I have two comments regarding the following points that you made.
> Yes, but in the absence of any reasonably cohrent and visible left
movement (marxists or otherwise) I am seriously worried about the forms new
social
> movements might take. Especially, as I think is very possible, the
present crisis should mutate into hyperinflation.
First, hyperinflation seems a remote prospect at this point. I am aware that some writers on the pages of the WSJ have raised the specter of inflation; others are writing about the continued risk of deflation. I am not certain why there is a belief that the risk of inflation is substantial (well, I am, but I don't think that this is reasonable for now). Without getting into a theoretical discussion, my humble view is that the risk is still deflationary. This seems substantiated by the CPI for urban wage and clerical workers (i.e., the most recent release) and various elements in the PPI. There is a longer argument here, but I'll stop with that.
> She was angriest of all at two disturbing categories:
> a) Those who pretended to be sick and used up all the money intended for
the poor
> b) those illegal --ILLEGAL-- (her emphasis really) aliens who were taking
up all the jobs that poor people could get.
Second, thank you for this insight. For me, it substantiates that there can be no emergernce of powerful anti-capitalist/socialist political forces, in the US context, without the concurrent raising of anti-racist/anti-imperialist awareness. These things are dialectically inseperable. You cannot have one without the other, in the US context. Otherwise we get Lou Dobbs, and cases such as the one that you mentioned. So, I agree with you on this second point.
epoliticus