[lbo-talk] blog post: change we (were foolish to) believe in

MICHAEL YATES mikedjyates at msn.com
Sat Nov 13 17:34:17 PST 2010


Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/11/14/change-we-were-foolish-to-believe-in/

This is an excerpt from near the end of the post:

"Now that the Republicans control the House of Representatives, will the Democrats stand tall and fight them off with progressive principle? Will they move to the left? Only a fool like Katrina vanden Heuvel could believe this. What is being played out here is as old as the rise of modern U.S. capitalism. The Democrats and the Republicans take turns serving the interests of capital. The Republicans rule with such disdain for the working class that a public backlash drives them from power. Then the Democrats promote capitalism with a human face. Business and its allies go wild and scare the people with stories about incipient socialism. These days, with a moribund labor movement and limited public political sophistication, the scare tactics work pretty well. The Democrats respond by moving to the right; the Republicans regain their lost political power; the Democrats shift further right; and then the Republicans win absolute power, and the whole sorry process starts over again. Watch now as Obama gravitates to the right. Watch as he parrots vanden Heuvel and babbles on about civility and calm debate. Watch as he caves on rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Watch as he turns up the heat on Iran when the next presidential election gets nearer. Watch how he champions every kind of environmental degradation, from offshore oil drilling to hydraulic fracturing. Watch how the liberals and their more thoughtless radical allies tell us that this is the most important election of our lifetimes."



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list