From: Michael Perelman (michael@ECST.CSUCHICO.EDU)
Date: Thu Mar 20 2003 - 19:02:58 EST
With bombs falling, I feel foolish defending a book that I did not read. His point, as I understand it, was that Clinton et al were not as brazen -- just that. I really don't know anything more about Lind, so apologetically, I will let the matter drop. On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 03:45:29PM -0800, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > >I only heard him a couple of times on KPFA. He did not discuss the > >material you mention -- just that the old English aristocractic influences > >without the Puritanical caveats came with the cotton from the deep South > >to Texas. I could not defend a book that I did not read. > > > But your point here is that without those Puritanical cavaets the > Southern aristocracy which now runs the country has been willing to > grant itself tax cuts which will jeopardize the public education > system on which the long term health of the capitalist system in fact > depends. If the heirs of Puritanical capitalism had been in office, > then the tax cuts would not have been pushed through--this seems to > be your point. Yet Clinton and Rubin enacted reductions in the > capital gains tax. Were Reagan and Stockman beholden to the mythical > Anglo Southern aristocracy when they pushed their tax cuts through? > If we think that the anti-war and anti-Bush movement will save > (real, true Puritanical) capitalism from a cabal and is thus sure to > win bourgeois support through patient argumentation and electoral > politics, we will surely have deluded ourselves to where we stand in > history today. > Only working class insurgency on extra-electoral political terrain > will now force the capitalist class to give even the appearance of a > shift in policy and regime. > I wish it were not so. The hardly hardly banal nationalism of the > American working class gives me very little confidence that there > will soon be even the appearance of such a shift. > I know many are filled with hope after the Seattle anti globalization > uprising, the student anti sweatshop agitation, the anti war > movements and the public statements by all those big Hollywood stars. > An American left which features Michael Lind and Todd Gitlin however > is not intellectually serious, and the American left is obviously not > organized except by loons who will soon rush to the defense of Kim > Jong-il. > > So I think we are well on the way to decisive defeat especially if > Bush and Wolfowitz are able to create the semblance of some political > democratic and material improvement in Iraq. As Perry Anderson > suggests, this will give Bush all the irrestibility which he needs to > refashion the Middle East: > > "Of course, as many otherwise well-disposed commentators have > hastened to point out, rebuilding Iraq might prove a taxing and > hazardous business. But American resources are large, and Washington > can hope for a Nicaraguan effect after a decade of mortality and > despair under UN siege-counting on the end of sanctions and full > resumption of oil exports, under a US occupation, to improve the > living conditions of the majority of the Iraqi population so > dramatically as to create the potential for a stable American > protectorate, of the kind that already more or less exists in the > Kurdish sector of the country. Unlike the Sandinista government, the > Ba'ath regime is a pitiless dictatorship with few or no popular > roots. The Bush administration could reckon that the chances of a > Nicaraguan outcome, in which an exhausted population trades > independence for material relief, are likely to be higher in Baghdad > than they were in Managua. > > In turn, the demonstration effect of a role-model parliamentary > regime, under benevolent international tutelage-perhaps another Loya > Jirga of the ethnic mosaic in the country-would be counted on to > convince Arab elites of the need to modernize their ways, and Arab > masses of the invincibility of America. In the Muslim world at large, > Washington has already pocketed the connivance of the Iranian clerics > (conservative and reformist) for a repeat of Enduring Freedom in > Mesopotamia. In these conditions, so the strategic calculus goes, > bandwagoning of the kind that originally brought the PLO to heel at > Oslo after the Gulf War would once again become irresistible, > allowing a final settlement of the Palestinian question along lines > acceptable to Sharon." > > > > rb > > > > > >On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 02:31:01PM -0800, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > > > >I don't know if the ruling class has split; I just noted the potential for > >> >a split. I hope that it comes to pass. > >> >-- > >> > >> But Michael I don't see why Lind or anyone else accepts at face value > >> Bush's self-representation as a good ole, Southern boy who represents > >> the (very) old economy and truly likes pork rinds. This is the image > >> which Bush and Karl Rove have attempted to project to maintain his > >> electoral base in the South and the Far West. To think that Bush is > >> running Dell and Boeing into the ground for cattle ranches and Texas > >> oil patches is farcical. > >> Michael Lind is now only now making a political theory out of Bush's > >> cynical image making and thus giving credence to one of Bush's key > >> electoral weapons. Why the alarm bells do not go off every time Lind > >> writes or says something is beyond me. He has already engaged in > >> immigrant bashing and a pernicious nativism, Listian neo mercantilism > >> and a virulent and anti-third world economic nationalism, and war > >> mongering (in the case of Vietnam). > >> So I don't see why you and the Nation magazine take this demagogue > >>seriously. > >> Rakesh > >> > >> > >> > >> >Michael Perelman > >> >Economics Department > >> >California State University > >> >Chico, CA 95929 > >> > > >> >Tel. 530-898-5321 > >> >E-Mail michael@ecst.csuchico.edu > >> > > > >-- > >Michael Perelman > >Economics Department > >California State University > >Chico, CA 95929 > > > >Tel. 530-898-5321 > >E-Mail michael@ecst.csuchico.edu > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael@ecst.csuchico.edu
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