On Sat, 23 Jan 2010, Joseph Catron wrote:
> However, it occurs to me that while you're right about both term limits
> and filibuster abolition working against the interests of politicians,
> only one - the former - will reliably work in the interests of the
> bourgeoisie.
I don't know if either of them are reliable for the RC. The RC was unanimously against term limits in New York.
> For that reason, I can't imagine that its political lessons
> will be of much use to us in any campaign that is anti-capitalist, even
> incidentally and to a measured extent (like your proposed abolition of
> the filibuster).
Hatred of the filibuster is not inherently anticapitalist. It's anti-gridlock. Effective government is normally considered a good thing by the RC. This doesn't address any of the sources of corruption through which they exercise their influence.
The people in the minority party are usually against it. But if you can get people in one party pushing the idea when they are up, you'll get a much better reception on the other side when the pendulum swings and their ox is getting gored. The Repugs had a lot of people for it in 2005 and the Dems were against it then. Do this a couple of cycles and perhaps you can build a core group.
The main point is convincing people it's entirely possible andwould radically change government for the more democratic. (It would also be more in tune with the founders intentions according to Tom Geoghegan: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/opinion/11geoghegan.html
-- not a big selling point on this list, but a nice point when people bring the sanctity of tradition, which always part of the defense of the filibuster.)
Michael