----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>That platypus of the political world, the Progressive Democrat, actually
>has a use. I have never seen a more concise statement of the absolute
>resistance of capitalism to significant electoral change than this post
>you quote from Nathan. It is the most severe denunciation of the
>Democratic Party that I have ever read.
I love how both the Right and the Left equate democratic procedures with capitalism, as if they are inseparable. It is a weird ideological collaboration to charge socialism with being inherently unobtainable without undemocratic means. Engels was always clear when he was plumping for the German Social Democrats that only minor reforms could be accomplished until the Social Democrats convinced a large enough majority to give them full power. The same is true for progressive Democrats. The problem is not with the Constitution (except maybe the US Senate filibuster rules) or with the Democrats per se, but that we have not convinced a majority of the US population to support our issues electorally. On a lot of them, we are actually not too far off, but my point is that having 45% of the population on your side gets you pretty much zilch-- you need the last 5% (plus some given Senate rules) to win.
-- Nathan Newman