> France has a parliamentarty systgem, which totally changes the basis for
> cooperation. In the U.S. "cooperation" with Democrats means abject
> surrender to Democrats.
First off, the subject doesn't interest me because I think "cooperation with Democrats" is a particularly important priority right now - it only interests me because I think there's a certain unhealthy rhetorical outbidding that takes place on the US left (totally absent in France, AFAICT) concerning "The Democrats." No one wants to be left vulnerable to the accusation that they're "soft on democrats." Sometimes this muddles people's thinking, or at least it distorts discourse on the subject - so much so that often I can't even tell what people's positions on these questions are. (That's why I posed this question to Shag, not as some sort of gotcha.)
To respond to your point, I don't think the difference is as great as you think. France doesn't have a PR system, it has a two-round election system. That differs from ours mainly in that it permits more than two viable parties, but apart from that it's similar to our system. First, the two election rounds are similar to our primary/general election cycle - they both pose a dilemma for the left in the "second round": do you support the "reformist candidate" who usually wins the first round?
Second, in France "radical" parties often end up dependent on "mainstream" parties. The system forces parties to make electoral alliances so as not to divide the vote. For example, the PS agrees not to run candidates in a few districts where the PC runs especially strong; in exchange, the PC does the same for the PS. The result, now that the PC is so weak, is that the PC now depends on these alliances for its very survival - without them it wouldn't get enough votes to receive public party financing and it would collapse. So it's highly dependent on the PS. It's often said that this makes the PC subservient to the PS.
My impression, however, is that on the French Left this is lamented as a sad structural reality, rather than a shameful moral failing of the PC.
> Cooperation is simply impossible.
>
> When has the DP offered to cooperate with us in building actions
> OUTSIDE th electoral system.
Well, they're elected politicians, so what would they be doing outside the electoral system? What kinds of actions do you mean - demonstrations? As I recall, a number of left-leaning Democrats lent their names and presence to anti-Iraq war demos before the war started. Is that the kind of thing you mean?
> No sifnificant change in the U.S. has EVER
> resulted from electing politicians who favored it.
Read some history, Carrol.
SA