I agree with this account of US party history generally, and that the Dems suck less than the Republicans, esp. on domestic issues, and have to operate within the constraints imposed by capitalism ... but John Gulick's reference was primarily to the more-warlike-than-thou comments by Kerry and Edwards in relation to Iraq -- ie. getting more agressive in Fallujah and bringing more troops into the country -- which I think were/are entirely unecessary and, in fact, self-defeating. That's what I was addressing [clip] ...
I write:
What Marv says here and beyond, more or less ... although, as for myself, I'm not sure that "self-defeating" is bad, because I'm not confident that a Kerry victory is the preferred outcome. I keep on wobbling ("flip-flopping," you might say, if you were really cheeky) between the Henwood position of "Kerry victory creates a little room for progressive forces to go on the offensive" and the Kolko position of "Bush victory accelerates the decay of the predatory hegemon." The problem with the former is that I am highly skeptical that ABB'ers will possess the disposition to shed their supine pre-election mode (especially since Kerry will be furiously hectored by Faux News, talk radio nuts, the Christian right, etc.); the problem with the latter is that there is indeed a grave danger to entrusting the White House to Bush and the neo-cons for four more years, since no one can really predict exactly how they will react to their rapidly weakening position. I am undecided now and will probably be undecided until the moment I press the touch-button on the liquid crystal screen. My partner/girlfriend/better half is a Chinese citizen who cannot vote here, and she is so put off by Kerry trying to have his cake and eat it too with anti-war and swing voters simultaneously; something about his dissembling reminds her of the CCP's more odious cadres. I might just proxy for come judgment day.
Woj wrote:
So Kerry is doing the right thing - he is appealing to the voters by adjusting his campaign promises to what voters want to hear instead of the other way around - trying to adjust the voters to his campaign promises.
I write:
Sometimes I identify with your claims that the US left, many of them coddled in their bicoastal cocoons, fail to appreciate just how stubbornly jingoistic large portions the US white middle class/working class are. But I think you're off target here. Diehard yahoos will vote for Bush (or not at all) no matter what; they will not respond to "well-reasoned" arguments that Kerry will more effectively squash sinister regimes with nuclear warheads and delivery systems. So the only impact of such pandering to ostensibly "pre-existing" jingoistic sentiment is to push political discourse to the right, especially since this is an issue that is barely on the mass public's radar screen at present, and to create expectations that Kerry will go after the "moo-lahs" if elected (which may be precisely what the CFR crowd behind Kerry intends to do, I have no idea).
John Gulick Knoxville, TN
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