[lbo-talk] Beyond the Bipartisan Hegemony

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Jul 14 15:02:00 PDT 2003


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


>>Grant Lee wrote:
>>
>>>One of my politics professors, a Marxist, used to tell his students that he
>>>always voted for centre-RIGHT parties, because things had to get worse
>>>before they would get better.
>>
>>Yeah, but is that really true? In the U.S., the left got hammered
>>during the Reagan years. The Clinton years saw the rise of the
>>anti-sweatshop movement (which was stimulated by the admin's absurd
>>corporate whitewash front), the "Seattle" coalition, etc. Going
>>further back, the Eisenhower 50s were a disaster, but the JFK-LBJ
>>60s were the opposite.
>>
>>Doug
>
>I don't think that things have to get worse before they get better;
>I also don't think that it's a fruitful line of inquiry to ask
>whether things have to get worse or better before they get better.
>That's a futile question as far as economic booms and busts are
>concerned, as you can vote for neither a boom nor a bust.

Booms are usually better than busts, but that's not what I was talking about. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan were Republicans; Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton were Democrats.

Doug



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