Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Once again, should President Obama help elect in 2012 someone who can preside over a much more socialist administration and congress, he will in my opinion have done a decent, shrewd, and more extraordinary service to US citizens and the world than he might possibly otherwise. Just what on Earth is this person talking about? -Matt Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Looks to me as if Sister Sarah will be the next president. The media loves her so much that it's made her the most prominent Republican around. And the GOP has nobody more obvious in view...certainly nobody as sure of grabbing headlines or mobilizing that gosh-darned based. Nach Palin uns. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-12-07, at 8:58 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: Obama: On the way to a failed presidency? By Katrina vanden Heuvel Tuesday, December 7, 2010; Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the Democratic Party left him before he left the party. Like many progressive supporters of Barack Obama, I'm beginning to have the same feeling about this president. Consider what we've seen since the shellacking Democrats took in the fall elections. On Afghanistan, the administration has intimated that the 2011 pullout date is inoperable, with the White House talking 2014 and Gen. David H. Petraeus suggesting decades of occupation. On bipartisanship, the president seems to think that cooperation requires self-abasement. He apologized to the obstructionist Republican leadership for not reaching out, a gesture reciprocated with another poke in the eye. He chose to meet with the hyper-partisan Chamber of Commerce after it ran one of the most dishonest independent campaigns in memory. He appears to be courting Roger Altman, a former investment banker, for his economic team, leavening the Goldman Sachs flavor of his administration with a salty Lehman Brothers veteran. […] The subject line is another easy cheap shot at disillusioned liberals which misses the larger point that the article is further evidence of the rapidly growing distance between the Democratic leadership and the base of the party, particularly its important layer of more politically aware activists and public intellectuals. Krugman, Reich, Stiglitz, Frank Rich, Eugene Robinson, Olbermann, Maddow, vanden Huevel and others speak for a constituency larger than themselves, which at the present time is of more interest to me than their personal foibles, past histories, or to-be-expected illusions about reforming the Democratic party. Pity there is no longer a working class socialist left in and around the Democratic party, a bourgeois reform party supported by the unions and their various allies, with the connections, understanding, energy and organizational skills needed to advance the process further. Rather than delight in the dashed hopes of liberal public intellectuals, a more serious approach would pay careful attention to their political trajectory as a reflection of developments at the base. In this vein, I was struck by a recent comment from another angry disillusoned liberal, the economist James Galbraith: The Democratic Party has become too associated with Wall Street. This is a fact. It is a structural problem. It seems to me that we as progressives need — this is my personal position — we need to draw a line and decide that we would be better off with an under-funded, fighting progressive minority party than a party marked by obvious duplicity and constant losses on every policy front as a result of the reversals in our own leadership. A third party of any significance is not presently on the agenda, and won't likely be without a preceding faction fight inside the DP, or so it seems to me, but this is very strong language and the fact that the idea is even being floated in leading liberal circles suggests that something deeper and unprecedented is going on in the party than I had reason to believe. But to find this material - much more interesting, IMO, than the predictably boring denuciations of the DP leadership and ridicule of public liberals so prevalent here - you have to look for it, and with a mind open to all possibilities. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is a very eloquent piece. And I file it under the Crisis of Liberal thought. It seems to me that we are getting inexorably closer to the come to jesus moment, when Liberals have to choose. Their illusions which they wrap so tightly around themselves are being ripped off with brutal ruthlessness. Why this undending humiliation of Obama the true beleivers? I accept largely Lou's thesis that Obama was never the progressive he claimed to be. But he is now fast becoming a figure of ridicule and mockery. The contempt in ruling circles for the likes of Obama and those who believed in him is palpable. Maybe Sartesion is right and Obama has served his purpose. Perhaps he will be cast into the dustbin of history. But I have an enduring belief in the power of liberals to keep inventing a new illusion to grocvel behind. We seem somehow never to reach the moment when man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. So the wretched Obama might survive. I certainly hope not. comradely Gary Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Gary writes: But I have an enduring belief in the power of liberals to keep inventing a new illusion to grovel behind. We seem somehow never to reach the moment when man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. Or as Richard Greener wrote in the article to which Gary was referring: If we start now there's time for a reliable, truthful, electable liberal-progressive Democrat to emerge. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/7/10 6:59 PM, Lajany Otum wrote: Or as Richard Greener wrote in the article to which Gary was referring: If we start now there's time for a reliable, truthful, electable liberal-progressive Democrat to emerge. To which I wrote Richard: I think the chances for a socialist revolution are more auspicious. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It had not occurred to me that president Obama might recognize he should not run for reelection and take himself out to assure election of someone further to the left. But that would be decent and shrewd, and in my opinion he is both.I will oppose this groundswell from the left that further weakens him until I'm convinced it is not a play in behalf of someone further right, Secretary Clinton or former President Clinton, or a trap quite worthy of Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich etal that smart people,too pure for the collective good of the human species, are falling into. Have people here read left wing communism, an infantile disorder? or the update of it by the Chairman of the CP in west Germany before the end of east Germany, named something like Steinbenner? Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/7/10 6:59 PM, Peggy Dobbins wrote: It had not occurred to me that president Obama might recognize he should not run for reelection and take himself out to assure election of someone further to the left. But that would be decent and shrewd, and in my opinion he is both.I will oppose this groundswell from the left that further weakens him until I'm convinced it is not a play in behalf of someone further right, Secretary Clinton or former President Clinton, or a trap quite worthy of Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich etal that smart people,too pure for the collective good of the human species, are falling into. Have people here read left wing communism, an infantile disorder? or the update of it by the Chairman of the CP in west Germany before the end of east Germany, named something like Steinbenner? Peggy, I have no idea why you have so many technical problems with this listserv. You sent the message above as if it were a reply but it would have been less confusing without the 's. Now, I have indeed read Left-Wing Communism but it has nothing to do with the 2 party system in the USA. Lenin urged the CP to back SP candidates in order to get a hearing from rank-and-file members. He reasoned that they had no idea how treacherous their leaders were since they had never exercised power as a governing party. Once they did, the workers would be open to CP ideas but it was necessary to remove any obstacles to that dialog. This has nothing to do with the Democratic Party that has been around since Andrew Jackson and that was the party of chattel slavery. Workers have seen it in action. Mostly they vote for it out of a sense of futility. We are trying to create a radical alternative to both the Democrats and the Republicans without worrying whether Palin will be elected because of our actions. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Peggy, Peggy, Peggy how could you? The diatribe against 'Left wing communism' only makes sense if one realises that there was a bona fide Communism around. We do not even have a bona fide liberalism. Obama is one of two things - spineless, gutless, grovelling liberal or a shrewd opportunist who took advantage of the despair brought about by the Bush years. He now needs to somehow restore a little of the faux liberal pretensions that he spun around us so beguilingly. For me, speaking personally, it is our *sacred* duty as Marxists not to assist him in that task in any way. comradely Gary Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't know if I have said this before (probably) but I was mightily struck by the absence of references to Obama at a recent conference here in Brisbane on Indigenous matters. Shortly after his election, there was the rhetoric of 'yes we can' coming from some Indigenous leaders. There was also a real sense of pride that a Black man had been elected President. But now I detect a sort of embarrassment and even shame about Obama. He has been so awful and is getting worse with every day. It seems so long ago since people were worried that he would be assassinated by the FBI/CIA/Whoever for being too radical. Sheesh! comradely Gary Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-12-07, at 7:00 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/7/10 6:59 PM, Lajany Otum wrote: Or as Richard Greener wrote in the article to which Gary was referring: If we start now there's time for a reliable, truthful, electable liberal-progressive Democrat to emerge. To which I wrote Richard: I think the chances for a socialist revolution are more auspicious. Both, of course, are equally inauspicious possibilities at the present time. The issue is whether going through the experience and inevitable frustration of trying to elect a liberal-progressive Democrat will lead your friend Richard and others like him to finally break with the party and start a new one to its left, or will drive him out of politics altogether. As we know, previous efforts of Marxists - including most famously, Lenin's advice in relation to the Labour Party - to enter bourgeois union-based reform parties in order to turn the base against the leadership as a prelude to a revolutionary split from it all ended in failure. But, so for that matter, have attempts to batter the DP and social democratic parties from the outside through the creation of Potemkin village progressive and revolutionary socialist parties which have also gone nowhere. All of these failures, however, took place in a period when capitalism was expanding and, despite periodic crises, providing its working classes with steadily improving living standards. The mistaken assumption of the radical left was that the period was revolutionary, that the working class would become increasingly immiserated, and that capitalism would collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions. That long period of expansion and relative prosperity and job security has now ended in the advanced capitalist countries, and in the US is reflected in the inability of the Bush and Obama administration to resolve its mounting domestic and foreign policy crises. These have produced the tea party on the right and the growing disaffection within the Democratic party. Whether and how far these political developments will progress will depend on whether the bourgeoisie succeeds in containing these crises or whether they continue to deepen. Whether a future radicalization would begin inside the Democratic party, the seeds of which seem to me to be appearing, or outside of it, as most Marxmailers believe, is something we can only know in retrospect. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Have you been paying attention at all to what's been happening over the past 3, or 30 years, Peggy? There isn't going to be a more socialist administration or congress, much less more socialist administration AND congress. In fact there isn't now, nor has there ever been an administration or congress that was even the teeniest bit socialist... unless you're taking the word of the the John Birch Society, the Cato Institute, and the Chicago Boys. This praying for the Messiah that never comes-- the liberal democrat riding on a white ass, or with a white ass, I forget which is the proper biblical allusion, is like a flying saucer cult-- or maybe the lost children in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome... telling there little story of exodus, loss, and not being slack. The only reason Rove's pick is going to win is because capitalism requires it to carry out its program of impoverishment-- just as that capitalism required Obama to do what he did-- carry out the Bush program in all essential facets but by another name. Now that he's done that, disoriented and confused those disoriented and confused types who were sucker enough to believe Yes, he could-- adios Barack, maybe you and Jimmy Carter can build little houses for dispossessed people-- there are certainly going to be many more of those dispossessed and very soon. - Original Message - From: Peggy Dobbins pegdobb...@gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
