The following is a selection of letters sent to the World Socialist Web Site in response to article covering the Democratic Party National Convention.
On “Democratic National Convention outlines policy of wider war”
Thanks for another systematic breakdown of the Democrats’ hypocrisy, an inevitable result of having to please two audiences, liberal-minded voters and big corporate interests.
They seem to achieve this by condemning (in a very superficial way) the most hated policies of the Bush administration, but then using coded language (such as “national security” and talking of a “broken” military) to signal their attention to their elite backers.
However, Obama’s post-primaries “move to the centre” (i.e., the centre of the corporate right-wing consensus) is losing him support amongst the very people his primary campaign mobilised, with the result that even a candidate thoroughly bound up with the hated policies of the last eight years is running him close.
In theory—though of course not in practice—the United States is a representative democracy. Is Obama calculating that the support of the capitalist class is more important to his chances of being the next president than the votes of electors? If so, why has he come to this conclusion? I would be very interested in reading an article on this subject.
AF
United Kingdom
29 August 2008
* * *If it were not for WSWS writers like you, I swear I would go out of my mind trying to make sense out of the absurdities the masses absorb from the MSM. Among my colleagues, my views of US political and social justice have a particular singularity that isolates me from most kinds of meaningful discourse.
Thank you for confirming my own conclusions about the charade of the conventions and the so-called democratic election circus.
Sincerely Yours,
RD San Diego, California, USA
29 August 2008
On “Democrats convene in Denver amid police state security and a sea of corporate cash”
Thanks very much for providing this candid glimpse of the activities behind the scenes at the Democratic Convention. Its amazing how little attention this has received from most other media outlets, who have essentially acted as conduits for the party’s self-described media event. I hope they’re putting all that cash in the bank, as they won’t be around for long if this is the sham opposition they are providing.
MT
Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
26 August 2008
* * *I got to see some of the “police state” activity. Early Tuesday morning, the 26th, I waited in Salt Lake City for Amtrak train #6. There were 5 black clad Amtrak “tactical police” officers demanding ID, and a sniffer dog walking about sniffing. That evening another group of the same police boarded the train as it climbed over the Rockies approaching Denver and walked through the train again checking ID, randomly searching, and the dog sniffing about. Quite a sight indeed. One elderly man slightly drunk was seized and taken off the train when he complained while dining. Every police force must justify its existence by arrests, one supposes.