealized capitalism, which I do not share but can respect. His "main schtick"  is not the \'fair tax,\' but reforming the democratic process  through "citizen empowerment" and a \'national initiative\' (referendum) which he says would need to exist before the \'fair tax\' could be enacted, due to what would be implacable congressional opposition.

I do not buy the fair tax, even in Gravel\'s idealized form, because even as a reform measure, these kinds of proposals to me are just gimmicks - if you had the votes to enact an idealized fair tax that would have positive impact on working people, you would have the votes to simply reform the income tax system and tax wealth accordingly.

You can say he is wrong on how his tax would play out, but why make the error of characterizing his progressive positions, which are held with real integrity, as simply his way of "bamboozling" otherwise well-intentioned people into supporting a rich man\'s tax? Better to inform yourself about him and his positions, or if you choose not to, then refrain from uninformed speculation.

Gravel and those few Gravel supporters/voters as exist (I was one of eight in my city) are natural allies for an anti-imperial, anti-corporate front and insulting them is not a well-considered startegy.

p.s. Gravel\'s Presidents Day message on his website includes the statement that two individuals who would have very important roles as advisors in a Gravel presidency would be Nader and Chomsky.

Minot, I assure you I won\'t be telling anyone to vote this November. I\'m sure they have better ways to spend their time.

As for me thinking Gravel\'s platform is putrid (I meant to characterize the platform not the man -- my bad), I guess we\'ll have to agree to disagree. I will note that you didn\'t actually challenge my claim that his tax policy would undermine just about everything progressive in his platform. I strongly suspect that the tax policy, which would simply help redistribute wealth from the poor to the wealthy, is his main schtick, and his other stuff -- much of it quite progressive -- is just a way to bamboozle liberals and progressives into his camp. It\'s not a bad plan, really, since most self-identified libs/progs have no class analysis and way too much upper-class consciousness. Progressive on foreign affairs + progressive on social issues + defender of class privilege = most liberals\' wet dream!

"You can make demands on Obama and Hillary as much and as loudly as you like--I\'m for it and I do it--but the real question is, what do you have to make demands WITH?"

The power of one\'s vote. While this is more powerful during primaries (which is why people voting for candidates they find VIABLE rather than ones that they agree with is so stupid), it still matters during the national elections.

The power of harassment. A few thousand calls make some impacts.

The power of the record. Candidates like to make progressive (or, in the case of conservatives, regressive) promises beyond the "center" of their party to energize the base. Though not all will be enacted, one can force SOME to be enacted lest the politician seem like a blatant liar. 

Gravel is someone who tries to think independently, and his platform is not traditonally left, for sure. But characterizing him as \'putrid \' is symptomatic of bloggers\' disease - wherein all disagreement calls for inflammatory language.

Gravel is a decent guy, a friend of the left, who would be a far better president than any of those now standing among the d\'s or r\'s - including those who Znet bloggers will be advising us to vote for come November.  He  meets the  test on the  baseline issue of the day - slaughter of  families around the world funded by our (income tax) dollars. Thanks are due to him for continuing to speak on our behalf.

I\'m sorry, folks, but anyone who advocates getting rid of personal and corporate income tax in favor of a flat retail tax isn\'t "progressive" on anything, because that would undermine pretty much all decent policies the person purports to hold on other issues. That idea is so egregiously anti-working class and pro-privileged classes that I can\'t take anyone who advocates it remotely seriously, or offer them anything but disdain, whatever else they have to say. It\'s like if I sat here blogging liberal or progressive ideas and then said part of the solution is to start giving the rich more money while we deal with those other issues. I would be rightly laughed off of ZNet. How does Gravel command so much bizarre respect among progressives while he wants to shift more of the tax burden onto the poor, in droves?

I think I gave up on the electoral proccess a long time ago! We are way past the point of reform. I keep waiting for the east and the west to seperate and a new Bushtantinople to be built. It really is a choice between the "Lesser Evil"  Just here lately I cannot figure out who is the leser of the evils.

That diss on Gravel was completely unneeded though, The old man really seemed sincere in his dismay about the problems in the political arena. The Movie "Grumpy Old Men". . . . . Maybe. . . .but if they were all like Gravel I think we would see some revolution on the horizon.

Thanks for your blog.

Joe

You can make demands on Obama and Hillary as much and as loudly as you like--I\'m for it and I do it--but the real question is, what do you have to make demands WITH?

Politicians usually listen to organizations with votes, money or both. They\'re surely not going to listen to our money. And having abstained from the electoral arena in any serious way for decades because of its semi-conscious anarcho-syndicalist (in effect) cul-de-sac, the hard left has very few votes that it can claim. I worked with dozens of neighborhood P&J groups in 2004--they had little experience even registering voters, if they were registered themselves, and even less about how to ID the vote in a precinct, how to GOTV in a Ward, how to pollwatch and protect the vote, and so on. Hardly any had done this for the Dems, let alone the Greens or themselves. The exceptions are older Black church ladies and some union staffers, but while these are important, I don\'t think it\'s the left you\'re talking about.

And don\'t say \'masses in the streets\' is what we\'ll show \'em. Obama has already pulled more young antiwar hip-hop people to mass rallies than the hard left could dream of between now and November.  Besides, if you can\'t bring them to the polls, the numbers in the streets for the next few months don\'t carry much clout with politicians on the campaign trail, even if street heat is vital strategically.

Here\'s my point. By all means get into this fight and put pressure or \'demands\' on the Dems while defeating McCain. But do it in a way that builds an independent grassroots electoral instrument the belongs to the left, not the Dems, and network these for the future. Call it the \'partybuilding is the central task\' option if you like, only the party ain\'t the Dems. Then we might not be in such bad shape next time around.

You may be right about his tax platform, here he perhaps bears more resemblence to Ron Paul, I was rather suspicious about it myself though I haven\'t done to much research  into tax matters as of yet. This aside Gravel\'s worth is in standing up and speaking out in a way that Obama, Clinton, or even Edwards would never dare to about the corruption of US politics. So while his tax platform may deserve criticism I don\'t think he should be completeley condemned for it.

Jo, I guess maybe my definition of progressive is a bit different, but it\'s probably too forgiving, and you\'re probably spot on in your critique. It\'s just that I, too, feel an absense of true radicals as so many have flocked rightward in recent years, especially with the predominance of mediocrity in the blogosphere. If that\'s part of the Left, it makes me not want to be a leftist, that much I know for sure.

I don\'t have much to say about Gravel\'s personality, Stu, but I can\'t help thinking he\'s either total scum or really stupid after reviewing his tax platform. Eliminate the IRS and the income tax and leave only a sales tax? No one who says that deserves to be taken seriously as a progressive.

The way that so-called progressives have been tripping over themselves in praise of Obama [have you read some of Arrianna Huffington\'s adulatory columns?], I think the \'progs\' should be reconsiderd as soft-center conservatives.

We can include both Obama and Clinton in that category. Is there such a thing as a real left in America? Is there anyone Leftisats left, anywhere in the West?

Brian Dominick\'s article is heartening. But one wonders how a few isolated voices can be heard above the din.

"....there is room to the left of Obama and Clinton..." More like a chasm.

Really its going to be hard for me to vote between the green party and the so called pragmatic democrat vote. It\'s surely worth a try trying to make leftist demands on these cantidates. Pushing for election reform and perhaps fusion politics may also be a good way to influence the democrats. The funny thing is Obama used to be farther to the left. There\'s photo\'s of him attending a Palestinian fundraiser sitting next to Ed Said. These days he coos for the AIPAC. I don\'t know if Obama used to be genuinely more concerned with our issues or he always intended to sell out, but its a good indication of how a non-publically funded elections only allows for cantidates of a elite-serving kind.

I liked your article. I\'m got to defend Mike Gravel though, despite whatever flaws. There\'s that quote by, George Orwell I think , "In times of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act,"

I think Mike Gravel fits this quote. His crankiness may seem to many to be not  "sensible" but in the crowd pleasing narratives of others there is madness. In truth I\'m more upset by Kucinich who in the Iowa primary urged his supporters to give their second votes to Obama instead of Edwards. He also has let himself become a ridiculous figure that the media uses to characterize far-lefters as wacky; with the whole UFO thing and such. When NPR reported his dropping out of the race they made sure to say that indeed he never voted for the war or its funding but that he is best know for his sighting of a UFO thus equating anti-war convictions as non-rational and downright silly. Gravel\'s criticisms have been poignant enough that the media tries to ignore him. He may be a hack but in their eyes we are all hacks. Let\'s see to it that their misunderestimation will in the future set up a big surprise for them.