Heroic Myths of Defeat?

LeoCasey at aol.com LeoCasey at aol.com
Sat Nov 4 13:48:28 PST 2000


Hey, Dennis, I read your posts, too. You say:


> I give Henwood & Co. on LBO a lot of credit for making meaningful one fairly
> simple claim: compare Reagan/Bush to Clinton/Gore and there's not enough
>

That's how you read it. The way I read it is that when you talk about issues like how the election of Bush will be devastating for an already underfunded, under resourced and under attack system of public education, Henwood & Co. respond by calling upon their deep knowledge of and experience with public education -- 1970s sit-coms on the subjects. I don't think that anyone says that this is the case in every area, but it certainly is true in enough of them to make a difference. No doubt what Max says about economic policy is true, but its hard to conclude that any of our Naderites -- enthusiastic or reluctant -- wants to look at the whole forest, when they find their particular trees so compelling.


> Nader and others have hardly built their opposition on sand (Gore more
> appropriately has - and thats why he's so fragile). And its not all that
> strange why anti-Nader folk do the typical political side-step and ignore
> Nader's central challenge. The record poorly supports an argument in Gore's
> favor. More importantly, the peace that neoliberal's made with corporate
> capital and cultural conservatives was never done reluctantly. I mean
> there's precious little to weave
>

Who wants the heroic myths of defeat? I have had enough of them for several lifetimes, let alone this one. If there is any basis for such a myth here, it is in the Nader campaign. I just want to avoid more defeat -- and if that means taking a rather meager victory, sign me up.

Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20001104/4998fb1e/attachment.htm>



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