By Owen Paine on Tuesday April 4, 2006 03:00 PM
Brit economixer Thomas Palley writes:
For the AFL-CIO the challenge is to break with the Democratic Party elite without splitting the party, as that could hand victory to Republicans, whose version of the box is even more extreme.This "box" he's yapping about here, he says, comes in two degrees of evil: one donk and one worse: it's nothing less then our uncle Fed's policy regime vis-à-vis the globalized marketplace.
Now this is very odd talk indeed -- after the bit about "the challenge is to break with the Democratic Party elite" we get the old wheeze about the "even more extreme" Republicans.
What horrendous bull twitter. Speaking as an attack-trained economist, the coin's worth of difference here between Clintonia and Bushington, as far as labor is concerned, ain't even near worth George Wallace's 1968 Bretton Woods gold-standard dime.
Comments (8)
A neo-liberalist by any other name still smells like the sun-rotted corpses of dead sweatshop workers.
Posted by AlanSmithee | April 5, 2006 6:23 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 18:23
Every election cycle the unions pour hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in the campaign coffers of various Democratic candidates with a guaranteed zero return on investment. It's maddening. An independent or third party candidate could run a high profile campaign with that kind of money and probably win if the all the union workers voted for her or him. So why waste money on the Democrats? In fact, why waste money on political campaigns at all, when there are millions upon millions of unorganized service and retail workers out there?
During the 2004 election, one commentator from Socialist Worker posed a poignant question: Instead of wasting millions on John Kerry's campaign, why not use those vast resources to unionize Walmart, which could very well create a large voting block for pro-labor candidates (assuming there is such a thing these days)?
*sigh*
Posted by Tim D | April 5, 2006 10:30 PM
Posted on April 5, 2006 22:30
more on the box :
actually its two boxes
the one paley describes
with globalization and privatization squeezing us in
and low min wage
and high job scarcity
forcing us down
its like an ever narrowing ever dropping elevator
but there's a more
important box he only gestures towadr
the two party box
the orthrus box
Posted by jsp | April 6, 2006 9:19 AM
Posted on April 6, 2006 09:19
Tim D :
"why waste money on political campaigns at all, when there are millions upon millions of unorganized service and retail workers out there? "
agreed !!!!!!
Posted by jsp | April 6, 2006 10:37 AM
Posted on April 6, 2006 10:37
Classic Newspeak, all right. It is, in fact, physically impossible to break with the leadership without breaking with the party. Those who pretend not to know this must think their readers are idiots.
Now that AFSCME has seen its first major defection (SEIU), there's nothing to do but wait and see if a few mighty roars are on the horizon, or just a hiccup.
Posted by alsis39.75 | April 6, 2006 4:47 PM
Posted on April 6, 2006 16:47
Any reason why you guys don't update as often?
Posted by Peter C | April 7, 2006 4:14 AM
Posted on April 7, 2006 04:14
No good reason, except one sometimes has to pay some attention to one's day job. Of course if we had more contributors (hint, hint...)
Posted by MJS | April 7, 2006 7:26 AM
Posted on April 7, 2006 07:26
I saw Kos on the Colbert Report the other day. He lamented about the Democrats being a rather weak opposition party and gently chided them for just sitting around and waiting for the Republican Party to implode, instead of actually standing for something. He then boasted about DailyKos' support for Barak Obama and his subsequent victory at the polls. He then talked about his book which promotes "people power". Apparently it covers a very original topic: reforming the Democratic Party from within...
Posted by Tim D | April 8, 2006 3:03 PM
Posted on April 8, 2006 15:03