A presidential candidate with unorthodox social views and political positions. A grassroots third political party outside of the Democratic/Republican mainstream. A presidential election so close that it's nearly sent to the House of Representatives for a run-off.

It's 1968. Few people remember that this tumultuous year saw a face-off between Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and that arch-segregationist champion of states rights, George Wallace. Wallace's American Independent party was anti-federal government and anti-civil rights, garnered about 13.5% of the popular vote, and won 46 electoral votes. With a few more votes in certain key states, Wallace would have eliminated Nixon's electoral majority and defaulted everything to the House. As it was, he directly contributed to Republican party ideology in support of states rights against a meddlesome federal bureaucracy that culminated in the "Reagan revolution." In the tradition of Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat party, Wallace also reminded the Democratic party of its conservative southern constituents, indirectly shaping the centrist southern strategy begun with Jimmy Carter and fully realized in New Democrat Bill Clinton's presidency.

That's how the American political system works, by the way. The Democrats and Republicans attempt to secure their two-party political monopoly and discourage viable third parties through winner-take-all single-member districting, ballot access rules, the electoral college and campaign finance rules. The natural tendency in this two party system is for both parties to vie for the political center, so that there winds up being not a "dime's worth of difference" between the Democrats and Republicans, to quote Wallace. Short lived, third party movements then arise on the left or right to splinter off the base-of-support of one or both of the major parties. A third party's electoral successes guarantees that one or both of the major parties will then "steal" its issues, incorporate them into their platforms, and absorb its supporters into their ranks. The third party is ultimately left with no unique positions to stand on and a depleted voter base, and so usually fades away. That's one way, indeed a major way electoral reform works in this country.

The Populist and Farmer-Labor parties played out this dance with the Democratic party in 1892 and from 1920 through 1936 respectively, as did Roosevelt's Progressives in 1912 and LaFollette's Progressives in 1924 with the Republican party. Even the Reform party forced both the Democrats and Republicans to take up Perot's issues of deficit reduction, balanced budgets and federal government reform after 1992. Significantly, in America's long history of third party politics, the only time a third party actually knocked out and thus took the place of one of the top two was in 1856, when the Republican party edged out the Whig party, dooming the Whigs to extinction.

And that's why those whiny-assed Democratic boot-lickers like Larry Livermore are blowing it out their asses when they complain about how Nader's to blame for electing Bush to the presidency. Never mind that their corporate clone candidate Al Gore blew it. That Gore lost an election handed to him as a quasi-incumbent during a booming domestic economy with no messy foreign crises to muddy the waters. At the very least, these self-righteous chest pounders are extremely short sighted, if not ahistorical. The Green Party under Nader is actually helping to reform the Democratic party. Move the Democrats incrementally to the left. Make the party of Jefferson a little more democratic and progressive. Third parties as a means to change the politics of the two major parties is as American as apple pie.

Granted, the Greens don't see things this way, but I'm not really dealing with their delusions this issue.

We do have a bumbling president-elect at the moment I write this column for an early December deadline. George Bush promises to be completely ineffectual; prematurely made a lame-duck because he doesn't have an electoral mandate in the popular vote, faces an evenly divided Congress in both branches, and has been permanently damaged by the legal battle for Florida. If Freedom of Information Act recounts show that Bush actually lost Florida to Gore, the Republicans will no doubt lose the House and Senate in 2002. Questions will always remain as to whether Bush is legitimately, constitutionally president. Add to this a VP with a bum heart and the likelihood the economy will take a dive into recession soon, you have all the makings of an impotent, one-term presidency amidst Congressional gridlock and partisan warfare.

Not that any of this means squat in "Lefty" Hooligan's ultraleft scheme of things. Electoral politics is worse than useless. Not only doesn't it fundamentally change anything, but electoral politics blunts popular discontent and rebellion with moderate reforms, siphons off the valuable time and energy of social activists, and gives a corrupt system the patina of legitimacy. Yet I must admit I was thrilled when the 2000 elections collapsed into a seemingly endless legal stalemate. I reveled each day we were without a president, and I was quite happy that my insignificant vote for Nader helped fuck shit up by precipitating the subsequent electoral deadlock and governing paralysis.

I'm conflicted, to say the least.

As you know, social chaos and political anarchy are my bread and butter. I thrive on such turmoil, ever hoping that something new and unexpected will arise out of the pandemonium. The potential both for social revolution and personal transformation reside in the tumult produced by mass conflict and protest. I just didn't expect such exquisite discord to come out of a presidential election. As such it nicely rounds out a year of upheaval that began with the anti-WTO protests in Seattle at the end of November, 1999, and continued through a string of mass protests that included the Republican and Democratic national conventions.

Predictably, various alt-reactionaries with oh so bad attitudes have criticized this series of demonstrations, sometimes comparing them to the "good old days" of the 1960's-when the causes were clear and noble and folks really knew how to demonstrate-to find them seriously lacking. That current protests against global capitalism lack a single unifying focus such as civil rights or the Vietnam war and are understandably multi-issue and multi-organizational is criticized as unfocused, disorganized and pointless. The upheavals of 1999-2000 from the start have included militant nonviolence, Black Bloc street fighting, even celebratory block partying alongside standard march-and-rally protest-politics-as-usual, prompting criticism that these events were chaotic, violent and out of control. Even when confined to mostly legal protest by an overwhelming police presence, as in LA, these were extremely disruptive mass actions, and hence the criticism they were invasive and stupid, thoughtless if not malicious. What's not commented on by these punk apologists for the status quo is the response by government and law enforcement to the demonstrations, no doubt because they see the demonstrators as asking for it.

Alexander Cockburn, in likening Seattle 1999 to Paris 1968, argues that "[y]ou can take the ruling class by surprise about once every 20 years." While these brief historical moments are exhilarating and inspiring, the powers-that-be quickly regain the upper hand. This certainly seems born out by last year's demonstrations that culminated in LA's extremely scary police state in the streets last August. About the only positive consequence to the Democratic National Convention protests was that folks like the ACLU managed to successfully challenge the more heinous aspects of the LAPD's de facto state of siege, such as police raids on staging sites on trumped up fire code violations and the arrest of activists on weapons charges for possessing puppets.

It was more than a little amusing then to see on the evening news riot cops practicing crowd control against outraged Democrats and Republicans protesting in Florida. Had the losing party in this electoral debacle gone into the streets to fight for the presidency they consider stolen, they would have faced police force and government policy considerably beefed up as a consequence of Seattle. Those confronting post-Seattle social control techniques would not have been black-clad anarchist hooligans, but rather respectable sweater-wearing middle-class Democratic suburbanites. And while I'd love to hear Larry Livermore change his tune that demonstrators deserve being brutalized by the cops once it was Gore supporters at the receiving end of the police truncheons, it's clear that Michael Moore nailed it when he wrote "the Democrats are running for cover. They are expecting to lose. They always do. No faith in their own position. No guts."

In case you hadn't figured it out yet, I wholeheartedly support the radical direct action street politics-nonviolent, violent and celebratory-that emerged in Seattle and continued through subsequent demonstrations. At the same time, I fully expect the powers-that-be to thwart these street protests at every turn, eventually learning to contain and control them. In addition, I don't have much patience for the Steppin' Fetchet protest shuffle engaged in by the likes of Global Exchange, the AFL-CIO, Mobilization for Global Justice and the rest of the progressive mainstream. Finally, I find Leninism's faux militancies just a tad tired and outdated, as illustrated by one particularly ludicrous spectacle in Los Angeles during the Democratic National Convention protests.

They were walking, talking oxymorons.

A couple hundred red flag-waving "youth" marched in formation behind their contingent's banners. Some wore punk styles, others hip hop fashions, and still others rave ware, accessorized with bandanas, berets and kafias. Yet to a person they wore the same t-shirt-black with a yellow disk behind a red star, in turn behind a defiant Third World figure brandishing an AK-47-and they shouted the same slogan-"It's right to rebel!"

It was the supposedly rebellious youth arm of the ultra-Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), also known as the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB), dressed in their street uniforms and dutifully chanting the thoughts of Chairmans Mao and Avakian. They're nowhere near as dramatically dressed or media chic as the Anarchist Black Bloc, who liked to call the RCYB the Really Confused Young Bourgeoisie. It's hard to get any more confused than to proclaim the right to rebel while conforming to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-Tung Thought.

Rebellion, in service of a vanguard party that worships Stalin and Mao, two of the greatest tyrants and mass murderers in human history.

Long time "Lefty" Hooligan readers know I despise Leninism in general and the RCP in particular. I was in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization (VVAW-WSO) in the mid '70's when the RCP (then called the Revolutionary Union) took over and decimated my group to build up the founding of their party, renaming it VVAW-AI for Anti-Imperialist. I was also around in the mid '80's when the RCP made a play for "rebellious youth" through its punk front organization No Business As Usual (NBAU); about the same time they were also targeting growing opposition to US immigration and border policies through their front group La Resistencia. Other organizations now closely affiliated with the RCP include Refuse and Resist, the October 22 Coalition against Police Brutality, and the Stolen Lives Project. All were and are opportunistic efforts by the RCP to take advantage of and steer popular discontent and protest, ultimately to build the influence and membership of their vanguard party and its youth brigade. It's right to rebel, so long as that rebellion is under RCP leadership.

The attitude, not to mention the use of front organizations is characteristic of, but not limited to the Leninist Left. Buchanan's coup in the Reform Party was nothing if not an ideologically motivated, cadre style takeover of a much larger, more diverse organization that was the status quo's version of rebellion. Ultimately, this devastated and defunded the Reform Party which, if it survives at all, will be a front for Buchanan's demagogic populism. To inform folks of that fact would be a service. Similarly, I think it's important to inform somebody interested in working with, say, Refuse and Resist that said organization is chummy with the RCP.

"Red baiting!" comes the charge from the Left, and not just from those in vanguard parties who contemplate the option of clandestine organizing by an underground membership. The realities of public disapproval and government repression have often made activists of various stripes on the Left justifiably wary of openly expressing their politics and political affiliations. Nor am I advocating asking the question "are you now, or have you ever been a member of the" fill in the blank.

I don't want to foster an atmosphere of guilt by association, but at the same time such associations are widely known and spoken of on the Left. Alliances and rivalries are based on these associations, organizations and movements are fought over and split as a consequence, and folks who ignore them because they think the Left should "all just get along" are considered as naive as people brand new to the Left who don't know the RCP from a hole in the ground. And that's who vanguardists like the RCP rely upon to lend them some respectability. No one pushes the line that "we should all work together" harder than a Leninist seeking to influence an organization or lead a movement.

It's 1988 and I'm living in San Diego, doing an anarcho-punk 'zine called the Daily Impulse with a couple of friends. I'm an anarchist, or more precisely an anarcho-marxist, on my way to "Lefty" Hooligan's left communism. A decent sized circle of anarchists is gradually coalescing in this border town. Tiny grouplets like Neither East Nor West, Bayou La Rose, Red and Black Action, the Industrial Workers of the World and our 'zine are meeting in coffee houses and at demonstrations, working on projects together and organizing small events in a process that produces a short-lived coalition called the Borderlands Anti-Authoritarian Community by 1989.

The Daily Impulse collective has been doing annual Anarchy Picnics on or around May 1 since 1984. We get permits from the city for a gathering with amplified sound in Balboa Park and provide an open microphone, some radical literature tables and a surprise. We roll out a long sheet of white butcher paper, tape it to a park path and provide pens, crayons and paints for spontaneous creative expression. We set up a tank of helium gas, bundles of black balloons, string, paper, and a sign requesting that folks send a message to El Cajon. We invite a local guerrilla theatre troupe to do a performance in the park. It's mostly punks who attend, sitting around on the grass eating, listening to music, reading the literature, socializing, many of them drinking. There are skateboard contests and football games. Crash Worship shows up one year to pummel the event with raw percussion.

The 1988 Anarchy Picnic is scheduled for Sunday, May 1, and to prepare for it the Daily Impulse announces an informal organizing meeting at the library through handbills left all around town. We emphasize on the flyers that the picnic will also be a celebration of May Day. Several anarchist comrades attend the meeting. So do a half dozen others. I recognize two individuals out of a group of three the moment they walk through the door. Doug's hardcore RCP; a weathered man in his 50's who always wears a heavy olive drab Army coat and under the right conditions claims membership in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Anti-Imperialist. Then there's kafia-wearing Dave; a twenty-eight year old father of two who's prominent in the RCYB. Dave used to front for No Business As Usual as well, but by 1988 NBAU had purged itself completely out of existence. These two appear to be escorting a fiery eyed, dark skinned woman who identifies herself as Anna, a UCLA graduate student in the film department doing a documentary on graffiti.

Three other individuals drift into the meeting. Rudy says he's a member of La Resistencia, an organization fighting against border militarization and for the illegal and undocumented. We learn later, long after the picnic, that Rudy was forcibly removed as a disruptive agent from planning meetings held by the Chicano Moratorium Committee. A butch woman announces: "I'm Karen, I'm a lesbian, and I work with a brand new multi-issue organization called Refuse and Resist." She hands around various pieces of her organization's propaganda, and I recognize right away it's an RCP front from the sponsors of the original call as well as the group's slogans, which could have come straight out of the Revolutionary Worker newspaper. Refuse and Resist's Keith Haring logo pisses me off, and I restrain myself from yelling at Karen that the organization behind her organization, the RCP, believes homosexuality is a product of decadent capitalism that will be eliminated "come the revolution." Jake, the final attendee to our meeting, comes from the midwest where he was a member of the Anarchist Youth Federation.

Doug and Dave recognize me immediately from previous encounters as someone who loaths everything they and their vanguard party stand for. And had it just been Doug and Dave at our meeting we would have made short work of them. None of the anarchists in the room, except perhaps for Jake, work with Leninist organizations. We may make an exception for individual Leninists, but we draw the line at groups that take pride in a history of suppressing and murdering anarchists. Everybody's brought up to speed as to the RCP/RCYB and their minions in our midst through whispered comments and scribbled notes. Doug and Dave however don't have the luxury of bringing their followers up to date since they don't want it to appear that they actually know the Refuse and Resist and La Resistencia representatives. So when Rudy asks us if we want to link up with "revolutionary May Day demonstrations" in LA the weekend of our Anarchy Picnic, we politely decline. And when Karen asks whether Refuse and Resist and the other organizations in the room can cosponsor our event, we tell her anybody can come and set up a table, but that the Picnic is solely our event.

Had we been naive, "can't we all just get along" Leftists, we would have wound up with an Anarchy Picnic that, to all casual appearances, would have seemed an RCP sponsored event backed by a list of RCP front organizations and tied to the RCP's version of May Day, with a few anarchist groups thrown in for flavoring. Free association is a two way street after all. We have the freedom to associate with whoever we choose, but we have the freedom not to associate as well. Free association becomes a joke when we don't know who exactly it is we're considering associating ourselves with. Hence the need to know that Refuse and Resist or the October 22 Coalition or the Stolen Lives Project are affiliated with the RCP/RCYB. We talk to Jake after the meeting to appraise him of the politics of the groups that attended the meeting.

The Green party's rebellion within the system serves to reform the status quo and move the Democratic party to the left. The RCYB's rebellion against the system serves the authoritarian, vanguard politics of the RCP. No hint that rebellion can actually serve the cause of greater freedom.

That's the case as well with the pronouncements of Chairman Jeff Bale. Like his statement in one issue of Hit List that Marlon Brando's revolt against "what[ever] ya got" in The Wild Ones is the essence of rebellion, followed by his acceptance of things as they are in a subsequent issue of Hit List in remarking that capitalism is the worst possible economic system, except for all the others. Rebellion is praised, yet there's nothing actually to rebel against since there are no real alternatives to what we have. Rebellion then becomes little more than wearing funny clothes and hairstyles, listening to weird music, being offensive and of course having a very bad attitude. Rebellion for its own sake. For anybody who's had anything to do with teenaged kids, this is the essence not of rebellion but of adolescence. Indeed, being obnoxious and offensive is the sine qua non of puberty. "Being offensive is easy." Joe Selby reminds me. "Fart in a crowded elevator. Pick your nose on the bus. That requires no intelligence and beyond a tiny giggle just really isn't very interesting."

Jeff's rebellion without a cause or a clue is about as interesting as capitalism's definition of freedom being the choice between Coke and Pepsi.

GO TO THE SOURCE... I picked on the RCP this column, but I could have chosen almost any Leninist party and just as easily traced out its fronts and sycophants. The Communist Party, Spartacist League, Socialist Workers Party; they all have 'em. And actually, the very best way to pick up on who's affiliated with whom is to check out the newspaper of the vanguard party in question. The first thing a Leninist party worth its salt does is publish a newspaper, so check out what groups they consistently and uncritically praise and promote over time. Likely as not, they're affiliated with the vanguard party that publishes the paper. For instance, even a cursory glance through the Workers World Party newspaper Workers World reveals that the International Action Center is a WWP front...

PERSONAL PROPAGANDA... Okay, so you found the "lost" Hooligan column at http://www.huahuacoyotl.com. My regular monthly column of political commentary appears in Maximum Rock'n'Roll (POB 460760, SF, CA 94146-0760) To find out my real name purchase my book, End Time, from AK Press (POB 40682, SF, CA 94140-0682) for $10. I can be contacted at hooligan3@mindspring.com.