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 bèn 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
