Just a postscript to my previous note on the elections: After reading
Bob Pollin's postings, I think he is correct about the damage that
Clinton and other Democrats have inflicted on
themselves, and by association on the left, by abandoning any kind of
program that would actually benefit working people. And California
has some special problems, in that most of the 4.5 million people
who voted for Proposition 187 probably knew what they were voting
for, and it is a racist initiative. Also the resounding defeat
(73-23) of the single payer initiative is bad news for future
efforts. But I would still maintain that the national results
reflect not so much a "conservative shift" among the voters as
among the politicians, whose continuous ranting about crime,
welfare, etc. dominated the sound bites that reached the voters.
With such one-sided political discourse, what do we expect?
This is a far cry from fascism, or even the conservatism that
Newt Gingrich would like to believe was demonstrated by the vote,
both of which presuppose a considerably stronger interest in
politics than actually exists here. I think the phenomenon
we have witnessed is for the most part very superficial, much
like Bush's 90% approval rating after the Gulf War, which faded
rather quickly and left no increase in the public's appetite for
foreign military adventures just a few months after the war was
over.
How's that for optimism of the will?
Cheers,
Mark Weisbrot
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
