AFL-CIO/DP?

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Wed May 27 10:02:59 PDT 1998



> Let's say that identity politics is irrelevant to the Betty Dumas and her
> comrades in the American working class. But let's be clear: that doesn't
> then make the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party the vehicles of their
> emancipation. Going on and on about the collapse of the left

At the very least, the trade union movement, which includes pieces of the DP, is the primary transitional agency for any progressive change. There is no other in view, POMO/ID or otherwise. Rank-and-file movements that succeed become part of the AFL-CIO and in so doing, can be expected to change it for the better.


> into identity
> politics and thirdworldism and about the nastiness of Republicans only
> enables the conscious and non conscious spokespersons here for those two
> bureaucracies from facing their real problems and limits.

No, those people will go on regardless of what anybody says about ID or POMO, because the latter don't matter to anything.


> Now a leading researcher for the AFL-CIO has outlined a structural
> Keynesian program that he wants the Democratic Party to implement. I
> believe his name is Thomas Palley, and the book is titled something like
> Getting Nothing Plenty from Princeton University Press (1998--it's $26, so

That's "Plenty of Nothing" and a subtitle I forget. Haven't read it yet.


> . . .
> I was wondering whether Palley's post-Keynesian ideas are what
> Max, Brad,
> Nathan here think the left should be organizing to implement and whether
> they think find it realistic that such policy could indeed be implemented.

Yes to both in general, I imagine.

MBS



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