>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
>
>Bill Bartlett wrote:
>>The point I'm trying to get across is that all US politicians are
>>really independents, by world standards.
>
>-Yeah, but any index that measured the diversity of their beliefs
>-would come in close to 0.
>
>Again, a ridiculous statement. The range from Bernie Sanders or most of the
>progressive Caucus compared to Congressman Tom Tancredo, who wants to bomb
>Mecca as a deterrant to terrorism, is as wide a spectrum as anywhere in the
>world. The bell curve is a bit to the right, but the breadth of political
>views is just as wide.
I cut the Dems a lot of slack last year, but not now. Bernie Sanders, and even my personal Congressman Jerry Nadler, are outliers. The Progressive Caucus consists of 60 members, out of 435 (and includes Barney Frank, who's not all that "progressive"). Most of the Republican delegation is seriously right wing, and there are almost no liberal Republicans anymore. The non-Progressive Caucus part of the House Democratic delegation is tepidly centrist. There's a broad consensus across the Congressional spectrum on the virtues of a minimal welfare state, minimal economic regulation, and the fundamental rightness of US foreign policy. If you step beyond Congress, the range of acceptable mainstream political discourse is astonishingly narrow. A bell curve would skew significantly to the right, with a thin left tail and a fat right tail. Why pretend otherwise?
Doug