solum wrote:An observation: this forum seems very conservative. Is it because everyone in america implicitly believes the 'end of history' theory (there is not realistic model of society other than liberal capitalism) whether they are Democrat or Republicam?

I personally feel that this forum is pretty balanced, but I guess I'm judging it on the American scale. Americans across the board are more conservative than elsewhere, for sure. Part of it is exactly what you said about the End of History. I think another part of it may be that Americans never identify by class, unless it's Middle Class (95% of Americans think they are Middle Class). If you only see Worker or Student or Intellectual as job descriptions and not political labels, you won't be as likely to adhere strongly to liberal/progressive/socialist ideology.

This is only part of the explanation, of course.

This End Of History crap needs to be discharged as a sensible analysis of the world today. It moistened the gussets of the press and infiltrated intelligent discourse in a way that only one other work has to my eyes - Samuel Huntingdon's Clash Of Civilisations essay. It just doesn't stand up to serious criticism today. He adds little to Hegel's ideas and the argument doesn't take into account the MASSIVE relevance of conflicting ideologies currently. A list of these should be compiled elsewhere on this forum, in some utterly boring take on Rank or something.
Fuckyourmamma's (I can't remember how to spell his name properly) ideas have been given way too much prominence. The proto-Neo Con is in my eyes responisible in part for the thinking behind US policy at the moment.
The man is a sophist.
Although if he's surfing this forum I'm fucked.

solum wrote:Sometimes I think that Political discourse in the US fundamentally misunderstands what right/left mean. What on earth makes anyone think democrats are 'left'? If they are, its a very small amount.

I agree. The political spectrum iof the mainstream U.S is far narrower than Europe. John Kerry, for instance, could conceivably be seen to stand to right of the right-wing of the U.K. Conservative party. I saw interviews with U.K. Conservative M.P.'s, before the U.S. elections saying that they be as wary of alliances John Kerry as they would of alliances the current administration. They also felt that he wouldn't offer any discernably different policies.

Linus Van Pelt wrote:

solum wrote:An observation: this forum seems very conservative. Is it because everyone in america implicitly believes the 'end of history' theory (there is not realistic model of society other than liberal capitalism) whether they are Democrat or Republicam?

I personally feel that this forum is pretty balanced, but I guess I'm judging it on the American scale. Americans across the board are more conservative than elsewhere, for sure. Part of it is exactly what you said about the End of History. I think another part of it may be that Americans never identify by class, unless it's Middle Class (95% of Americans think they are Middle Class). If you only see Worker or Student or Intellectual as job descriptions and not political labels, you won't be as likely to adhere strongly to liberal/progressive/socialist ideology.

This is only part of the explanation, of course.

Sorry for the typos in my above post!

I suppose every country has a certain degree of across-the-board mindset, something I encounter every day with people from the UK.

Cranius wrote:I agree. The political spectrum iof the mainstream U.S is far narrower than Europe.

I think it's getting there in Europe. Until the Tories reaffirmed their dedication to the anti-immigration cause earlier this week you'd have been hard pressed to tell the difference between them and the Labour government.
I think that a similar thing's happening across Europe too. There's been a noticable shift to the right in many European countries, and the traditionally left-wing parties have responded by pandering to those that sit just right of centre in order to win votes.

Rimbaud III wrote:

Cranius wrote:I agree. The political spectrum iof the mainstream U.S is far narrower than Europe.

I think it's getting there in Europe. Until the Tories reaffirmed their dedication to the anti-immigration cause earlier this week you'd have been hard pressed to tell the difference between them and the Labour government.
I think that a similar thing's happening across Europe too. There's been a noticable shift to the right in many European countries, and the traditionally left-wing parties have responded by pandering to those that sit just right of centre in order to win votes.

Isn't it more accurately Governments pandering to power (corporate power) and dragging/manipulating voters along in their wake?

I mean it's not as if there's a genuine cultural/sociological metamorphosis occurring so much as a mere continuation of a hand-over of power from people to corporations.

The 'right-wing' aspect is pretty-much merely a method of vote-gain surely?

Abortions/immigration/death-penalty/gay-marriage/Jerry Springer the Opera; these are all non-issues, yet the right-wing successfully exploit voter-outrage that relates to these non-issues in order to continue to Government/corporate kissy-fest.

I dunno; I may be making no sense.

As usual.

I would be hesitant to ascribe it to any one thing, or to give more weight to something like corporate power over other factors. Although I do agree that the lobbying power these organisations wield have enormous repercussions for political process.
But are organisations intrinsically or inherently conservative? I don't know if the same rules apply to the same extent.

The NY Review of Books has a very informative review (of 3 books) that speaks directly to the issues raised here.

Do not be dissuaded by the silly coffee analogy that opens the piece; it's actually quite good.



http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17726

Europe vs. America
By Tony Judt

The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy
by T.R. Reid

Penguin, 305 pp., $25.95
The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream
by Jeremy Rifkin

Tarcher/Penguin, 434 pp., $25.95
Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West
by Timothy Garton Ash

Random House, 286 pp. $24.95

Rimbaud III wrote:But are organisations intrinsically or inherently conservative? I don't know if the same rules apply to the same extent.

That's kind've what I was trying to say in my idiotic way.

That the political content of these pro-corporate Governments (which is basically to say all contemporary western Govs) is entirely secondary to the freedom they are able to avail themselves of in terms of allowing corporate-rule.

The right-wing part is a device to gain voters; it's easier to appeal to people's greed (low taxes/fuck the poor), to their racism (immigration), to their homophobia (gay-marriage), and all that crap than it is to apeal to their sense of 'good' or 'fariness' or 'love'.

Once the Government is in power then this stuff is immaterial.

A good example of this is the USA and abortion.

Out of the last 40 years there have been something like 30 years of presidents who campaigned on an anti-abortion tack.

Yet abortion is still legal there.

They merely use these devices to gain election.

I might be talking nonsense...

Champion Rabbit wrote:I posted it before, but it's worth repeating.

There's a fantastic book called 'What's the matter with America' (or 'what's the matter with kentucky'...I think...in the USA) by Thomas Frank which describes the current political mindset of the Republican-voting, liberal-fearing majority of the US.

I highly recomend it.

The book is called What's the Matter With Kansas?