>From Jim D. (no slouch himself in the word-count
department),
> Max writes: >I'd say what caused it to break down was, among otherthings,
> that the Democrats promoted the interests of blacks without due attention
> to working class interests in general.<
>
> Do you have any evidence of this? It's pretty clear the Dems (like the
> GOPs) have never responded too "working class interests in general" but
> have always responded to campaign contributions (which includes those of
> the AFL-CIO) and to any groupings which can pressure the party. So it must
> be that you're talking about the Dems promoting the interests of blacks
> without due attention to the interest of whites? or are you? if so, do you
> have evidence?
I should qualify by saying that by promoting the
interests of blacks, I mean a relatively
legalistic, middle-class approach to civil
rights. Forthright efforts to help working class
blacks ended when the community action phase of
the War on Poverty was shut down, around
1969 (the infamous Edith Green amendment) mostly
at the demands of white ethnic city machine
politicians. After that, the money kept flowing,
but it was distributed in the form of transfer
payments rather than for economic and
social (really political) development.
Tom Edsall has discussed the inception of trends
in regressive tax policy in Congress in the
early 1970's. Then there was of course the
Carter Presidency, which launched Reaganomics
(capital gains tax relief, deregulation, a
slow-down in social spending, and Paul Volcker).
You are right to question this (if not other)
points I raised, since it was among the more
speculative.
MBS
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