On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 6:57 PM, Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote: > > As I thought I explained very clearly, I excluded that hypothesis, because > it actually does not make sense. > > -------- > > I missed your earlier post. Could you repeat it. > > But your sentence above makes no sense. You do not indicate _why_ it makes > no sense but merely assert it dogmatically. >
Oh come on. That part was in the previous email. Rather than copy & paste, I will take another shot at explaining my puzzlement over what seems like selective outrage among progressives and liberals. Specifically, I am wondering why the likes of Elizabeth Warren are making a lot of noise about the Citigroup giveaway, but not about the pension ripoff. I reject the "obvious" explanation that Elizabeth Warren is in the Democratic Party and is therefore fully co-opted into the DP's neoliberal ideology, and therefore she does not care enough about retirees getting ripped off. I reject it fundamentally because it does not actually *explain* anything, instead it merely begs the question. And no, I have no illusions that Elizabeth Warren is some kind of radical. She is, however, definitely a populist. And the Democratic Party is not an undifferentiated, homogenous mass. It is silly to suggest that anyone who comes in contact with the DP instantaneously gets transformed into a neoliberal drone by some magic process of "co-option". I guess I am looking for a somewhat deeper analysis than that. Specifically, I think it is interesting and relevant to enquire into the possibilities and limitations for someone like Warren inside the DP. What forces allow (or pressure?) her to denounce a powerful group like Wall St swaps dealers on the one hand, but prevent her from similarly criticizing pension trustees - basically union bureaucrats - who are trying to stiff their own members from their retirement benefits. You'd think that for neoliberals, the latter would be a much easier target to go after than the former. -raghu.
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
