Is the Center-Left really Left?
Steve McGiffen, editor of the European web magazine, Spectrezine, says "No". According to McGiffen, Europe's traditional social democratic parties have abandoned their working class constituencies and social solidarity welfare state orientation and have evolved into parties of the bourgeoisie more than willing to carry out the demands of capital even at the expense of their traditional working class constituencies.
Yes, this is about the European Center-Left, but to my mind McGiffen's piece is an equally relevant analysis of the state of the Democratic Party here in the USA. One only has to remember Bill Clinton's presidency with its tight alliance with Wall Street. Then, in 2008 the Democratic Party ran a campaign based on a populist and progressive agenda. Two and half years later one would be hard pressed to find any instances of a "New Deal" progressive political agenda within the policies of the current Democratic administration and elected Democratic legislators.
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June 5, 2011
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But we would gennerally consider the advancement of truly social democratic forces in the US to be a good thing, wouldn't we?
I think that the vacillations by the Democrats prove the opposite point: it is a party subject to mass pressure (or lack of it) with the New Deal in its consciousness, regardless of tremendous efforts to stamp that memory out and/or rewrite history.
We have to see the Clinton campaign and presidency, at least in part, as a reaction to the organizing at the base done around the Jackson campaigns. Those forces are still present.
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