One of my favorite slogans from the WTO protest in Seattle last year and the IMF/World Bank protest in DC this April was "This is what democracy looks like." Shortly before the big April 16 protest I spent the day volunteering at the "convergence center," the main meeting place for protesters. (It was later shut down by the police for the type of fuel we were cooking our food with). I spent most of the day as a "media escort." My job was to keep the press from disturbing nonviolence trainings in the center and to keep them from filming individual protesters who wanted to avoid being on tapes that could later be used by the police. A number of times I heard protest organizers tell the media that we weren't only opposing global corporate assault on democracy, but we were also showing the world a working model of true democracy. For better and for worse I think this was an accurate statement. Democracy looks like a multitude of grassroots movements coming together, taking it to the streets and defending the people against tyrants.

In this election, quite likely the most important election in my lifetime, and with the growing anti-corporate globalization movement there has been a great deal of talk about democracy. Which system is more democratic? It's clear to me true democracy is made up of broad coalitions of grassroots organizations holding the power and deciding the fate of the country instead of elites making all important decisions.

Unfortunately, the terms 'grassroots' and 'coalition' have been tossed around so much, their meanings are becoming obscure. A coalition is not simply an organization and does not operate as one but is made up of various organizations. A coalition does not have a single ideology or agree on everything but typically comes together in order to achieve a specific goal. Grassroots, similarly, has a rather simple meaning. It is from the bottom up not the top down. It is people coming together where they live and taking back their communities one block at a time. The grassroots movement by definition cannot be imposed by someone high up in power. Neither a Gore nor a Nader win for president means we will automatically obtain a democracy. Even if it were possible to elect a president who would fix everything (and it is not) to do so without grassroots coalitions would keep us from having real power and we could (and would) lose all we have gained before long.

Any third party candidate who becomes president without plenty of members of his or her party in Congress or state governments and without a grassroots coalition foundation will be powerless to get much done. Nader knows he cannot win this election. (It is the principle he is running for - and what that principle is seems to change from week to week). But what his supporters should know is that voting for Nader when the grassroots coalitions of labor, minority groups, and environmentalists are endorsing Gore is a slap in the face of true democracy. Progressive grassroots coalitions tend to make better democratic decisions then individuals because they can collectively see a much larger part of the overall reality we live in. These coalitions do not back Gore because he is more progressive than Nader but because Gore is capable of beating Bush and is far more likely to address our concerns than Bush. This is especially as a result of our coalitions, not the Democratic Party, being the primary force which gets him into office.

Grassroots coalition development is a crucial part of democracy. Without it we do not have the necessary bonding and respect between organizations in our communities that result from long term shared struggles and cooperation. Without building democracy on of this type we cannot hold on to any gains we achieve. To go against virtually all the grassroots coalitions' endorsed presidential candidate - of labor, minorities, environmentalists - in favor of one's own candidate flies in the face of grassroots democracy. The "I will support democracy as long as everyone agrees with what I want," is not the cooperative spirit needed to make coalitions work.