[Marxism] The Credit Crunch and the Elections

["Jeff Rubard" <jeffrubard@xxxxxxxxx>]

A quick thought, from someone who is more sociologically than
economisticallyinclined: is the financial crisis not a "depth charge"
indicating the net weigh of the
American political system in the world system? However much we might wish
a third-party candidate was viable at the moment, or however much we might
secretly cherish the prospect of pulling the lever for Obama, both
candidates
will not only represent but structurally *be* radical breaks with the Bush
administration: Obama will perversely deepen the bilateral ties between the
Third World and developing European nations that developed this decade,
ties
Bush exploited to put together the "coalition of the willing" but will
presumably
assume the shape of a "Good Neighbor policy" in Obama's hands. McCain's
genuine distaste for torture will snap the faux security state Securing a
"Homeland" and wagging dogs in what could otherwise be meaningless
low-level conflicts with an Axis of Unpleasantness.

Neither candidate does what is economically essential over the long-term,
realizing that the US cannot be a "prestige" economy piratically exporting
Ideas to other countries in exchange for cheap goods in lieu of being a
normal country and having domestic industrial production for domestic
consumption. But in some short term we are all living, and eagerly bowing
to *Schadenfreude* over gnomes somewhere or other whose failed wizardry
caused the material facts of production to topple over does a disservice
to the possibility of American democracy -- an excellent idea, and a reality
which waxes and wanes with effective control over representatives and
the executive by the great masses. This plays into the hands of bailout
phonies and Brilliant Executives who are looking for excuses to stop
going concerns rather than pay out to an empowered proletariat.
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