[lbo-talk] Rhythm of U.S. Politics and the taks of Leftists , was. . .less than meets the eye

Gar Lipow gar.lipow at gmail.com
Tue Nov 9 20:24:20 PST 2010


On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 6:37 PM, michael perelman <michael.perelman3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I spent the 1978 academic year in Paris & met a great number of Latin
> Americans who insisted that Carter's human rights policies saved their
> lives.

I'm sure that is true. Carter was a move to the right compared to past Democrats, but not nearly as far to the right as Democrats today. However I think the last year of the Carter Presidency represented something new - his support for Volcker, his support for the contras. He tried a more "dovish" approach to imperialism, and saw imperialism weakened in every major foreign policy area. So he listened to hard liners. (I'm probably oversimplifying by just attributing this Carter. But there was a real policy change in his last year. I think his faction hoped to preserved the Shahs regime without the Shah, Somozisima without Somoza. When that fail, this faction moved back to supporting the most reactionary elements. Domestically, the Carter administration was reactionary on economic issues from the beginning. He ran on renewable energy, but governed with proposals for crumbs for renewables and hundreds of billions for shale oil. He was a tax cutter, a deregulator. I won't deny the good he did, establishing a path where draft resistors could obtain pardons. But I won't forget he also restablished Selective Service registration. The U.S. at the end of the Carter Presidency was more reactionary than at its beginning. And executive actions had a lot to do with that. Again not denying the good things he did, CAFE, funding for education, a human rights policy that genuinely saved lives. The Democratic party is fundametally a party of business that pretends to be something else and throws crumbs to the working class. But I think Carter was unusually successful in moving the country to right - further than I think was usual up to that time under a Democratic administration. Though Clinton, and now Obama managed to easily beat his record.
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> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA
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