[lbo-talk] "Still a Democrat" (was protest Obama)

[Carrol Cox]

I was born in 1930 -- i.e. I grew up in a household that worshipped
Roosevelt.  I didn't break with the DP until 1965, after getting a reply
from Senator Paul Douglas (also semi-worshipped up to that point) in
response to a letter saying that the invasion of the Dominican Republic and
his support of it had robbed me of "My" Party. I stll have not trouble
breaking the link to fDR, but I have not a  drop of remaining attachment to
the DP. Were voting maddatory in the U.S., I would vote for Palin before I
would vote for  ANY DP  candidate.

The tie can be broken -- not just the rational but the emotional tie.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Gar Lipow
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 3:29 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: [lbo-talk] "Still a Democrat" (was protest Obama)

Rationally I'm on the side of seeing the DP as the problem not
solution. But at the same time I have a huge emotional attachment to
the Democratic Party that is hard to get over. Terry Bisson, I  think,
expressed it well in an interview:

The facts of Bisson's life and mine or very different, but emotionally
the following quote from him speaks for  me too:


>"Once in my twenties I tried (probably foolishly) to explain to a favorite
aunt why I was a radical, a Marxist, an all-around anti-war hippie radical.
She nodded and said, "you are still a Democrat though?"


>I said sure.

Later in the same interview with Bisson:


>Q) How do you feel about anarchism?


>A) "As an idea, I like it. But I'm a big government guy.  I'm a TVA baby.
Still a Democrat".

Again, these are not to be taken as intellectual analysis. But they
represent real emotional truths for some leftists of all political
stripes, and probably do influence our analysis.
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