Results 21 to 40 of 61
Yeah, they're certainly not frontmen...they basically are capitalists.
"Socialist ideas become significant only to the extent that they become rooted in the working class."
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. . .Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
SocialistWorker.org
International Socialist Review
Marxists Internet Archive
Bullshit. The capitalist politics of the Democrats have ben clear for 200 years. It went through somethng like a social democratic phase, but that was basically over by, say, 1950, although illusions lingered on until 1980.
It's not that the elected officeholders are strongly pro-capitalist. They are the designees of sections of the bourgeoisie to run the capitalist state.
RED DAVE
We did at one time. And we thrived. Then we forgot that it was the rejection of 18-century British Free Trade that made us strong. Union membership fell and people started buying into Randian bourgeois liberalism.
Nafta and other 'free trade' programs opened the flood gates for 'outsourcing; and gave trans-national corporations the green light to better exploit the world proleatariat, undermining the protections the middle class had gained and harming the working man around the world. See, for example, the effect it had on Mexican farmers who lost their livelihoods, let alone those in the world's sweatshops and child slaves harvest cocao today.
The average American household has seen a decline in real income over the last 50+ years, the middle class is disappearing, an estimated 15% of homes are vacant, some 1 in 4 American children live below the poverty line, ever more people live paycheck-to-paycheck, and food insecurity is a reality for a growing number of people. Meanwhile, BO execs recently got safety bonuses, GE got a huge tax incentive, major corporations pay no taxes on their profits, and the wealth gap continues to grow. Oh, and the Republicans want to kill Social Security over the next 10 years.
And we're told we must sacrifice in order to 'compete with China'.
Welcome to the class war; we're currently losing.
I love that argument, its basically "we'll we've adopted insane free trade policies , so now we have to suffer the consequences and have a shitty standard of living, because China has an insane slave capitalist system so do we, because we need to compete, and we need to compete because of our own prophecies."
We would'nt have to compete if we had sensible trade policies, then maybe China would have to build their middle class and have a proper consumer base.
If you hadn't been so quick to respond with hostility, you might have seen what my point actually was. I was not claiming that the Democratic Party is Social Democratic or whatever, I was explaining that it is meaningless to talk about American political parties as having specific goals. In most countries political parties have set policy goals and seek to gain office as a party to implement them. In America it does not work like that and instead the parties are more loose factions working together for organisational purposes. Therefore talking about either party as having a particular political outlook and hence a "role" in the system is meaningless.
The Democratic Party of the US is a club of whores (and I don't mean that derogatorily). For years they've been stepped on by Republicans and have no spine whatsoever.
Kucinich and some other surely are not pro-capitalism. They very much represent the poor.
Especially the democratic party, which is much les hemogonous than the republicans.
Its funny to see republicans that leave politics, suddenly become much less right wing and more reasonable.
The Democrats have different factions, you have the progressives (similar to social-democrats in europe, but obviously working within the American situation), the Blue Dogs (corporatists, that think gay marriage and abortion is ok), and the New Democrats (Obama centrists, basically corporatists that still want to pretend to be progressive).
The Blue dogs are a dying breed imo, now you have the new democrats, clintonites, obama democrats, who want to be your typical pro-buisiness liberal and who don'y really have any progressive principles, and the progreessives, who want to be old school progressive liberals.
I believe thay many progressives are actualy working for the benefit of hte working class, the problem is, their progressive policies will ALWAYS be shot down, by the new democrats and the republicans. The New democrats will always temper the progressives and bring them as right as possible, and then after that, they'll negotiate with the republicans to bring it even more right.
The healthcare debate was a case in point example of this.
There's also the fact that the majority of the Democratic party openly support Israeli policies unconditionally, and can lend their support to the settlements. Dianne Feinstein offered full support for Israel's carpet bombing of Southern Lebanon, which included attacks on the UN. Just goes to show, you can never ever feel comfortable in voting for someone that may appear to support social healthcare reforms, but openly supports devastating human rights abuses.
Well, speaking of the democrats, look at this chart. None of them are left of center.
And here's the Senate: Red for Republican, Blue for Democrat
Can't read any of that
Ignore the illegible text, which lists the states the senators come from. The dots are what is important. They show that all the senators fall into the neo-liberal authoritarian quadrant. Republicans much more, but the Democrats are well in there too.
They representwhere a good chunk of where the American[people sit also. Not all of course, but most Americans are somwehat right wing when judged by international standards.
No they are not, when they are asked, what they think about certain issues, they are not really right wing when judged by international standards.
The U.S. population isn't nearly as right-wing as its political system. The U.S. has SMDP elections under a constitution that distorts political representation in favour of conservative rural areas - that kind of system would tilt the political system of any country further to the right than it otherwise would be. If you look at voter turnout in U.S. elections, I think it's also safe to say that there's a sizable portion of the population that realises the country's right-wing political system isn't doing anything for them as individuals. Granted, these disaffecteds seldom attach the appropriate political labels, but still.
As for the Democratic Party...it's hard to think of anything to say that hasn't already been said in this thread. There are Democrats who honestly want to help the working class; their problem is a matter of working within the wrong framework, rather than a matter of bad intentions. And then, of course, there are the corporate lackeys who sell out the well-intentioned Democrats.
By and large, though, I have found that rank-and-file voters who identify as Democrats generally have no problem aligning with the most left-wing option available. The problem is, in the U.S., that option happens to be...the Democratic Party.
Not only that there are ton and tons of factors that make the political system much more right wing than the population.
But don't tell Bud that, he does'nt listen to facts.
That is just an excuse. Urban America tends to be left wing, suburban and rural populations tend to be more conservative. This nation is more rural and surburban than urban. Also urban people tend to be poorer, and more reliant on social systems than those in other parts of the country and tend to vote for more social benefits--and granted they are clustered in certain communities. that vote uniformly Democrat.
On the other hand there is alargesegmentof the America population that doesn't want the government to do anything for them.
All together the system is reasonably represtitive of the American population.
Why are you here if you won't listen to the truth?
Its not at all, its a fact, keep in mind a lot of the most progressive elements come from the midwest, the nation is NOT more rural than urban, way more people live in the cities, if you want I'll get statistics on that.
If the system was representative we'd have higher taxes for rich people (when polled most Americans support a wealth distribution more equal than sweeden), public health care, and so on.
How you figure out how representative a system is, is not what party is in power, its what policies get passed.
No, ir's an excuse. I guess you have to have some reason for the Left, the Progressive Left constantly getting defeated time after time in country after country ingeneral elections--so here it's the media, there it's skewed political lines, somewhere else it's populism in another place it's Corporate money. Without actually saying it you really are putting together a Right wing plot to control the world.
One sad story after another.
Truth is based on factual evidence Bud.Why are you here if you won't listen to the truth?
Wait ... So are you saying, honestly, that corporate money is'nt a huge factor in public policy? Are you also saying that the right wing does NOT do better when there is a really low voter turnout?
Are you also saying that implied bribes through consultancy jobs and campain funding does'nt have a HUGE effect on public policy?
Are you also saying that rural places having an inordinant influence due to the senate has no influence?
Are you also saying that the corporate media is not influenced by the ideology of the corporations that pay them?
Are you denying those facts? (Don't dodge the questoin, are these things factors or are they not).
