I wrote:
> > Why? because it awakens the public's interest in a fundamentally
> > meaningless process.
Tom asks:
>What do you *mean* by a "fundamentally meaningless process"?
>Elections in the U.S. are fraught -- overladen -- with "meaning".
>Couldn't the problem be better stated as _too much meaning_ that has no
>ostensive referent?
It's a meaningless process from the point of view of changing the political
and economic balance of power in favor of the working class and other
dominated groups (here in the US and also in the rest of the world). Rather
it's more of an internecine battle amongst the capitalists, with various
non-capitalists groupings hoping that by backing one or another capitalist
faction, they'll get some of the crumbs that fall off the table. From the
point of view of horizontal competition amongst the powers that be, it's
not meaningless.
Whomever gets elected -- Bush, Gore, or, less likely, McCain -- will govern
through a complicated system of checks and balances in which the
corporations, the Pentagon, etc., are major players and the actual voters
have little or no influence unless they go outside "normal channels." This
complicated system will move the new President toward the "center" defined
by the balance of economic and political power and expressed so well by
Clinton. Gore is a Clintonized Democrat, while Bush and McCain are
different versions of Clintonized Republicanism, where of course, Clinton
is a Reaganized Democrat (and a spitting image of Bush the Father, the
"kinder, gentler" version of Reagan).
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/~JDevine/JDevine.html
