[PEN-L:31596] Re: Re: Could Wellstone still win

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman wrote:
>
>   Mondale would represent a long
> step backwards, except that at 75 he would not need to compromise to get
> reelected.

Michael, you are still assuming (or at least this text seems to assume)
that Democratic support of imperialism or Democratic anti-labor policies
are the result of "compromise" or "weakness." Clinton may have executed
a brain-damaged man for the sake of votes in New Hampshire -- but I
would assume that he also believed that killing a reasonable number of
criminals (or alleged criminals) every year was in itself a good thing.
I would assume that any differences between Mondale and Bush (or between
Wellstone and Bush for that matter) are over the best strategy and
tactics to maintain world-hegemony and exercise control over Europe's
and Japan's access to oil, not over whether those goals are a good thing
or not.

Carrol

P.S. The main rationale for the death penalty (no matter who does or
doesn't get killed) is to provide the police and prosecutors with an
effective weapon in plea bargaining -- also to maintain police morale.
The latter point was very clear in a WSJ editorial on the Mumia case a
few years ago. And I presume Clinton sincerely believed that police
morale should be kept up, and that killing a few people was a cheap
price for that.