[lbo-talk] Fear not: Pope Noam has faith

[Lance Murdoch]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:37:29 -0500, Luke Weiger <lweiger at umich.edu> wrote:
> >From another list:
> 
> "People will vote their class interests when they see some credible
> political force that might represent those interests."
> 
> Guess we just need to agitate harder to create a real labor party.  If the
> the bottom 60% or so are set on voting their "class interests" when given
> the opportunity, why is it so hard to create a credible political force
> capable of representing those interests?  I have little doubt that in the
> current climate a real center-left party would do even worse than the Dems.

Do worse in what respect?  The Christian Democrats ran Italy for forty
years, Franco ran Spain for over 35 years,  and the Fifth Republic
didn't even have Socialist leadership until the early 1980s.  I would
have been more troubled if during that period there were PCI/PCF prime
ministers instead of Christian Democrat ones - it would have meant the
party had been co-opted.

Then again we don't have a situation where the last election was the
most important one ever and you just have to hold your nose (or close
your eyes and turn off your brain, really) and vote for John Kerry,
right?

The bourgeoisie will not permit the Democratic Party or the AFL-CIO
and its hierarchy to be destroyed, because doing so would destroy the
organizations that exist to divert and destroy mass movements when
they arise (actually, they might be dumb enough to destoy the
AFL-CIO).

-- LM