Louis Proyect wrote: > Of course. And what will happen is 4 years of ineffective, centrist bullshit > that will make the misery of the American people only 90 percent of what it > would be under the Republicans...
It's possible that it could be better than that, though it's hard to judge what's meant by "better." The Bush League's rule has been characterized by dominance by the particularistic rule by individual capitalist interests, grabbing pieces of government functions (continuing and deepening the tradition of the Clinton I years) to grant them short-term gains while pushing costs onto others (workers, etc.) and onto the future (including the environment), in alliance with the kultur warriors and the neocon knee-jerk war-hawks. This seems irrational from the point of view of the ruling class as a whole, especially in the longer term. The promise of the Obama administration seems to be that it can reconcile the individual capitalist interests to serve the collective and long-term interests of the class as a whole. It's a response to the crises (in finance, in Iraq, etc.) and the repeated, blatant failures of the Bushwhackers to serve broader capitalist class interests. The most obvious piece of this puzzle is that Obama will be more "multilateral" in its policies (trying to reconcile the competing interests of the capitalist elites of the richer countries) as opposed to the Bush-in-a-china-shop "full-spectrum domination" policies of the last 8 years or so. This kind of attitude will likely be mirrored (in part) in other areas, such as health & welfare, etc. It's a little like having social democracy without a labor movement. The lack of a "backbone" in the form of a labor movement and other mass movements likely means that (1) the effects will be much not serve working-class interests much at all, simply providing emergency aid to avoid mass unrest; and (2) the "progressive" aspects of Obama policies will fade after the most obvious aspects of the crises have moderated. The progressivism will be like that of the early 20th century (Teddy R, etc.), focusing on "middle-class" reforms. (By the way, one reason for the fuktup political system in California is those old "progressive" reforms.) On the other hand, I expect the Obama administration to do better on the gender/sex and race dimensions of politics. The irrationality of the kultur klub will likely be localized within the Palin faction of the GOP. If the latter wins control over its party, it's likely that the DP will remain in power for more than a decade. In general, the capitalists will be pleased with this outcome. > This is like being stuck in a Samuel Beckett play that has no conclusion. It's true that there will be no conclusion as long as class relations continue to shift further & further to the right, so that today's "center-right" is yesterday's "right-wing." (Yesterday's right-winger was Nixon.) -- Jim Devine / "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
