On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:52:20 -0600 "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes:
> I'm going to have to study Chuck's post when my eyes are less tired,
> but
> from browsing through it, I find it illuminating.
>
> I would like to add a point on this whole thread.
>
> It doesn't really matter _why_ the DP proceeds as it does, it is a
> fact that
> the actual behavior has not changed in over 40 years (I personally
> believe
> it goes back deep in the 19th-c, but that is not a necessary
> point).
> Regardless of motive, the results of Dem practices has been to
> divert or
> dampen all popular protest. The anti-war movement lost some energy
> with the
> Clean for Gene mania, & nearly crumbpled with the McGovern campaign.
> DP
> practice has twice more or less killed off the struggle for decent
> medical
> care -- and this is true even if Obama is personally longing for a
> National
> Health Service and in his own eyes has taken a step in that
> direction. (I
> don't think this, but it doesn't matter. Obama has killed the
> movement and
> it must be rebuilt.
>
> That practice will continue regardless of anything, but if some
> really
> strong mass movement arises, the DP will try to embrace it by
> pushing a
> strong "progressive" policy. It might result in real improvement.
> Then in a
> few years the process, supported in different ways by both parties,
> of
> chipping away of those gains will begin.
For the past 120 years or so, the DP has served as the graveyard for mass movements. Back in the 1890s, the Populists were becoming a very strong mass movement and third party, in fact, taking over several state legislatures. Then, in 1896, the DP nominated William Jennings Bryan for president, running on a platform that incorporated several of the demands of the Populists. As a result, most supporters of the Populists, switched to supporting Bryan, who then lost the election to McKinley. Some of the more moderate demands of the Populists were later enacted into law, but their more radical demands, like the call for the nationalization of the railroads and the telegraph/telephone companies were never enacted.
Much the same story can be told in regards to the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the antiwar movements, the student movement, and the women's movement. Some of the more moderate demands of these movements eventually get enacted into law, while their more radical demands are studiously ignored. Then soo after that, the gains that these movements had made then soon begin to erode away, with the cooperation of BOTH major parties.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math
>
> There is no permanent progress. Progress is not structured into
> human
> history. All gains are, as Yeats noticed, only a prelude to loss.
>
>
>
> Carrol
>
____________________________________________________________ Rise of Operational CFO Days when a CFO was primarily a numbers cruncher may be, well, numbered. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4ce3dc90b61e46210am03vuc