Dems. Keep Doing It

First the Obama misstep. It makes me very sad to watch how Hillary is doing Obama in. What exactly did he say. “Pennsylvania voters bitter over their economic circumstance cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustration.

I am reminded that Obama was a college professor who taught constitutional law. What he or his advisors slipped up on was that a political campaign in modern day America cannot tolerate throwing out an interesting idea simply for consideration. In a classroom, yes. In politics, never suggest something people might “think about.” The last person to try to raise the level of political debate was Adlai Stevenson in 1956. He also won the popular vote, but not the Electoral College. You see what happened to him.

When I was State President of the Machinists Union my own experience with the gun issue would have very much supported the Obama idea. Yes, workers in upstate New York in particular saw their guns as a hedge against all threats including the economy. Many a member told me,”Look, if I have to I’ll go hunt or fish for food for my family.”

Since the advent of television with its masters of spin we have seen the dumbing down of America. The tragedy in this situation is the role of this same dummying down in the primary season. Through all this awful sniping, McCain and his handlers are having a ball watching how the Democrats are helping to establish him as a steady, trustworthy, old hand at the helm.

Second, I received a 36 page document called “Left Turn: An Open Letter to U.S. Radicals,” a draft manifesto being circulated for comment. The authors welcome responses at group15@gmail.com. The term “manifesto” can’t help but remind me of another one I read as a very young man that changed my life, as it has many others from the time it was written in the 1850’s. If you are curious you can get a copy off the website above. I have held a strong opinion that the decline of any kind of ideological left is a major reason for the emergence of the powerful ideological right in our political system. I wrote a piece some years ago, “The Vacuum on the Left,” that argued as a result of the downfall of the Soviet Union, as well as Socialist Yugoslavia, the ideological left, without a vision of the future, turned itself primarily into mechanics trying to find ways of humanizing the existing system with no ideas regarding an alternative, Maybe what is lacking is an idealistic utopian view of how a better world might look. Oh I can’t get into that now, but I will do a separate blog on the role of the “utopian vision” in political-economic change.
Thanks Kate. N.H.W.Y.