A:We have in fact transformed the meaning
of democracy, so now it's almost all about consumption practices.
We have de-classed, de-raced, and de-gendered people, de-sexed
them, de-territorialzied them in some ways, so that we're all
individuals. What's public is bad, and what's private is good,
by and large. There are, of course, contradictory things happening.
As we look at what is going on in class, race, gender, and other
kinds of terms, the state is still an arena of struggle. But
the discussion almost always now occurs on the terrain of the
Right.
One of the first things that Clinton did was
to promote the right to abortion. Out of this politics, there
are certain gains that are now institutionalized within the
state over women's right to choice. While this was progressive
on many other kinds of things, the state is still profoundly
a racial state. Clinton has tried to build some moderate policies
in reaction to Reagan/Bush, who aggressively used the state
to support attacks on gains that people of color made.
In education, Clinton gets support from many
people who are progressive, because of the great fear
of privatization and the great fear of the racial terrain that
is being established.
