I am not sure that I agree that standing up for principles, vs. going with the flow, or the perceived flow, is entirely a matter of courage vs cowardliness.

Back when I was more artsy, it was put to me that art departments, as well as any other institution that depends on serving a clientele that votes with their feet, has to pay attention to the pendulum. That is, kinds of art, particular interests in realism or abstraction, for example, or folk art vs. high art, comes in waves or is a matter described by a pendulum. This decade we are seeing a lot of interest in realist art, last decade it was abstraction.

If an art department, or Congressional candidates, to speak to your point, should try to offer something that the clients don't want to buy, then they will go out of business. Maybe next year, the pendulum will swing back to somewhere closer that the art department would like to teach with more conviction, or that the Congress people will fight for out of principle, but for the moment, you have to recognize where the market is.

You have sounded dismissive of the Congress people who you think say what their constituents want to hear, just so they can get elected. Compared to Senator Webb, you think, from what you say, that those who pander are pretty much cowards.

They might argue back that not all of the Dems could ignore the market. If they all did and enough lost, then Senator Webb would not have now the opportunity to fight for his principles.

I think you are not a very good artist, or a very good Congress person, if you merely pander to the crowd. But, this is their argument, you have to be aware of where the pendulum is in order to get elected, or in order to stay in business, or you cannot get those opportunities to make your principled stands.

Isn't this what the Dems who vote for Bush positions argue in their defense. Well, there may be those who vote for Bush positions out of principle, but then, maybe... they're really Repubs who have some idea of where the pendulum and market is in their own districts...

Your post today raises an issue that I have thought many have considered in the past. You say here, as just one summarizing thought,

"...Does anyone really doubt any more that the predominant characteristic of our political culture is "the incestuous relationship between governments and large [] corporate conglomerates"?..."

The issue is what to do about the distinction between a society that may, or may not, provide 'political rights,' where this involves the maintenance of the 'rule of law,' and a society that doesn't need to do this perpetually because the suffering caused by the conflict between the weak and the powerful has been resolved and one no longer has to work so hard to maintain the 'rule of law,' or make a big deal of having 'political rights.'

So, my understanding of the argument is that, whereas Marx would have us just get rid of the oligarchs, i.e., those movers and shakers in the banking industry, for example, who cause these economic catastrophes and then profit from the effort made to fix them, you would have us as a society just work to have better laws and the observance of them.

I have thought one of the reasons that our country has been swindled so much by the powerful, is that we have very seldom paid any attention to people like Marx, Klein in the "Shock doctrine", or James Kunstler and other Peak Oilers, who warn us about the elite's malevolence.

It's all about the glories of capitalism here.

I am not sure that Marx's solution of just getting rid of the owners and letting the workers take over is a great solution, but I'm also not sure that a nation of 'laws' or 'rights' is enough of an answer either.

When the foxes are in charge of the chicken coop, they will manipulate the laws and provide 'rights' that tend to benefit themselves, and not so much the chickens. It is very difficult, it seems, to maintain a 'rule of law' or 'political rights' that protects the chickens, that is, us, without addressing the fact that the foxes have been glorified, coddled, and given special privileges in American culture.

I think Marx, and the rest, would say, no wonder we have these economic, military, and cultural fuck-ups when we as chickens not only put them in charge but also refuse to recognize that foxes eat chickens.