rest assured, jon, i'm not trying to bait you. your statement addressed third parties; it struck me that it applied more broadly. so, i thought i'd ask your opinion.
>I'm registered independent precisely because I *don't* want to be a part
>of it, even to the extent of registering Democratic.
>
>The problem is that, shitty as it is, the DP is the only tool we have to
>have an effect on the real world.
i guess that depends on what kind of effect you're trying to achieve.
>The radical socialist parties are even smaller than the Greens, and won't
>get any bigger. The Greens keep boasting about how they're growing, but
>they won't ever get big enough to have any real effect, except in a few
>local areas. Nader-type independent candidates will not accomplish
>anything more than he did. (All these predictions, of course, are
>predicated on the assumption that some sort of political/cultural
>earthquake doesn't occur in the US in the coming years, but such
>earthquakes are by definition unpredictable.)
>
>The DP is like a rusty, dull saw which is the only tool available to
>perform a vital carpentering job; if we can't sharpen it up or get a
>better tool, we just have to get the best results we can with it.
the DP is like trying to do surgery with that dull saw you cited. it failed in 2000; it just failed again. as bill clinton used to say, "this dog won't hunt." being better than the repubs isn't good enough for me anymore. being taken for granted is tiresome. the dems don't function for many reasons, one being that they take the "liberals," minorities, and everyone else who's not right wing, for granted. they live off corp money just like the repubs. i've come to the point where i refuse to play that game anymore. i like eugene deb's axiom, i'd rather vote for what i want and not get it, than vote for what i don't want and get it.
>The bottom line, it seems to me, is that the center of gravity of US
>politics at this point is in the "red" states (ironic, isn't it, that
>"red" used to mean "radical left"?).
thought about this often myself. reds were commies. can't imagine what came over the corporate media.
>Though I am safely cocooned in a very blue area right now, I was born and
>raised in Indiana, so I know something about that part of the country.
>Everything that happens for the next few years, at least, will be governed
>by that mass of southern, middle-western, and western states. Leftists of
>all types, moderate and radical, will have to figure out how to penetrate
>that mass and chip off at least a substantial part of it. Building up the
>labor movement would be a big help, but we know how paralyzed that
>movement is today, don't we?
we surely do. i go a bit farther than that. i'd say it's defunct and the dems take an interest in it largely for whatever money it can contribute, and in the hope of attracting a few votes.
>Of course, the job that Bush has set for himself is probably impossible.
>He's not going to get his dream democracy in Iraq.
shrub doesn't want democracy in iraq any more than he wants it in the USA, or anywhere else in the world. shrub is essentially a theocrat. the shrub group wants military bases, and control of oil and the middle east, not democracy.
>If he wants to roll into Iran or somewhere else, he'll have to pull out of
>Iraq to have the troops to do it. (He's probably fantasizing that he can
>convince NATO to help him invade Iran, but that probably is completely
>unrealistic. So he might try just bombing the hell out of it.
i expect that's exactly what he's had in mind for some time. only the election has delayed the shrub group's plan for iraq.
>But that certainly won't enhance his reputation outside of his own inner
>circles.) He has created an enormous deficit, and making his tax cuts
>permanent, plus privatizing Social Security and everything else, will
>wreck the economy.
i'd submit the economy is pretty much on the ropes as it is unless one's very wealthy. the deficit is actually taxing today's children, as they are the ones who'll be paying and paying. privatizing social security and destroying medicare will, simply put, kill people. no one will have the money in a health savings account to pay for a catastrophic or chronic illness except the very rich. a misjudgment or two in a retirement savings account means an early death.
>So most of what he wants to do he won't be able to.
i think bankrupting govt, destroying entitlement programs, stacking the supreme court, and etc, is what he wants to do. and that's what he will do.
>Nevertheless, that mass of conservative Americans blocking the road to
>progress is not an illusion -- they're really there.
unquestionably.
>If the Left wants to get anywhere, they will have to start taking them
>seriously. This means that they will have to recognize them as real human
>beings with functioning brains and honest convictions. Their brains don't
>function the way ours do,
people's brains function pretty much the same everywhere, jon. it's not their functionality that's the problem. it's what's in them that's the problem. and their fears.
>and we sure wish they didn't have those convictions. But a very large part
>of their furor and aggressiveness which they have just finished
>demonstrating comes from their belief that the Left has only contempt for
>them and sees them only as objects of ridicule.
how much contact with the left do they have? what i'm driving at is the question do they really see the left in this way or is this something the corp mass media, the right wing echo machine, or ??? has put in their heads?
i'm also curious about what you mean by the "left."
>I think that the Left has to do a lot of self-examination and come to the
>conclusion that it has been doing a lot of things wrong. You, on the other
>hand, and a lot of other LBO list members, think that you are entirely
>right, that you have made no mistakes, and only need to charge full-steam
>ahead on the same course (sounds eerily like Bush, eh?).
i don't feel this way; the other list members are quite capable of speaking for themselves, as i'm sure you know. i'm not a true believer in any form of politics. also, i don't believe there is much of a "left" in the USA: we have varying degrees of right of center, and a tiny group of people who'd like to bring people toward the center and left of center, if that's possible.
> I think you're on the Titanic, heading straight for the iceberg. But I
> may be wrong. Who knows?
i think the USA is the titanic. it hit the iceberg three days ago. we'll see if anyone makes it to the life boats. i understand those who like cold weather are eyeing canada.
by the way, you wouldn't know how i could get in touch with kate winslet would you? i think she's smashing.
R
>Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
>__________________________________
>A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was
>equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the
>London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne
>Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk