> 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.
>
What makes you thing that Dean will pull an FDR? When was the last time you saw the ruling class battered by the depression and running scare of the "red menace" leaping forward economically and militarily?
I admit that Dean is the best candidate for the same reasons as you do - he has a superior party organization and he is a serious politician, well versed in the art of deal making and compromise, not a liberal primadonna more conscious about image than outcome. I believe he will have a better ear for people on this side of the political spectrum. I also share your view that social movements do matter, albeit their impact is mitigated by broader circumstances.
I am just more pessimistic about what can be done here and now, given the current power structure. But then again, who among those who watched the Nazi columns marching under the Arc de Triomphe could visualize Stalingrad just two years later?
> On foreign policy, I don't see the "imperialist dictates" you are
talking
> about.
I do not know where you are looking, comrade, but I can imagine that more opposition was raised in the Soviet Politbureau to the invasion of Afghanistan than the US congress raised to all aspects of foreign policy combined during the Bush Fuhrership. That piece of Nazi shit gets everything he wants, every penny of the $87 bn for his war crimes in Iraq, free hand to slap sanctions at any country and so on, with no fight, not even a filibuster threat from the Dems. If that is not capitulation, I do not know what is.
Wojtek