RE: FW: The Economist: Why and when to go in

["Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

En relación a RE: FW: The Economist: Why and when to go in,
el 7 Jan 01, a las 16:43, Mark Jones dijo:

> > this is all that
> > _bourgeois democracy_ is made of. The United States have as much bourgeois
> > democracy today as they had yesterday.
>
> Nah, gimme a break.

Nope.

> This democracy is the 'thin and squalid veil' between
> tyranny and freedom. But it is real, like a hymen is real. Do not fall into 
> the
> trap of being cynical about it.

Nothing furthest of my intentions. I do certainly know -by actual, personal
history- what happens when the veil disappears. I am not sure that it has
disappeared to such an extent in the USA. I do not deride bourgeois democracy,
neither do I make light of its loss, nor do I look at it with a scornful,
cynical side eye. I simply cannot believe that, even though I agree with you
_partially_ in that

> This election disenfranchised the American electorate,

this does not mean, IMHO, that at the same time it has proved such a watershed
as you describe:

> ... a matter of life and death and many
> people will suffer and some will die because this basis of the social contract
> has been breached. Do not make light of its loss; this election was a 
> watershed.
> Wait and see. Everything has been changed. It is a date to remember, like 6
> August 1914 or 22 June 1941.

This election has provided a good opening for American radicals to work on the
inner perversities of the system, and in this sense the above may be true. But
I am still unconvinced that we have witnessed an unprecedented
disenfranchisement, not a greater one than those achieved with the murders of
Lincoln, Kennedy, or with the Watergate.  The Bush Klan has played particularly
foul, but I do not see any challenge to the general political system in the USA
after the Florida racist fraud. At most, I would allow that Florida has turned
back fifty years in its electoral practices, partly as a consequence of
political involvement of Cuban gusanos in the local politics.

[> This election disenfranchised the American electorate. There is no precedent
> for such a thing in American history.]

Americans are used to understand that their system has "frailties", serious
cracks even, without loss of confidence in it.  I would anyway welcome any info
coming from our American cdes. But I still keep in what follows:

>
> >We should not assume that in the
> > consciousness of the average American (whether WASP or OLC -that is "olive
> > Latino Chicano"-) there is too much of a doubt as to whether theirs is the
> > most democratic of all countries. And _this_ is what matters, politically.
>
> No, no. What matters politically is whether there is consent or no. There no
> longer is.

Please explain what is the conceptual difference between your single word
definition and my longish one (generated by linguistic shortcomings, only).

Stubbornly, headstrongly, unyeldingly, AND contumaciously,



Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx