However, it seems you have slighted, a bit, the degree which the Democrats do have strong allies outside of labor, and always have. For instance, right now the Dems have a good hold on big finance which is the dominant economic factor for the global economy.
I'm sorry - I didn't mean to give this factor short shrift
at all. In fact, I totally agree.
I think, actually, that the banking sector's influence over the Party has grown stronger exactly as labor's has grown weaker. I agree that opposing interests have been present for ages, but, with labor almost completely absent, the Democrats have been effectively forced to cave in to Wall St. on every conceivable point - and to much more disastrous effect than would have been the case in decades past. (And if the Bush/Obama bailouts weren't enough to demonstrate this sad state of affairs, President O's pathetic excuse for "regulation" certainly ought to be enough for just about anybody.)
As far as any real changes to the current system, I think it is highly doubtful. The US is much too saturated by corporate money and the military industrial complex, coupled with global insecurity concerning its global hegemony. Any important changes--something that would dramatically alter the power structure between corporatism and militarism would result in violence of some sort. Not necessarily direct violence, but in terms of witholding resources, lowering wages, attacking worker's rights, etc. Many look to Wisconsin as a sign of hope--I simply see it as a sign of the times. I think the best thing that groups can do is begin poaching at the seams in local communities and experimenting with something different so that when the end does come, there may just be something there to take its place. But at this point, America is a bit unsalvageable, at least on my reading. This may sound cynical, and it is. But as I alluded to in my prior sentence, it need not be the last word. The time is now to start builidng anew, even if we know that more suffering is to come.
I don't think this sounds overly cynical at all; I think it's just common sense, and that you've expressed it very well. (I always like your posts, too.
)
As a long-time Anarcho-Syndicalist, I've always put a lot of faith in labor activism - not because I support organized labor under capitalism as an end in itself, but as a kind of template for future social organization under some form of Libertarian Socialism. With unions effectively defunct, and class consciousness completely perverted, it's hard to know how to proceed, though, or where to "rebuild," as you put it. I don't, for instance, see the kind of re-examination of Leftist ideas that 30 years of flat wages and an economic collapse
ought to have produced. I compare popular reaction to this crises with popular reaction to the first Great Depression, and I feel positively stymied. I mean, except for the predictable up-tick in religious fundamentalism, and a renewed interest in Right Libertarianism (both financed and manipulated by corporate interests, I might add) it's hard to find an organized, popular critique of the current system
anywhere.(But maybe all this is more than our OP bargained for? I see that this is her/his very first post, and I sincerely hope all this gloom hasn't scared her away for good.
)