"Establishment" Democrats and the Washington Consensus

[BurtWorm]

This post is adapted from one in another thread on the question of what is an "Establishment" Democrat, a term being heard more often from supporters of so-called outsider candidates (read anti-Iraq-war candidates).

Of course Democrats want to be in power in Washington and have a hand in forging the Washington Consensus. But we're talking about a consensus that has been forged mainly by Republicans since about 1980 and to which Democrats have contributed too little for my taste.

The two key items in this WC:

1) Government is the problem. What they really mean is, New Deal government is the problem. They don't have a problem with the one they're serving in, and which they keep making rules to keep themselves serving in.

2) The US is, for better or worse, an Empire (formerly known as Sole Superpower), and we just have to make peace with that domestically and war with it (economically, politically, and militarily) internationally. The wingers actually think this is for the better. They really believe that it is the American Empire's mission to turn the rest of the world into suburbs of the Great American Urb, with each nation replicating the key items--and all the other less key ones--of the WC in their own "consensuses." If only the world would become just like us, they truly believe, there would be no need to shove our "values" down their throat.

The idea of the "establishment" used to be a leftist one, back in the 1960s. The right has appropriated it to keep their ideology slaves frothing and voting.

[xchrom]

1. the right has co-opted lots of 60's tactics

i prefer the term status quo -- but your point about establishment is well taken.
also your point about new deal government -- but in that point lurks another -- and that is government of the oligarchs or the corporatists. these people are embedded in both political parties -- we don't ''know'' them. but they are folk who serve on boards of directors and ceo's, etc.
it gets very complicated at this point -- the ''empire'' is only partially represented by people we see.

[BurtWorm]

2. That's a good point, too. AARP demonstrated it with the Medicare bill.

The reason the Washington consensus is what it is is because it serves someone's purpose. Not mine.

[IrateCitizen]

3. Actually, "Washington Consensus" refers to international economics

Especially with regards to the free-market fundamentalism that is pushed by the International Monetary Fund (with the US Treasury pulling the levers behind the scenes).

If you want to gain an excellent understanding of what the "Washington Consensus" is, and what it does, I would suggest Joseph Stiglitz's book, Globalization and its Discontents. Stiglitz is the 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics, and was an economic advisor to the first Clinton Administration and chief economist at the World Bank.

I appreciate what you're trying to do, but don't muddle the issue by confusing the terms.

[xchrom]

4. irate --good to see you posting

i don't get read nearly enough of your stuff these days.
thanks for the info on the book!

[JHB]

5. The "Convenional Wisdom", then...

(or official Washington version thereof) -- is the term at hand.

[BurtWorm]

6. That's probably where I dredged up the term from.

Stiglitz applies it to exactly what you're describing. I think it's actually broader than economics alone. I think there is a Washington consensus, as I said in the first post, around the notions of what to expect from government and what to do about the American Empire. These are all of a piece--corporatist globalization, downsizing government (or expectations for government) and expanding the American Empire. These ideas were all hatched in Republican think tanks. They've spent the last 20 years shoehorning these ideas into the American "center," and thanks to "centrist" Democrats, they've been largely successful. But did anyone ask the American people for a vote on expanding the American Empire, or downsizing our expectations for government? I don't recall. It seems we keep being asked to vote for beer buddies.

[xchrom]

7. pnac is the clearest thing

you'll probably get to a map.
folks like gingrich -- let's say -- are expendable, but he provides fuel for the masses such as the religous right.
other folks -- like colin powells son are true agents of the unseen powerful. they use the ''virtuous citizen'' to their own ends.
of course, i think, the religous right believes they can use powerful elite. i doubt if they can -- but never underestimate a fanatic.

[arendt]

8. I like the term "Vichy Democrats" myself

You know - cowards, sell-outs, Quislings to a bunch
of Nazi scum.

----

Thanks, BurtW - this is the kind of thread I come
to DU to see. Not Dems carving each other up like
Communist and Christian resistance movements in
Vichy.

Yes. The New Deal has been demonized. This really hit
me over ten years ago.

Pat Buchanan was running for Pres in 92. He was on
a talk show, and referred to the Democratic Congress
as "this Long Parliament". The reference was to Cromwell's
Long Parliament, during his regency. The slander was
that today's Dems were a bunch of usurping, high-handed
thugs and that the "royalist" party was the legitimate
one and that the "Restoration" was coming soon.

I was shocked because, at that time, the Dems still held
Congress. I was shocked at the outright hatred of the
New Deal. I still am.

And any establishment democrat who doesn't stand up and
yell bloody murder at this deliberate gutting of Medicare
and soon SocSec is no Democrat at all.

Isn't it ironic that the "competition" with privatized
health insurance is due to start in 2010 - the year the
first boomer turns 65. Can you say, "bend over, sucker"?

Truly the baby boomers are the screwees in this entire
GOP Long March. They let the "greatest generation" get
paid SocSec for their service and loyalty. But, they
demonize the Boomers and have screwed them at every
step of the way. The Boomers are now self-indulgence
personified as a generation. 20-somethings see us as
nothing but a too-big generation that they refuse to
pay SocSec to support. 70-somethings figure they got
theirs, and screw you, hippie.

Truly we are The Ponzi Generation (TM).

arendt