Promoting mass purchasing power

Paul Henry Rosenberg rad at gte.net
Wed Sep 23 08:49:05 PDT 1998


Doug Henwood wrote:


> Brad De Long wrote:
>
> >>Christopher Hitchens said last night that he hopes Kohl wins - he's within
> >>two points in the latest polls. With Blair down, Clinton sort of down,
> >>these Third Way folks need to take a whipping.
> >>
> >>Doug
> >
> >For God's sake why?
> >
> >Each defeat of the (relatively) left candidate moves the terrain of
> >political engagement a bit further to the right...
>
> Because the rightward move by the established "left" parties (kind of
> absurd to include the Democrats here, but you know what I mean) has been an
> essential part of the dominance of the right over politics - as Sir Alan
> Walters said, Thatcher's most lasting achievement is the transformation of
> the Labour Party. How long will left-of-center voters continue to let the
> get away with it on the lesser-of-two-evils rationale?

I'm 100% with you on sentiment--I left the Dems 4 years ago, and only joined the party because of the apparent opening creted by Jesse Jackson. (And I'll consider going back for Wellstone, if it's clear that he's going to do serious long-term organizing.)

But the logic here--hoping that the SDs will lose--is deeply flawed for the simple reason that every loss only moves them FARTHER to the right. You thought Neil Kinnock was a wuss, well you got Tony Blair instead. Ditto Dukakis and Clinton.

I am not at all confident that we can survive a full-fledge lurch WAY to the right--which is what we face with the Clinton debacle. The punk neo-fuedal vision of the future has always seemed chillingly real to me & while I despise Clinton, Blair, etc. I know damn well that we don't have the mass movements to fight successfully if things swing qucikly much farther to the right. Therefore, I do not cheer for their defeat, even though I don't work for their victory. Their rule *CAN* buy us time for organzing, strategizing and rethinking--even as it requires us to fight against them. It's better than lying in a ditch in 4 pieces.

-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net

"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"



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