From: riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs)
Newsgroups: sci.econ,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Sixteen more years
Date: 16 Oct 92 23:47:20 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc,sci.econ
Organization: LNK Corporation, Riverdale, MD


	A few comments toward the reconstruction of the "loyal opposition"
are in order. 

	My own first political recollection was LBJ's slaughter of Barry
Goldwater in 1964. I was in the forth grade, and remember having given
a rousing anticommunist speech that would make B-1 Bob Dornan blush in 
front of my fourth grade class. Now this was a school on the "wrong side of
the tracks", in the Ohio River foothills adjoining the War on Poverty
combat zone, perhaps it was for this reason that I was only one of two
children in a  class of 25 who spoke out in favor of Goldwater and extending
the school year through July :)

	As history goes to show, American democracy did not cease with the
Johnson landslide, and as we enter Arthur Schlesinger's long-predicted fin de
siecle (Gawd - the man's been predicting the return of liberal Democracy for
12 years now), the prospect of standing alone against the misguided
multitude looms over the horizon. Sad to say that some of us seem to spend
our whole lives in the minority, no matter how valiantly or how well we have
served the country. 

	And only time will tell whether a Clinton administration will prove 
any better at picking men of dedication, talent, and moral courage than its
"Porcus Dixie" predecessors.


In article <1992Oct14.135647.5914@hemlock.cray.com> rja@mahogany126.cray.com (Russ Anderson) writes:
>
>In article <Bw0tDA.IJ0@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>> In article <MATT.92Oct12103900@physics.berkeley.edu> matt@physics.berkeley.edu writes:
>> >In article <1762@aviary.Stars.Reston.Unisys.COM> munck@stars.reston.unisys.com (Robert G. Munck) writes:
>> >
>> >> One of the things panicking the Republicans is the realization that the
>> >> economy will almost certainly have turned around four years from now,
>> >> independent of who is President and what he does.
>> 
>>   This is clearly NOT an ordinary recession with an ordinary cyclical
>>   recovery; if it was we would have already started to see a major
>>   turnaround by now!   Today's Wall Street Journal published another
>>   economic consensus forecast showing only 2.7% growth next year with
>>   some economists adding that if they were wrong then 2.7% is on the
>>   *optimistic* side.   If this were an ordinary cyclical recession
>>   then next year would be 5-6% GDP growth!
>
>I agree with both posters.  Economicly, GDP growth will be slow for the 
>next few years.  Debt (both private and government) and a shaky financial 
>system (with the FIRRA deserving much blame) will limit the amount of 
>capital for both investment and consumer spending.  Politically, the 
>Republicans will get the blame (even thought there is enough to go 
>around).  Even 2+% annual growth (twice as much as under Bush) and 
>slowly falling unemployment will be enough for the Dems to keep the 
>White House in 1996.  (Remember that FDR kept getting re-elected even
>though there was no real recovery until WWII.)

	Gag - is it really SIXTEEN years of whining and blaming "the past
12 years" that we face ? That's enough to make a supply sider out of me -
if I have to put up with the sanctimonious tune of "you owe your livelihoods
to US" that we will undoubtedly hear from the Democratic Party from here on
out. This year it is hope; four years from now it will be FEAR that Bill 
Clinton will be selling, lest the BIG BAD WOLF come around and foreclose the
mortgage, steal everybody's jobs, and send the kids down to factories in
Mexico.

	And this because my fourth grade classmates won't pay their TAXES ??
(But some of them ARE talking about sending the kids to school in July :)

>
>>   As I've been saying, we will almost certainly have to get serious
>>   about the deficit in the next few years and once we do we're going
>>   into a *depression* with double-digit unemployment and massive social
>>   unrest.  (again, if anyone can make the numbers come out some other
>>   way >please< post them to the net!!).  So I sure don't envy the Demo-
>>   crats if Clinton wins.  
>
>While there is always opportunity for politicians to screw things up, I
>don't see a 1930's type depression.  

	Well, you couldn't tell it from Clinton/Gore's stump speeches -
"Twelve horrible years of trickle down economics". Are we REALLY voting 
Democratic this year for economic reasons ? ?

>
>> >                                        The only thing holding the
>> >Republican coalition together is that the party keeps winning
>> >elections; once that glue is removed, it will be very hard to keep the
>> >party from fragmenting.                
>> 
>>   I agree with this.  I'm just scared of what will replace it.
>
>While I enjoy the implosion of the Republicans (after watching the Dems
>self destruct since the mid-60's), I'm encouraged with what will replace
>it.  The winning party will be (generally) for limited government in
>social issues (ie abortion) and limited government in economics.  (Although
>not as limited government as the Libertarian view.)
>
>Whether that party is the Dems or Repubs has yet to be determined...

	Now who's to say that limited government is the "Winner". If you
follow the writing of journalist/FDR nostaligiac/former 60s radiclib/Neoliberal
strategist E.J. Dionne, (Author: "Why Americans Hate Politics") what America
really needs is to become one BIG, HAPPY, FAMILY. Communitarianism - that's
the wave of the future, boys. No need for dissent, because we're all in this
together. (HEY YOU IN THE BACK, WITH THE Bush/Quayle '88 BADGE - Sit down and
shut up)

	If you look at the McGovernesque "Come Home, America" whistlestop
campaign that Willie and Al have put on, it very much follows the 
"communitarian" ideals Dionne espoused when he published his book in 1991.

What America needs, here, is to get back to 1964, when all (right) thinking
Americans thought alike.


	Bill R.

	"My opinions do not represent those of my employer or any
government agency."


-- 
Bill R.
Newsgroups: u3b.tech