[lbo-talk] An Open Letter to Lefty Friends, Colleagues and Bitter Foes Who're Disappointed by Obama

Marv Gandall marvgandall at videotron.ca
Sun Jul 26 08:37:30 PDT 2009


Doug writes:


> Julio Huato:
>
>> wo, have the leftists who supported Obama's election suffered a
>> political defeat? At most, we can say that leftists who supported
>> Obama's election are suffering from a frustration attack, because
>> their best hopes haven't been realized yet and may not be realized any
>> time soon (or at all under Obama). But that is not a defeat. In my
>> book, defeat means that your forces have been decimated and
>> demoralized, that your ability to fight has been impaired for some
>> time to come. As weak and fragmented as it is, the left remains active
>> and in fighting mode. It's definitely not politically weaker now than
>> it was 5 or 10 years ago.
>
> Hard to say - the left, such as it is, looks extremely fragmented and
> weak to me. That aside, the more "mainstream" left - the unions, interest
> groups, etc. - are all completely flummoxed by Obama and the Dems' health
> care scheme. As PNHP's Len Rodberg put it on my show the other week, they
> don't want Obama to lose this one because they think it would ruin his
> presidency. So they're either silent or supporting it, despite its
> awfulness. That's a major defeat of some sort, no?
================================= The US left is "flummoxed", but is that a uniquely American phenomenon related to it's support of Obama and the DP? My own view, as you know, is that the weakness of the US left is better understood in an international context, as another expression of of the universal marginalization of the left (it's outer edge as well as the mainstream) in all of the advanced capitalist societies. It's a weakness rooted in objective rather than subjective conditions, notably the shift from an industrial to a service economy, tech change, and the opening up of vast new pools of surplus labour overseas. The British, French, German, and Japanese left in the trade unions and allied political parties all find themselves in the same position, and experience and articulate the same frustration and disillusionment as their US counterparts when their unions capitulate and their parties retreat in government.

If I had to choose between your view and that of Julio's, I'd split the difference. The crisis in the economy and foreign policy since the Clinton administration does seem to me to have heightened the anger and rudimentary political consciousness of the Democratic base (and many Americans beyond), but I don't see any real evidence yet that their level of organization and independent activity justifies their being described as in "fighting mode". I'm a little worried than when and if they do enter that mode, unless the Obama administration has the good fortune to preside over a revived job market, we may end up with the opposite of what we wish for.



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