>Complaints about the Democratic Party--the only true hope for human
>progress over the next quarter century--I will be glad to receive and deal
>with appropriately.
Obviously from past posts of mine, I consider Brad de Long an important contributor to the range of debate on this list.
But I must differ from the either/or way this controversy so often seems to be expressed.
I regard it as the job of the Democrats to get elected in the USA and the job of Labour to get elected in the UK.
May they do it as efficiently as possible in relation to what *is* possible.
But that does not mean we should limit our perspectives and hopes to what they can achieve. I am often charged with wanting to exalt Blair and Clinton, because I point out valuable progressive aspects to their policies.
I see no purpose at all in what I call revolutionary cynicism. But the purpose of analysing the positive features of the Third Way, is not to remain stuck within its confines, but the better to understand its limitations, and what can be done, and needs to be done, to accelerate progress, not within these parties but outside them.
Chris Burford
London