Suyi E. I think Ferguson's approach is probably the best way to get to the real content of the substantive policy divisions that tend to underlie the more superficial and personality-focused conflicts that the media puts front and center in many campaigns. Most journalists and academic commentators tend to have little to no idea of what the real differences are between candidates and getting to the taproot of that means (as Ferguson says) following the money....following the gold and the curious and shifting patterns of conflict and cooperation between those who have most of the gold that drives our (well, their) "dollar democracy." Look beyond the polling data and the silly ads and the various microtargeted voter analyses of the quadrennial and biennial horse races (which reduce American elections to the cultural level of laxative and toothpaste marketing) to see which specific corporations and (of particular related significance) which core industry groups and sectors are investing the really big money that matters in which candidates, parties, and coalitions (including intra-party groupings) over time...and try to make the connection between those investments, the policy interests of the business groupings from which they come, and policy outcomes. It's amazing how elementary this is and (yet) how rarely it gets done by the relevant commentators in dominant media and dominant academia. The influence of money on U.S. politics tends to be understood in very narrow and limited ways as in just comparing fundraising and spending totals (with no regard to industry groups and inter-industry coalitions) or in making very small connections of immediate correspondence between one or two companies and one or two bills/policies. Campaigns cost huge amounts of money that transcend the capabilities of ordinary people and the big money forces who make the biggest and most strategic investments in the political and policy processes do so with very specific material interests and related world views in mind and at stake. And of course not all capitalist interests are identical: there are interesting conflicts between internationalists and protectionists, capital intensive and labor intensive industries, fiscal expansionists and fiscal retrenchers and so on. And its' nothing new. All the leading party systems and conflicts going back to the early 19th century can be tied significasntly to specific intra capitalist divisions. None of which is to deny some very real but generally subordinate role for "the people," for popular anger, farmers, workers, civil rights movements, and ethno-cultural and related moral-ideological factors in election outcomes and party systems. As I recall, Ferguson's book had a wonderfully attractive thesis and a lot of interesting evidence but reading it was more work than should have been required. Dominant media coverage of 2006 mid-terms reflected corporate-imperial control and ownership by highlighting an area where the elite business community finds the Bush administration unforgivably incompetent -- his horrific flubbing of foreign policy in the super-strategic, oil-rich Middle East --- and downplaying an issue that was of greater interest to the insecure middle, lower, and working-class populace: the low-wage, low-benefit economy, with its ever escalating inequality of wealth.

suyi before the last election, Bush days were all numbered by many medias yet repulicans managed a uncanny win with the religious psychopaths.. note there seem to be a contradiction here for a "catholic or christian to vote for a lying anti-christ.

Are you familiar with Thomas Ferguson's Golden Rule: Investment Theory of Party Politics... and, if so, do you think it is valid?

One of the points he makes is that 'raw' money contributions are not as important a tool for the elite as the media framing the debate and powerful business leader giving the nod to certain candidates. Reflecting on the run up to the recent election, it appears to me that the mainstream media was more supportive of the Democrats (compared to say 2004 when they let the Swift Boat lies pass without comment).

To be sincere, my evalation of the mainstream media is mainly filtered through blogs and liberal (or more accurately anti-Bush) news aggregators like reddit, slashdot, salon and crooksandliars.com, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and ofcourse (progressive) FAIR. The recent big hero on that circuit is Olbermann (see Jeff Cohen's piece). However, unlike Cohen, I'm more likely to attribute Olbermann's 'boldness' to a change in elite consensus rather a personal fight by him against the establishment. Just like Bob Woodward's bashing the Bush regime, in his new book, doesn't make him a progressive.

I don't read the business press [WSJ] as often as I should (which is to say never - it makes me nauseous). So my question is: Why are the elites 'abandoning' Bush? Is it really the management of the occupation in Iraq? (which would explain why the media chose that story as the mandate of the election) Or are elites worried about loss of habeas corpus? (But Bush as fascist - not 'third world style', 'self-enriching' dictator - serves their interests...) Or is there a business constituent that wants different economic policies? (reduce support for the oil companies controlling the Bush/Cheney agenda) Or...

Well, you get the point. I'm curious to how the elite saw the recent election and if the occupation in Iraq was the defining issue of if there is another fight masked behind that (maybe the 'rich' vs 'super-rich' as discussed in a recent NYT article)

sorry I didnt mean to be so generalizing , it seem that civilization is going backward and definetely not in an altruistic way.. ( I would write longer post and elaborate a deeper opinion, but my time does not permit that; regardless I do have time to squizze and read znet post and comments.)

African-American public opinion consistently registers as well to the left of "mainstream" U.S. opinion; the reasons are not hard to determine. I agree with EB's second sentence and think the riots in France and related European disturbances in recent years ought to generate some humility on the part of white West Europeans who like to act like they don't have many of the same problems as evil U.S. cyrano there is nothing about advancement in technology that ought to make a society advanced in its social relations. The technology tends to be enmeshed in, emerge from, shaped by the dominant social hiearchies. It can and often does deepen hiearchies and oppression. For just one of many examples, I recently read in the NYT where laws to pass some expungement for some ex-offenders (so some ex-felons can get their records cleared enough to maybe get a job and thereby be less likely to commit new crimes and return to jail)were essentially useless since widely advailable Internet transmitted commercial databases were making any and all criminalk convictions and indeed arrests available to employers and with no mention of expungmenets and certificates of rehabilitation and the like. Here modern technology reinforces poverty and misery for the very racially disparate section of the population that carries prison histories and felony records.

Not to be flippant, cyrano, but start with when we were brought to America as slaves from 1619 and go from there.

 

I would also be remiss if I did not mention, that discrimination isn't just limited to America, even if it takes different forms from how it occurs here.

 

 

eb

I've met only a few black americans; they were super cool, open with their speeches about the US and appear intelligent.. I stiil don't get how a country so adavnced in technology can be so retarded with the discrimination of people of color.

EB there is a race problem on "the left."  I remember speaking to a group of hopped up white antiwar proto-radicals in March 03; one of them was pissed that more "brothers" from the West and South Side didn't seem to be jumping eagerly on board with their purported plans to have a big confrontation with the imperial state. They didn't know any actual "brothers," who they seemed to think ought to magically appear out of ghetto mists --- in full-blown neo-Panther regalia, I suppose.  And they seemed to think I was a real kill-joy when I pointed out that 40 percent of black male adults in Chicago were carrying (thanks to racially disparate/white supremacist socieconomic structures, policing and sentencing on the whole) the lifetime mark of a felony record and that a third had prison histories and therefore had had more more than a few confrontations with the imperial police-state already.  Not knowing anything about stuff like that --- and the broad panoply of elementarily awful, damn-near Iraq-like conditions that could be found right in the "global metropolis'" shadows (actually quite visible...people have to go there and stay long enough to see and feel what's going on; Hell they mignt even engage in some conversations with the people who live there) --   is part of the problem. Part of the ignorance is structuirally imposed: persistent savage phyical and related separatism makes black and much Latino and poor Asian (there are poor Asians in American cities) experience and consciousness unintelligible, counter-intuitive, and even bizarre to the racial majority. 

As I tried to suggest in a 2004 piece for In These Times, titled "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?," there is a subtle low key racism (or at least racial insensitivity) in the claim that there's NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL (or just a "dime's difference") between the Reps and the Dems.  Saying that ends up teling black folks that they're fools to vote predominantly Dem and rarely Rep and I don't believe that's a good or accurate thing to be saying.

Speakng of race and voting, it would be interesting to know if the Sensenbrenner madness last year cost Republicans Latino votes; i would guess it did. The "genius"  Republicans might want to pay more attention to Census data.  

 

 

 

 

the left the America needs to start showing the folks who we claim to
represent: people of color, working folks of all stripes and sexual
orientation, that their trust in us will garner meaningful results. As an
example: we need to get to a point wherby folks in many deindustrialized
parts of this country, especially the inner cities and poor communities
can get basic things done such as: providing some form of transport,
either public or us collectively getting the Elderly round to banks to
deposit or cash their Soc. Security checks; finding methods of creating
community banks in the neighborhoods where the working and poor are;
creating co-ops that provide resonably priced food; finding ways of
acquiring land for community gardens, etc. Now, I realize that some of
the things mentioned are happening round this country, but they need to
take place in many more areas than the acknowleged "liberal" parts of
the  land.

  As far as the usual third party talk is concerned, I must admit:
While I agree that these efforts should continue, I feel we should have
an overdue dialog on the efficacy of these campaigns. Paul, you and a
few others are the only leftists that I've seen that have provided a
critical analysis on these biennial and quadrennial extraveganzas called
'elections'(more like selections of a narrowly defined spectrum of two
factions of the business class)and left third party forays such as Nader
and(with or without) the Greens. Looking at Glick's very good article, I would

contend that we are not at the point at this particular time for the upsurge

of  support of  the type of third party campaigns that are run today by Greens or

others simply for the fact that the rigged game of the masters ballot box doesn't

and won't allow it, and until we are able to change that, we will be relegated to

being the 1-5 percent in these winner-take-all, unequal sideshows.

 

  One thing I do want to highlight from Glick is this piece from his article:” The continuing "wall between," in Anne Braden's words, people of color and white people, the reality of systemic racism and white supremacy that very much affects the personal relations and interactions among progressive activists, must be understood and worked at so that we can build a truly multi-cultural movement with significant leadership from people of color, youth, women and working-class people.”  As one of those persons of color, this I feel, is the elephant in the room a lot of well-meaning white leftists don't really deal with, and the Nader campaign and many of it's ardent supporters haven't come to grips with the real enmity that many Black folks in particular have toward him, especially after both 2000 and 2004 elections. We  realize the Dems suck and take our votes for granted, really, we get that. However, we don't need to be told that we are somehow stupid for voting Democratic(as one particular commenter stated on this blog a while back). But, to quote Malcom X, a lot of us need to see ‘deeds not words' from those that claim to have our best interests at hand. While I believe that we on the left can walk and chew gum with the best of ‘em, creating ‘alternatives' are fine and dandy, but we might think a bit about spending as much time showing folks that we can improve their lives as we do engaging in yet another circular firing squad over yet another

3^rd party effort . Those efforts may be more effective in our long term strategy of  achieving the transformation that we need to not only save ourselves , but save the planet.

 

Btw, The Empire and Inequality Report kicks some serious ass, Paul.

 

 

 

 

eb