<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> <div> <p>Not "the worse, the better" (apologies to Lenin) but "sooner, rather than later".  You can say I coined it. :-)</p> </div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big><a href="http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/smh27.htm">http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/smh27.htm</a></big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>Now, the one point I don't see is how the "<small><font size="3"><big>destruction of the alliance system...is so crucial to American power in the long-run."</big></font></small></big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>The term 'long-run' would imply that Kolko foresees a shorter-term significant weakening of American world power.  It is unclear if Kolko understands the profound consequences this could have for the American domestic economy and (therefore) American social order, consequences potentially traumatic and full of the dangers of a descent into barbarism and fascism.</big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>It is precisely this domestic consequence that the bipartisan foreign policy frantically seeks to avoid even as it makes domestic preparations to confront it with a police state in the literal sense of the phrase. The only difference is that the Bush policy will bring about the conditions for this possible consequence sooner rather than later.  </big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>Now there those on the American Left - the vast majority at this moment, I'd suspect - who'd argue that this is precisely what makes the Democrats the "lesser evil" - they would buy time by putting off further the domestic realization of these drastically changed conditions.  But it must be asked:  Buy time for WHOM?</big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>For US on the left?  To look at the evidence of the last quarter century, I rather doubt it.  Instead, supporting the "lesser evil" will continue to by time for the Far Right and the proto-fascism in its train to further prepare itself to seize total power in the future.  That is the Greater Evil of supporting the Democrats - by whatever backhanded means - now.</big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>The fact is, the American Left has grown far too comfortable with the status quo.  But that status quo is dying, and the Left fears the change.  So, I'd say that in the balance I'd favor SOONER rather than LATER here in the USA.  For despite the dangers, SOONER will also see the Far Right also less than prepared and drive deep fissures into the "broad" Right, over which the Far Right presently exercises an uncertain hegemony, but over which its proto-fascistic fraction certainly does not - yet.  And in the split, the Far Right may loose its present hegemony, setting back its whole project for a time, and that would be buying time for US on the Left.</big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>Mirroring Kolko, I'd finally say that it would be EXCEEDINGLY DESIRABLE to shake the US Left out of the somnolence of its present set of political and social relations, a condition that has led to an extreme state of perceptual enfeeblement and general cognitive dissonance concerning the realities of our present situation.  In answer to Doug, who once asked "What was I doing", it must be said that in a situation where almost all of the traditionally officially recognized leadership of the US Left - Chomsky, Benjamin, Moore, the Green Party organization, and Doug himself - have one way or another been 'body snatched' and hijacked by the Democratic Party - the best thing one could do right NOW is to tirelessly argue the perspective of Breaking with the Democrats Once and For All for as many angles as one can imagine, in an effort to change minds.  When the situation changes there will plenty of occasion for useful actions of all sorts.  There are not so many now, thanks to the present capitulation of the US Left.</big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>I don't believe in The American Dream, and the U.S. is like any other country.  The collapse of its present imperialist position - note, collapse of its _present position_, not the imperialism tout corte - is INEVITABLE, and it will come.</big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>SOONER brings obvious dangers, but also the possibility of a way out for us.</big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>LATER with the Democrats now, brings the _certainty_ of a totalitarian fascist dictatorship as the legacy we leave to our children.</big></font></big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big> </big></div> <div style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><font size="2"><big>-Brad Mayer</big></font></big></div> </body> </html>