[lbo-talk] Left - Right 30 Year Itch

[Sean Andrews]

On 10/4/07, Ismail Lagardien <ilagardien at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>  the point was this: 1968 was when the swing to the right started, and what uncle george,
> uncle dick and auntie connie have done is precipitate a swing (back) to the left. i found this
> quite an intriguing thesis, suggested that we have coffee and discuss it further.
>

for one thing, if 1968 precipitated a swing to the right, it was
because of the swing to the left and much of the rhetoric of the left
was adopted by the right--particularly about the state--in that swing,
which is why the party that could be the left/liberal party in the US
has no way left to articulate its argument--the far left (i.e.
anything left of Bill Clinton) is off limits and anything else
basically sounds like something some wing of the republicans might
say.  And in more material terms, if we adopt Doug's understanding of
the early 1970s (which I think compelling in many regards), the
initial swing to the left that caused the reactionary right was a
fairly widespread popular movement. So if it's going to swing the
other way, there would need to be people behind it.

In other words, there might be a pendulum here, but it ain't gonna swing itself.

s