[WS:] I d not think it is an accurate interpretation of my argument. I did not argue that unions etc. simply failed to create enough political pressure. I argued that popular pressure is for the most part rendered ineffective by the very nature of the US political and legal system. Therefore, even if unions etc. spent a lot of their resources and whatever political capital they have and somehow managed to put legislation though Congress - this effort would amount to nil, as that legislation would almost certainly be gutted by the courts.
To use Kafka's metaphor http://www.kafka-online.info/before-the-law.html, the US political system seems open, yet it has a series of gatekeepers, one more powerful than another, to prevent most common folk from passing through.
The first gatekeeper is the political party apparatus that handpick candidates for election. The second, and more powerful, gatekeeper is the media noise machine, controlled by monied interest, that can effectively make kings or dethrone them.
The third, yet more powerful but also more difficult to grasp ("I'm powerful but I can't endure even glimpse of the third gatekeeper."), gatekeeper is the political party system itself, which thrives on being a middleman between citizenry and the government. It is in the interest of both political parties that the government works efficiently and respond to citizen demands, because that is what creates the public demand for government services. However, it is also in the political party interests that the government is not too efficient and not too responsive, because that would undermine the political party role as a middleman in the delivery of government services. Therefore, both dems and repugs will derail any reform proposal that would undermine their role as a middleman. In other words, it is an old game of political patronage which formed the core of the US state from day 1 (even George Washington warned about in his farewell speech.)
The fourth, and still more powerful, gatekeeper is the judiciary and the court system. The courts have the power to annul virtually every legislation or presidential policy - and have done so very selectively. That is, they systematically gutted any attempt to regulate or otherwise curtail the operation of the capitalist free enterprise. California Proposition 103 is a case in point. The measure, imposing strong regulations of the insurance industry passed by the ballot, but was subsequently gutted by the courts. Occasionally, the courts would also support a liberal measure to maintain the illusion of its "unbiased" stance, but it makes sure that this measure does not negatively affect the operation of the capitalist free enterprise system. In other words, the courts may support school desegregation or gay rights, but will almost certainly strike down any reform (health, insurance, or what not) that runs against established corporate interests.
So a rational person who understand the Kafkaesque nature of the US political and judiciary system, would not expend his/her energy and resources that are almost guaranteed to be stopped by the second, third or the fourth gatekeeper. They either go with the program or stay away from politics (and go to business where they have more chances to implement their ideas.) Only an idealists or a fool stand at the gate and endlessly beg the gatekeeper to be let in until "his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him."
Wojtek
On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 6:58 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
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> On 2010-09-20, at 12:17 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
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>> On Sep 20, 2010, at 10:11 AM, Marv Gandall wrote:
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>>> But the discussion has been about whether medicare for all is within the "realm of possibility" under the existing system.
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>> Well it's a lot more likely than my being able to walk on water, for sure. But for it to happen, the labor movement would have to get behind it in a major way (among several other things). If SEIU showed anything like the support for single-payer that it routinely shows for campaigning for Democrats - as I recall, they flooded Pennsylvania alone with 15,000 campaign workers in 2008 - then the balance of forces would change considerably. But, really, can you see anything like that happening in the next several years? They're about to put everything into campaigning for a bunch of suckass Democrats in 2010. Then, they'll pause a bit, and start campaigning for suckass Dems in 2012.
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> If there is to be universal public coverage in the US, I don't see any other way it can come about other than through a Democratic government. So it's understandable the trade unions are devoting resources to electing Democrats rather than Republicans. The list I posted earlier indicates the SEIU and other unions have also been campaigning for single payer outside the electoral arena, but at the end of the day they and allied organizations are still faced with the need to steer those they convince as well as their own members to the voting booth. I don't think you can counterpose these activities to each other; reform movements need both mass pressure and legislation to realize their objectives.
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> I share your pessimism about the possibilities, but not for the reasons you suggest. Like others, you appear to locate the causes of the present malaise in the trade union and Democratic leaderships. I believe he failure of the unions to engage in strikes, demonstrations, rallies and other militant forms of mass action in order to generate the necessary pressure on the political system, as they once did, is more a reflection of the current low level of class and political consciousness which exists at all levels of the movement. If anything, this lack of consciousness and combativity is more pronounced at the bottom than the top, a heretical notion to my old comrades and perhaps to yourself, but one derived from my own observation. We're not dealing with a so-called "crisis of leadership", whereby if we only got rid of the Andy Sterns and Richard Trumkas and all the other male and female "labour fakirs", the working class would move forward. It's a crisis of what remains of !
> the entire battered and shrinking Western trade union movement, which no longer has the same power and confidence to improve its conditions as it did under more favourable conditions of economic growth and demand for labour in key industries. I don't think the political situation today would change if Lenin, Trotsky, and Luxemburg shared a brownstone in your Brooklyn neighbourhood.
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> This helps provide some context for the lack of progress under Obama and recent Democratic administrations. The DP has always mediated between the liberal bourgeoisie and its working class base, but the balance has shifted strongly to the former, which transmits pressures from Wall Street now only weakly countered by counter-pressure from the unions and the other popular organizations linked to the party. With the sense of crisis having lifted, and much grumbling but little pressure from the Democratic base below, the dominant Wall Street wing of the party which has Obama's ear has little incentive to change.
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> The other contributing factor, which I don't think we've sufficiently explored, if at all, in this discussion, is racism. I don't think anyone anticipated the depth of the residual racism which exists within the white working class. Obama's election excited hope that its power had receded, but his tenure has proved otherwise, bringing to the surface latent racist undercurrents. The tea party movement, which is their political expression, is propelled by whites resentful of having to pay higher taxes for the black and brown working poor and fearful that their country is being taken away from them by alien races. This racist reawakening has emboldened the Republicans and further cowed the Democratic leadership, providing the latter with additional incentive to back away from meaningful action on healthcare, unemployment, mortgage relief, and other core issues of importance to its base.
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> So those are the problems as I see them. Damned if I know what's the solution - there are no longer socialist political homes of any consequence for people like us - but I still think that for those who want to remain active in this period, it is likely to be more politically rewarding to align with those forces inside and around the Democratic party who are becoming increasingly disaffected with the Obama administration, than to forage in the political wilderness with some marginalized vanguard or left liberal party, or to try to recruit scattered individual "cadre" in university towns in preparation for the next upheaval. If you have a better alternative, I'm sure we'd all like to hear of it.
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