|
relative to any western european country, the united states has never had a political left that formed mass political parties on the order of even the social-democrats, not to speak of places like france and italy which had major communist parties through the 1980s (they're still around but have hemmoraged people and voters)....in france now, the most dynamic left political organization is probably lutte ouvrière, which is a trotskyist organization.
there's simply nothing like that in the states. the democratic party is basically a centrist nationalist party, kind of like the udf in france. mainstream republicans are more or less like the gaullists, the other moderate-conservative political party. and the tea party is a point-for-point correlate of the front national, the neo-fascist party.
class politics have been far more reactionary in the united states than in western europe since the 1950s as well, and this as a simple function of the american choice of sector monopoly for union organizing. western europe has trade union pluralism, which means that there are multiple unions active within the same industrial sector--they've fought with each other for position across the language of radical politics.
it's from that kind of viewpoint---france happens to be the country the politics of which i know best outside the united states.
you have similar perceptions from our canadian comrades though.
this is just a horrifically reactionary country at the level of mass politics....the options are FAR more conservative and one-dimensional than people are.
but you'd never know (and the folk who operate the machinery wouldn't either) because the us has transformed its politics into a type of consumer relation...so there's no feedback loop that's not affirming of one consumer choice or another.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|