From The Irish Times/Common Dreams:
The United States effectively has a one-party system, the business party, with two factions, Republicans and Democrats. There are differences between them. In his study Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Larry Bartels shows that during the past six decades “real incomes of middle-class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working-poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans”.
Differences can be detected in the current election as well. Voters should consider them, but without illusions about the political parties, and with the recognition that consistently over the centuries, progressive legislation and social welfare have been won by popular struggles, not gifts from above.
Those struggles follow a cycle of success and setback. They must be waged every day, not just once every four years, always with the goal of creating a genuinely responsive democratic society, from the voting booth to the workplace.
Thanks
I think what he is saying is don’t get too excited about either candidate.
Though I don’t know that I can agree with Chomsky on very much, I certainly can agree that successful social welfare battles have begun from the ground and worked their way up and not the other way around. It has been said somewhere else on this blog that regardless of who is elected president the pro-life movement will still have to be lived and spread by individuals and smaller societies. Our culture needs to change, and while laws have an influence on culture, culture is not reduceable to law. We, you and I, need to change culture…and pay attention to who we vote for in the legislature and not just the executive branch.
I disagree that Obama seems to be more open to such movements from the grassroots (as was said somewhere else on this blog), and I find highly suspect any statistical claim that “real income” whatever that might mean for the statistician, has risen “under Democrats” moreso than “under Republicans,” whatever “under” means. Does it mean under Democratic presidents? Or Democratic presidents and congresses? Or just Democratic congresses? The quote is meaningless and its use by Chomsky resembles the way a drunk uses a lamp post, i.e. for support rather than for enlightenment.
Still, as I say, our little deaths to ourselves and our efforts to aid the conversions of our neighbors is a task imperative regardless whether McCain or Obama or Barr wins.
[...] here for a video interview with Noam Chomsky on the presidential election. While he has argued for years that the political system of the united states has one party — the Business Party [...]
[...] Click here for a video interview with Noam Chomsky on the presidential election. While he has argued for years that the political system of the united states has one party — the Business Party [...]