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Yes, we were - and quite properly - single-issue voters on Vietnam
(when there was anyone to vote for). But you remember that it took
us a long time to descry the sources of the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon
crimes in SE Asia. We seem to have to go thru a similar process re
the Clinton-Bush-Obama crimes in SW Asia. <br>
<br>
The 1970s were the origin of the counter-attack of the US ruling
class on "the sixties" and the reason people like Obama must
excoriate the "excesses" of that decade. Bench marks are the book <i>The
Crisis of Democracy</i> (q.v.) from 1975 (the crisis being too
much democracy) and the neoliberal turn of the Carter
administration, including its imperial war in Afghanistan (or, "How
Osama bin Laden Became a CIA Asset") - consolidated by the election
of 1980. <br>
<br>
Yes, your account of the presidential elections of 1968 and 1972 is
over-simplification, but don't feel bad. That's the way we talk
about politics in the political class. (For openers, remember that
Nixon was elected against the administration that was prosecuting
the war - on his promise that he had a "secret plan" for ending it.
We forget that Nixon was elected as Obama was - as the anti-war
candidate. Both of course were lying.)<br>
<br>
I also think it's not too helpful to parallel the US and USSR
occupations of Afghanistan; the politics, both domestic and foreign,
were quite different.<br>
<br>
<br>
On 10/17/10 2:59 PM, John W. wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTikcYtbqB9ZWBK_B1Hqrn2cDZhnOO8X-6+HNcc+4@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Wait, Carl.... Weren't many of us "single-issue
voters" in the 1970s, on the subject of the war in Viet Nam? You
suggest that that's the cure once again. Strange, isn't it, that
you identify the 1970s as precisely the time when the Democratic
Party began its "long right turn"? Can you reconcile the obvious
illogic?
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>While you're at it, perhaps you can comment on how a LARGER
bloc of "single-issue voters" - those concerned with "law and
order" - elected Richard Nixon to the Presidency in 1968 and
re-elected him in 1972, all while the war in Viet Nam was still
going on.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Over-simplification, anyone?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>[Of course I too think that Amerika should get out of the
imperialism business. The only thing that will bring that about
- if anything - is our ever-declining economy. It'll be the
same exact thing that got the Soviet Union out of the
imperialism business.]</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 2:45 PM, C. G.
Estabrook <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">galliher@illinois.edu</a>></span>
wrote:</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> [Or, how not to be
that terrible thing, a "single-issue voter." Tsk, tsk.]<br>
<br>
<i>The source is "...the long right turn of the Democratic
Party since the 1970s, as financialization of the
economy led to shedding New Deal commitments so as to
compete with the Republicans for corporate patronage."<br>
</i><br>
And the cure is to make the single-issue large enough.
("Be as radical as reality," said Lenin.) <br>
<br>
Opposition to the war is the necessary if not sufficient
first condition for a serious politics. What is required
is "a revitalization of the founding tradition of civic
virtue and republican values of liberty." And that's what
the teapartiers are calling for, even if they need to
clarify their analysis.<br>
<br>
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they
don't need to worry about answers."<br>
<br>
Imperial war contradicts that revitalization. And
avoiding the question of the war disqualifies any further
discussion.<br>
<br>
It's important that the Democrats do that, while the
teapartiers are conflicted on the matter. Although the
polity is far from democratic, a serious defeat for the
Democratic party and the concomitant rejection of their
policies is the probably necessary beginning of an
insistence on different - and contrasting - policies. <br>
<br>
Although it's true that no one - outside of a few Greens -
are clear on the matter. <br>
<br>
There's work for people like us.</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
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