Jurriaan Bendien wrote: > > The American Left seems to make very little attempt to relate > the rise of Bush to the social totality of American society, to political > selection processes, and explain why the circumstances of the elite might > push Bush forward and institutionalise him.
What you mean, or ought to mean, is that because "The American Left" does not in fact exist, the voices of the quite large number of people who are trying to create a left get lost in the hubbub. If the main task of leftists today is to create some sort of coherent left, withing which debate and consultation can be more than a hubbub of conflicting voices, then one of the greatest barriers to performing that task is the use of this phrase, "The American Left. How in the world can we create a left if we (falsely) assume one already exists. That assumption is, I think, a disguised form of TINA -- certainly (with many exceptions, of which Jurriaan is one) complaints about a (non-existent) left are most frequently, I think, voiced by those who will then urge that we (leftists) again sink in despair into the arms of the Democratic Party. Carrol
