[lbo-talk] Winning the Culture War, Losing the Class Struggle

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun May 2 21:23:57 PDT 2004


Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com, Sun May 2 21:08:56 PDT 2004:
>>The Democratic Party successfully harnessed the liberalization of
>>social mores to the political and ideological power of economic
>>neoliberalism during the Bill Clinton years.
>
>That's not harnessing, Yoshie. When you harness something, it pulls
>you in the same direction.

No, Michael, when you harness something, like a draft animal, you bring it under your control and direct its force. In the case of the Democrats, (fiscally correct) economic neoliberalism is the rider, and the liberalizaiton of social mores is the horse. The Republicans do the same, except that, in their case, (fiscally incorrect) economic neoliberalism is the rider, and cultural reaction and resentment is the horse.


>What Clinton did is not harnessing. It's neutering. It's different.

Before you can harness an animal, you have to break it down, domesticate it, and teach it how to behave. -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>



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