On Oct 28, 2010, at 10:04 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
> What about voting on the WFP line?
I'm afraid their relation with the Dems has reached a fatal level of compromise. They need to retain their ballot status, and to do that they basically have to endorse whatever Dem is running for governor. Given their recent scandals (i.e., being associated with ACORN, but more importantly, pissing off the FIRE elite), they were politically radioactive. So to accept their endorsement, Cuomo insisted that they sign on to his entire agenda, which includes reversing the top income tax increase that they'd fought for. (He's since told the NYT that he's going to hammer the unions.) So. to paraphrase Lou Reed, the WFP had to eat shit and say it tasted good, because there was a ballot line in it for them. I admire a lot about what they've done, and they may continue to do good stuff, but this shows the basic contradiction in their whole strategy: they never had a credible threat of exit from the Dem orbit.
Doug