[lbo-talk] Anybody But Bush?

boddhisatva boddhisatva at netzero.net
Thu Nov 13 09:50:24 PST 2003


Com. Wojtek wrote:


>

"There is a clearly discernible tendency among the US left to think that turning the US into a social democracy is the matter of electing right men to political offices (esp. presidency). Hence the disappointment when the man who initially "sounds right" starts doing bad things while in office.

I find that view fundamentally flawed. Methinks the US politics is determined for the most part by powerful, well organized, and fundamentally conservative business elites who face little organized opposition from the rest of society. Any elected representative has a choice of either accepting this realpolitik or being trampled over."
>

Well, first of all, I specifically rejected the notion that the individual candidates are what matters. The Green Party and the Dean organization are the important things about those campaigns. Second, it's very nice to opine how "US politics is determined" without paying attention to the voters or the legislatures or any of that pesky legal process (and you'll find a receptive audience here) but it's very slipshod thinking. Obviously actual voters and actual legislators matter. It's equally obvious that people with money to gain and lose and (most importantly) money to spend on influencing the political process will do it but it doesn't mean that political movements are irrelevant.

Com. Wojtek writes:
>

"Clinton and Co. were not "sellouts" but political realists. Given the current power structure, going against the wishes of big business is not a viable option - the best a political can do is drag his feet and get some concessions here and there. The hatred that the right spewed on his presidency tells me that he did not totally abdicated to the power of business elites, but tried to get such concessions."
>

No, Clinton was a sellout by his own standards. He sold out his own positions and consistently failed to make his convictions stick. He looked for votes by co-opting arguments with which he had publically disagreeed and made it the common wisdom in the Democratic Party that the Republicans were the ones with the ideas that really mattered (given the lowly state of liberal thinking, that may be largely true, but we'll leave that for another time). His concept of party success was to try and gain a temporary advantage in garnering large, soft-money donations. The hatredthe right spewed against him was, I think, largely inspired by his co-opting of their ideas. It is also calculated political theater (see the book "The Art of Political War" by David Horowitz). The Republicans know that Americans love to hate and therefore they try to drum up hatred against anyone they can.

Com. Wojtek wrote:
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"Greens simply do not matter vis a vis the power of big business, so they could not affect in any way the Democratic Party, just like a fly cannot affect the path of an airliner. Anyone who expects the 2004 Democratic candidate, whoever he is, to put the country on a path toward social democracy is bound to have a rude awakening. The only thing that accomplish that is breaking the backbone of big business that owns this country - but I am not holding my breath to see that happening any time soon."
>

I will be the first one to tell you that the Seattle WTO spectacle was caused by the cops, but it also represented the same movement that inspires the Gren Party. If the Greens pick their fights they can matter.

Com. Wojtek wrote:
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"I will support Dean in 2004, because I think he is most capable of "pulling a Clinton" - i.e. negotiating more favorable terms of surrender for anything social and democratic. I think that Lieberman also has similar, if not greater, capabilities to do the same but his stance on foreign policy is more than I can handle. Or perhaps Lieberman is smart to realize that in order to accomplish anything on the domestic forum, one has to totally capitulate to imperialist dictates in foreign policy."
>

Obviously I think you are making the right political choice, and I agree with at least some of your thinking. With literally trillions of dollars in unfunded obligations looming in front of the federal budget, there will have to be some compromise. Clearly we are not going to be able to avoid deficits so high that they begin to harm the value of the currency. Dean is naturally ruling class, as was F.D.R., and that can be a real advantage when the government has to get creative to work around a capitalist crisis. Dean will have a better ear for what changes can be put over on the ruling class.

On foreign policy, I don't see the "imperialist dictates" you are talking about. Post-Cold-War, the third world is one enormous failed state and the developing countries are teetering. Leaving those countries alone wouyld have been good advice during the Cold War but now it seems to me that wealthy states are going to have to put a hand in if the situation is to stabilize.

peace,

boddi

If anyone on this list is serious about social democracy, I suggest moving to Europe, because it will not happen here any time soon. That at least is on my mind lately.

Wojtek

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