On Oct 2, 2009, at 9:55 PM, SA wrote:
> This is astute. For the left, liberals are the Other, but the same
> dynamic doesn't hold on the right. And this relationship needs to
> change. That's basically what I was trying to get at here: http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090914/012915.html
>
> But for that relationship to change, a lot of other things have to
> change. It seems to me the model for the right relationship is
> obvious - the popular front. But this raises a paradox: In the past,
> it's typically the *left* that's been most enthusiastic about
> popular fronts. It was always a matter of persuading liberals to
> join with the disreputable red-pinks, not the other way around. And
> the assumption on all sides was that when liberals do join up, it's
> the radicals who get the most out of the partnership. Yet today the
> left stands deliberately aloof from liberalism. Why is that?
Coupla things. First, the situation on the right a few decades ago wasn't all that dissimilar to that on the left today. Then, the movement conservatives hated the centrist Republicans and saw them as the enemy. Of course, they were a rising force, backed by the money of the provincial petite bourgeoisie, and the far left today is a weak force backed by almost no one. But there were ideological similarities - though the far right won and we're losing.
Second, leaving aside the question of just who the liberals are (to which I don't think there's a self-evident answer), they're weakened by the lack of a far left to which they can seem like a reasonable alternative. Obama has to make a show of placating the liberal wing of his party, but it really has surprisingly little influence over him - on health care, on Gitmo, on Afghanistan, on whatever. Instead he looks for Republican support. If no one's burning anything down, why should he listen to Jerry Nadler?
Doug