From: Mark Steven Heyman (MarkHeyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Fri Apr 29 2005 - 16:33:52 BST
Hi all,
It's 8am pst, and I've been up all night. Before I hit the sack for
a few hours, I want to comment on my friend Platt's latest post, seen
below my sig block.
Although Platt's ideas are for the most part well-expressed, they are
a perfect example of what I mean by a red-herring false dichotomy.
Though their strategies vary somewhat, there is no substantial
difference between the US Republican and Democratic parties, as a
look at the list of their financial backers will reveal. So any
discussion of Rep-Dem power struggles only distracts us from the real
problem, which is the wealth-influenced stranglehold incapacitating
meaningful change.
Now, I'm not suggesting Platt doesn't mean what he says, that he is
nefariously distracting us from important issues; I'm sure he
believes there is a substantial difference between the two wings of
the American Business Party. I'm saying he is wrong in this belief.
Best to all,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
-
InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors
Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983
Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com
"While the two factions of the business party agree over a broad
range, they differ in popular constituency and sometimes in tactical
preferences. These are only tendencies, reflecting shifting
alliances, but they are real and sometimes have policy consequences.
The popular base of the Democrats lends more towards working people,
the poor, women, minorities -- the rabble generally. The Republicans,
who have been more open and forthright in presenting themselves as
the party of owners and managers, have sought to create a popular
base through appeal to jingoism, fear, religious fanaticism, and the
like." - NC
On 29 Apr 2005 at 8:19, Platt Holden wrote:
Hi All:
If the Victorian era was marked by rigid adherence to the social status
quo, then the current Democrat Party in the U.S., who like to wrap
themselves in the mantle of FDR as intellectual progressives, are the new
Victorians while the Republicans have become the true progressives. The
traditional roles have been reversed.
Consider that Republicans want to move forward and confirm judges by an up
or down majority vote in the Senate as had been the practice over 200
years. The Democrat's response was "Stop. Hold to the judicial status
quo." When Republicans want to try vouchers to improve a failing public
school system, the Democrat response is "No way."
Other progressive moves the New Victorians block are: a reform Social
Security so the poor can leave assets to their children; an effort shake
up the UN to increase its effectiveness and avoid future scandals; a call
to permit democracy to work at the state level to determine abortion
rights and same-sex unions, an initiative to remove discriminatory
affirmative action policies after 30 years to dissolve questions about
black achievements.
A perfect example of the New Victorian mindset can be found among Democrat
Party environmentalists who would like to put social and economic progress
into reverse gear and return the world to some idealized simple past.
Anyone looking with unbiased eyes at Democrats today will see a stolid,
unyielding, unimaginative, obstructionist group of relativists, nihilists,
and hedonists. They are today's hidebound social level thinkers. The new,
intellectually-driven progressives are conservatives who are offering new
ways to attack society's ills along the Dynamic lines of freedom from
central planning and a national regulatory bureaucracy that Pirsig
suggests.
Best,
Platt
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