[lbo-talk] Fwd: Noam goes with Barry ?

// ravi ravi at platosbeard.org
Tue Mar 13 13:40:19 PDT 2012


On Mar 13, 2012, at 7:59 AM, Marv Gandall wrote:
> On 2012-03-12, at 4:25 PM, // ravi wrote:
>>
>> India just had a large regional election last week in which a third party (relative to the two dominant ones) just won the election. Pretty significant win. This is nothing new. Indian democracy to a greater or lesser degree in the last four decades has been a multi-party system.
>
> Hardly. Indian politics have been dominated by the two major parties, the liberal Congress and conservative BJP… <snip happens>

Okay then.


>>> b) By your standard, the US working class would have to be considered the most politically advanced in the West since its abstention rate is the highest - far higher than the European, Latin American, and Asian working classes, who turn out in large numbers to vote for parties whose liberal domestic and foreign policies are, with rare exceptions, virtually indistinguishable from those of the US Democrats. That is, to say the least, a highly questionable proposition.
>>
>> “Politically advanced” suggests an advanced political consciousness and a decision based on that. This is also implied in the term “radical” used in the post Shane was responding to. But, in his response Shane explicitly noted that the point is not that the non-voters are a “radical-thinking constituency”. To see no difference between two corporate parties does not need politically advanced views, yes?
>
> This is special pleading …

No, it’s not.


> Doug has referred to Pew studies showing there is no correlation between political abstention and political belief.

The very studies I relinked to and commented on.

—ravi



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