I also don't disagree with the premise that there is less and less knee-jerk support for "free trade" (as defined by the WTO) in America in general, and by extension, on kos. I would say though that the opposition it runs into is primarily of the more anti-foreign sort - American workers as victim. They need protection, those American workers, usually via stop-gap policy prescriptions. Very little (if any) attention is paid to the root causes of the problem, which are fundamentally systemic and economic in nature, and the reason for this is that by paying such attention, one need avoid uncomfortable grappling with some of the nastier elements of the neo-liberalism which is basically the credo of most all Americans.
The class-interest angle of this approach (as opposed to a values approach) is most apparent in the fact that the biggest import-subsitution shitstorms get kicked up when talking about outsourcing professionals' jobs. Lip service is paid of course to manufacturing jobs lost first to Mexico then to China, but start talking about shipping off accounting or computer engineer jobs to India if you want to hear a real shitstorm start. Labor in the US, shorthand for working class people, on the other hand, is less and less nativist, more and more altermondialist as regards the issue, as evidenced by labor's participation in the Seattle protests of 1999. But this is not the sort of critique of globalism you'll hear from your average kossack, whose expression of wariness viz "free trade" is more along the nativist lines of Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanan than the altermondialist lines of Attac or Naomi Klein. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Hell, look what happened to FDR's minor initiatives. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
you are the media you consume.
There is also the fact that people will only accept so much change at a time -- as the population changes, the courts change too.
Try a bill nationalizing banks or insurance companies and see how far we get with the present constitution, the ruling about AAA running in this sense. Not exactly sure how we can therefore term this document giving "enough leeway to do just about anything..."
And try amending the thing. With 50 states and fractional, regionalized power bases, it's pretty hard to imagine the thing significantly amended. This is of course assuming you can get 2/3 majorities in Congress, itself no small feat.
It's great for property rights. Which is a good thing, assuming you've a fair bit of it. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
As far as nationalizing things, I'm not sure it couldn't get very far. States regularly have taken over power utilities for instance with nary a whisper. I.e. I don't think the constitution would outright ban it if there was a good reason to do it.
As for amending being difficult, I consider that a good thing: the crazies who periodically have power (e.g. religious right) can't permanently enshrine horribly bad things in the constitution.
But here, you run into problems of scale (esp. acute in things like the Great Depression). And in any event, if having a third of Americans malnourished, poorly housed and clothed were not such an event as you describe, then I'd argue that there are no such events. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
First, it is a pretty solid document of the Enlightenment period. There are flaws, but the rights-of-man and the reason-versus-religion dimensions are good, and the overall structure of government is good (better than the parliamentary system by a long shot, in my opinion).
Second, it is a straightforward statement of values rather than a prescription of points of law. That simplicity is a big reason why it's been stable for so long.
Under the U.S. system you can have a conservative government or a liberal government, while retaining essential human rights in either case. There was plenty of pushback to FDR's proposals, and there is plenty of pushback to GWB's proposals. I think that the Constitution is one of the strong points of the U.S. system.
Now, maybe I'm a little myopic (because New York has a really pathetic constitution), but I can't think of any state constitution that is demonstrably better than the stodgy old Federal Constitution. Yes, I'd like to see some changes (in particular an amendment guaranteeing freedom from religion), but all things considered, i think it's mostly evolved into a sensible, workable system.
There was a lot about the dead-on-arrival EU constitution that I liked, mainly the parts about social and economic justice, but as a system of government it was, imho, far less democratic and progressive than what the U.S. has. And that, I'm afraid, is what would happen here as well; we'd trade a quirky but fairly workable system for a technocratic elite-dictated bureaucracy.
It seems quite clear that the modern French Republic didn't really get going until the 3rd Republic, which is when universal education was consciously used to form French citizens in the Republican values. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
It's true that Kossacks may not totally get this yet, but fortunately most up-and-coming Congressional Democrats do.
This just tells you who is blogging. I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
This being said, when it was blue-collar jobs under siege, very few Americans on the "comfortable" left, in the Democratic party, got up in arms. After all, those were the days of Clintonomics, a cresting tide causing all boats to rise and all that. Never mind that labor and progressives outside of the Democratic party, in tandem, heroically de-railed the WTO at Seattle in 1999 - those voices were, and are, marginalized.
I would argue that it isn't until white, middle-class jobs start shipping off to India that the issue hits the mainstream in America, and of course, we're talking pretty xenophobic, limited analyses of the issue here. Still no place at the table for labor or altermondialist voices, despite the power both can and do wield (eg Cancun, with growing cooperation of key developing nations like China, India, Brazil).
Certainly there were some Democratic voices who have always been righteous on this issue, and understand it through and through (and aren't simply playing xenophobe cards), voices like Dennis Kucinich, who honestly we cannot say is in the Democratic mainstream.
But the critical mass of the Democratic party and, by unfortunate extension, those portions of the American left which have not been marginalized, is very much neo-liberal in outlook and still under the general weltenschauung described by that wealthy liberal par excellence, Tom Friedman, in his magnum piece-of-shit The World is Flat. Tweak around the edges if you like, they say, but the system is fundamentally sound. Never mind all these mass migrations north, and the increasing poverty south, not to mention accelerated environmental degradation.
Now, many working Americans are quite upset with the current course and policies. And it is heartening to see that some of the new Reps "get it," or at least part of it at any rate. But this does not change the fact that when the new Democratic caucus wants to talk trade, they get Rubin and no labor, and that you don't see any Democrats of any renown heading to the WSF. And I'm not holding my breath any will be heading to Atlanta for the US Social Forum next year.
After all, Davos is still much more to their taste. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I was a Kucinich voter in 2004, and I wasn't alone, if you want to be truely entertained look at the resuls of Democrats primaries after the March contents in which Kerry became the effective winner.
Indiana voted in May, year Kerry could only muster something like 70% of the Democratic vote. Many people voted expressively rather than instrumentally, that is they voted for as an expression rather than the actual expectation there candidate would win.
Being in California, you may not see this as much. But in many states of the Midwest, we have a history of getting frustrated with the system and voting for third parties. Like the great Hoosier socialist, Edward Debs, of the Wisconin progressive LaFollette. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Still, Minnesota is arguably trending far less social democratic as the Scandinvian culutral heritage is undermined by assimilation. In other areas of the Great Lakes states what I see most strongly is that with deindustrialization large parts of the working class have been taken up by the idea that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties. And when debate is suppressed it only serves to validate that view. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Tweak around the edges if you like, they say, but the system is fundamentally sound.
I think you are quite right. The problem with much of working class America is that the two dominant political parties have managed to squeeze them ideologically between a rock and a hard place. Although I refer to my dear Southerners, what I say I believe also applies to working classes of other regions as well. The South, in particular, was solidly Democratic and pro labor until the civil rights (particularly busing and school desegregation) and anti-Vietnam war movements (seen as unpatriotic) (both strongly supported by liberal Democrats), alienated white Southerners and turned them into staunch Republicans. Blinded by their rage, they have been unable to see, or are unwilling to acknowledge, the damage inflicted by the core Republican Party's anti-labor, big business policies. Add to this the continuing high profile, simplistically presented conflicts over the place of religion, sexual preference, gun control, abortion/birth control, and other causes championed by liberal Democrats, and it's not too difficult to understand why they continue to vote for the very persons who are cutting their economic throats. I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
