Chavez Bites the Dust

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:25 PM 1/9/01 -0500, Doug wrote:
>Nathan Newman wrote:
>
>>The odd thing is that it is "moderation" that drives the deepest sewers of
>>American politics, since principled disagreements are considered suspect,
>>while base personal attacks are rewarded with political triumph.
>
>Right, but this may be because the two parties agree on so much that 
>all that's left to fight over is personalities.
>

It's probably more than that - it may have something to do with the fact
that politics representing class interests have never been
institutionalised in the US.  To illustrate that point, US was one of the
first countries to implement a quite generous social welfare program in the
end of the 19th century, but the justification for that program was
compensation for real and imaginary losses sustained by families during the
Civil War - or "protecting soldiers and mothers" as Theda Skocpol put it,
rather than "protecting workers" as in Western Europe.  Skocpol attributes
that underdevelopment of class politics in the US to the universal MALE
suffrage - which superficially united men of all classes, thus blurring
class divisions and interests.  

Whatever the explanation, the bottom line is that if you do not have a
class-based politics (i.e. the political representation of class
interests), politics becomes an empty show of personalities, celebrities,
and  verbiage.  Ironically, the US and the x-USSR & satellites have
something in common in this respect. 

wojtek