On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Michael Perelman wrote: > Michael may be correct that it was a pebble causing an avalanche, but > the absence of an avalanche heretofor seems to defy the laws of physics
No, actually, that's exactly how avalanches work. Before they happen, nothing happens. The weight just builds up. And sometimes it melts. > But here I get to my main point. Why does it take peripheral matters -- > Rush's drugs, Arnold's gropes, Ms. Plame -- to weaken the right > [assuming that all this does not fizzle]? Why have we not been able to > make the case that we have been on the short end of a class war fro > decades and that Bush is just stepping it up a bit? Why have we not > been able to create a critique of the economy or even better a vision of > a future economy to make people excited and energetic? Your last two sentences answer the question in the first one. Peripheral matters are overdetermining precisely because there is no real left vision. All we've got is some excellent critique, a few contradictory sketches of an alternative programme, and no political vehicle whatsoever. National politics at the moment is almost completely reduced to grappling between two centrist parties. And the liberal centrist party is completely on its back foot. It controls no branch of the federal government: neither house of Congress, nor the Presidency, nor the Supreme Court. That's why its only chance it to grab for targets of opportunity. And on top of that bad objective situation, subjectively it seems a party disporportionately stricken with fear and rigor mortis. The right controls vast amounts of money and media and they've used it to gain increasing ascendency in their party. The left's avenue of effect on the national debate in the last two years has been through the anti-war movement. And right now that effect is actually making itself felt, in the person of Dean. He's not on the left. But his support is. However he may betray us later, his emergence made anti-war a legitimate mainstream theme. And that has helped to get it on the media agenda -- and to hurt Bush. Now if we on the left had a vision, and a vehicle, and a decent liberal party that had power that we could attack from the left, well then maybe things would be different. We had all those things in the 60s. Basically the right has them all now. But if Bush is unelected and excoriated as he deserves, who knows? Maybe it'll be time for another inflection point. Michael
