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Re: SSSP session on Democratic Party, comment
by Spectors
15 February 2000 14:17 UTC
While I agree with nearly all of Mark's main point -- that "blaming" either
party is a very inadequate way to answer isses of inequality, injustice,
etc., I do still believe that it is important to expose particular aspects
of how the capitalist system works. There are many people will illusions
about the Democratic Party -- I might be very critical of the Democratic
Party, but that does not mean that everyone else does. It certainly can be
useful to expose particular aspects of capitalist society.
Exposing aspects of capitalist injustice certainly does open the door to
reformism or intellectual gadflyism without praxis -- both of which could
undermine the struggle for deeper social transformation. On the other hand,
one could argue that merely changing the structure of the election laws
similarly only plays into the reformism that asserts that social injustice
and inequality can be achieved without confronting the class nature of the
state, and the state itself, and the class (capitalist) which controls the
state.
In any case, Mark's points are well taken, and I would welcome any relevant
presentations on that session.
Alan Spector
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Douglas Whitaker <mrkdwhit@wallet.com>
To: spectors@netnitco.net <spectors@netnitco.net>
Cc: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Date: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 1:38 AM
Subject: Re: SSSP session on Democratic Party, comment
>Hello,
> Less that I want to present and more of a comment. Plus, regardless
>of the Democratic or Republican 'blame' that you seem to indicate, one has
>to see the 'choice' of two parties as something systemically related to the
>structure of United States voting laws. I am sure many well spoken and well
>written critiques could be created on the topic you propose, though for me,
>the entire sense of what to blame, structural voting preferences, is
getting
>entirely sidetracked here. Very particular structures have set up these
>default informal bodies (Democrat and Republican) as simply placeholders,
>position holders, blameless in that sense for the informal political
>processes that are selected for within the laws.
> If people want systemic change, it requires systemic changes in
the
>structure of how we vote, which will change the ways that informal politics
>(party formation) will occur on a long term basis--whether it occurs on a
>plurality sense with more than several parties vying, or it occurs in the
>very hierarchial United States version of the 'two-party-state one party
>state', where only interchange is possible, instead of utilizing the
>government for the interaction and formation of policy formally, instead of
>informally deciding on it as the process selects for in the current law
>regime. And third parties, what effect do they have in the current law
>regime? Opposition parties within the current law regime (which
historically
>has about the same effect IN THIS CONTEXT, regardless of its 'left' or
>'right' origins, of cutting the left (or right) into pieces, and default
>electing the largest majoritarian party--typically (operationalized by) the
>Republicans. In other words, it ironically selects against widening the
>democratic procedure to have this system in place. When that occurs, the
>smaller the hegemony inclusion becomes in the state.
> In other words blaming either the Democratic or Republican parties
>only buys into a poor analysis of what leads us to have such poor choices
in
>the first place. ;-) The question should be why we have these choices in
the
>first place limited to two in such a long term historical sense. I hope you
>take this in the spirit it was intended.
> I hope someone speaks of this at the conference. Otherwise, it will
>be historically interesting, though with little praxis of what to do about
it.
> I have one suggestion for someone to contact perhaps. He wrote the
>following article which deals with this informal/formal interaction on the
>urban level in the United States:
>
> " Communism, Race, and Proportional Representation "
>
>
>http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/kolesar.htm
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Mark Whitaker
>
>
>At 10:48 PM 2/13/00 -0600, Spectors wrote:
>>Please feel free to post this to other sociology lists:
>>
>>I'm organizing a session at the SSSP (Society for the Study of Social
>Problems) conference in Washington, D.C. The SSSP has a day of sessions
>before ASA starts and then overlaps for two days, usually within walking
>distance of the ASA hotels.
>>
>>The title of the session is:"Democratic Party: Party of the Poor or Party
>of Poverty?" The theme is to explore the ways that the Democratic Party
has
>maintained anti-working class policies. (I figure that it's not that
>enlightening to explore the ways that the Republican party has maintained
>anti-working class policies....)
>>
>>But, we could use a couple of more papers. So if anyone reading this would
>like to submit something for that session, please send me an e-mail
>spectors@netnitco.net and send a copy to spector@calumet.purdue.edu
>>It is not necessary to send a polished, finished paper. We are not
>necessarily looking for a paper with tons of empirical research. On the
>other hand, the presenter should avoid the other extreme of just giving
some
>off-the-cuff "opinions" about the state of Democratic Party politics.
>>
>>If you are interested in possibly participating, please contact me right
>away and give me a general idea of your interests.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Alan Spector
>>
>>I
>>I
>><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
>><HTML>
>><HEAD>
>>
>><META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1 http-equiv=Content-Type>
>><META content='"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=GENERATOR>
>></HEAD>
>><BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
>><DIV>Please feel free to post this to other sociology lists:</DIV>
>><DIV> </DIV>
>><DIV>I'm organizing a session at the SSSP (Society for the Study of Social
>>Problems) conference in Washington, D.C. The SSSP has a day of sessions
before
>>ASA starts and then overlaps for two days, usually within walking distance
of
>>the ASA hotels. </DIV>
>><DIV> </DIV>
>><DIV>The title of the session is:"Democratic Party: Party of the Poor
or
>>Party of Poverty?" The theme is to explore the ways that the
>>Democratic Party has maintained anti-working class policies. (I figure
that
>it's
>>not that enlightening to explore the ways that the Republican party has
>>maintained anti-working class policies....)</DIV>
>><DIV> </DIV>
>><DIV>But, we could use a couple of more papers. So if anyone reading this
>would
>>like to submit something for that session, please send me an e-mail <A
>>href="mailto:spectors@netnitco.net">spectors@netnitco.net</A> and send a
>copy to
>><A
>href="mailto:spector@calumet.purdue.edu">spector@calumet.purdue.edu</A></DI
V>
>><DIV>It is not necessary to send a polished, finished paper. We are
not
>>necessarily looking for a paper with tons of empirical research. On the
other
>>hand, the presenter should avoid the other extreme of just giving some
>>off-the-cuff "opinions" about the state of Democratic Party
>>politics.</DIV>
>><DIV> </DIV>
>><DIV>If you are interested in possibly participating, please contact me
right
>>away and give me a general idea of your interests.</DIV>
>><DIV> </DIV>
>><DIV>Thanks,</DIV>
>><DIV> </DIV>
>><DIV>Alan Spector </DIV>
>><DIV> </DIV>
>><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>I</FONT></DIV>
>><DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>I</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
>>
>
>
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