On Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 08:14:26 (-0700) Jim Devine writes: >Doug Henwood wrote: >>> the >>>right won a series of electoral victories over the last 25 years in >>>Britain, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, India...and managed to >>>turn previously leftish parties into milder versions of themselves. >>>How did they do this? > >Bill Lear wrote: >> I'm sure you know the answer to this: with a combination of vast sums >> of money, populist appeals to fear and patriotism, suppression of >> dissent and franchise, violence, intimidation, fraud, clever >> marketing, and most importantly perhaps, active help from the other >> side of the aisle whose dullness, aloofness, stupidity, criminality, >> cravenness, and thinly veiled totalitarian desire is perhaps even more >> loathsome than that of the right. > >doesn't the neoliberal movement within social democracy (which Doug >refers to) have some sort of popular base? ...
Sure, but the popular appeal has been largely bogus, and, as I said, based on appeals to fear and patriotism, etc. The policies have been extremely harmful to the "popular base". > ... a lot of "middle class" >people (small businessfolk, professionals) vote for these "leftish" >parties, didn't they? and some "enlightened capitalists"? don't these >groups often find free-market mantras attractive? I hardly see why "small businessfolk" should be seen as part of a "popular" base, given they are a small fraction of the population as a whole. The bottom line is this: the major parties pursue (very limited) populist policies only to the extent they must when their faux populist appeals fail and when true electoral competition arises. Bill _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
