[lbo-talk] second bill of rights

[shag carpet bomb]

At 07:58 PM 10/4/2009, sandia wrote:
> > I was going to respond, have a draft somewhere, to take issue with the idea
> > that Liberalism is largely contentless, that it's pragmatic, simply swaying
> > like a blade of grass swaying to whatever pragmatic possibility seems
> > possible at the moment.  I don't agree with that at all. There is some
> > substance to Liberalism. Obama is, quite obviously, not a Liberal, at least
> > not the kind that I remember.
>
>I think it's difficult to pinpoint, abstractly, what liberalism is. It
>has been different things for over two centuries.

I'm not sure where I learned this convention, some Cornell prof I think. 
Anyway, when someone uses Liberal with a capital L they are referring to 
what is sometimes called Welfare Liberalism -- which generally manifests as 
party platform of some sort, at the least in terms of practical politics.

Small 'l' liberalism refers to the political philosophy, often called 
classical liberalism or Enlightenment liberalism. i wrote about that here, 
awhile back.

we are all liberals: 
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090309/003758.html

In any event, the thread to which I referred, more noxious crap, was 
obviously about Welfare Liberalism.


>I think there is a battle within liberalism
>between a wing that wants to be a lesser-evil operator of
>neoliberalism, and a wing that will slowly gravitate towards a New
>Deal-ish vision/coalition. Obama -- who so far has proven himself to
>stand in the former wing -- and more shitty developments will probably
>split the two wings wider, in a way that wasn't possible, say, five
>years ago. Thoughts????

I don't think there is a Welfare Liberal left in the u.s., so I can't 
imagine there being enough of them to comprise a 'wing'.

shag