With the election less than a week to go, we are all being bombarded with political bullshit. The media keep telling us what the polls are saying and what the trends are. Every move is overanalyzed to the point where it has no meaning. We are told about George Allen using a racial slur but not about his politics. So this will be my only entry about the elections until after because I am getting sick of the bullshit coverage.
Right now the polls show that a large majority, 2 to 1, say the war in Iraq is a disaster. What is the Democratic Party’s plan for Iraq? They don’t have one. Instead you have Hillary saying we need to stay the course, Joe Biden saying we should split the country into three parts, John Murtha saying we should move our troops to Kuwait and then you have Kerry/Feingold who are saying we need to get out. Why won’t anyone say what is obvious and morally right? We should ask the Iraqi people what they want us to do. It is their country, not ours. Many say that we have to stay otherwise the place would descend into civil war. This is just a revamped version of the “white man’s burden” but 21st century style. We, white America, are the smart ones who should take care of the Iraqis because, as brown people, they are unable to take care of themselves. Is it even possible to doubt that the reason we can’t leave is because we want control over their oil resources?
It is obvious that the Democrats agree that we must control Iraq otherwise they would launch a campaign aimed at the large majority of us who are now against the war. They aren’t though. They are so scared of the Republicans that they refuse to go on the offensive. Instead we hear people say that the Democrats don’t want to look weak on National Security. Of course, the Democrats are weak on National Security because they are weak on everything. They decided years ago that they were too scared to not have super cushy jobs and that in order to keep those jobs they would have to suck the corporate tit. So a party that once claimed to be the party of the people is now just the party for the corporations. As a result they have been unable to champion a populist agenda because it goes against what a tiny minority of rich white assholes want.
What is the platform of the Democrats? In 1994 when the approval rating of Congress was near rock bottom, the Republicans didn’t run on “We aren’t the Democrats”, they ran on what they claimed to believe. Instead of biting their tongues, in hope that the Democrats might lose, they went on the offensive. They created a simple little document called the Contract With America. Newt Gingrich and the other white men gave the public a list of what they wanted to accomplish. (Don’t forget about Newt in 2008) Years later they have abandoned it but it got them elected and they kept power for twelve years before their corruption finally bubbled to the surface. Why can’t the Democrats offer a list of what they want to accomplish? Because they have no such list or idea for that matter and they still fear any idea put forth will be attacked by the opposition and their corporate donors.
The polls show that a majority of the US population thinks that our country should have some form of universal health care coverage. The last number I saw was an ABC poll that put the number at 61%. Here is a winning issue but the Democrats can’t put forth the idea because they are weak. They are so afraid of being called a socialist, a title I where with pride, that they refuse to make it part of their platform. Then there is the cost of prescription drugs, what are the Democrats planning on doing about that? Then there is our environment; poor Democrats don’t want to piss off their toxic creating donors so that issue is off the table. Then there are unfair payroll taxes, can’t touch that because that would piss off too many rich white assholes. Then there is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict the main reason Arabs hate our government and the main recruiting tool for “terrorists”. In this case the Democrats fall over themselves attempting to show who really supports the horrendous Israeli war crimes more. You’ve got Howard Dean calling the Iraqi Prime Minister an anti-Semite for showing his support for Hezbollah, the Democrats in Congress voting to stand by Israel even while they littered Southern Lebanon with over a million cluster bombs (war crime) and used chemical and radioactive weapons (war crime) and we’ve got Hillary saying that the illegal wall, Israel is building to confiscate as much land as possible, only hurts the “terrorists”.
There is nothing the Democrats stand for. They are a bunch of wishy-washy power seekers. We are always told that the Democratic candidate is only sounding more moderate to win an election yet once they are elected they actually get even more right wing. There is little that the Democrats have done in the last twenty years, on a national level, which has been good for anyone. They haven’t helped the poor or people of color. They haven’t stood up for human rights anywhere. They haven’t attempted to slow the pollution of our planet. They haven’t stopped corporations from harming us. They haven’t stood for peace. What really have they done?
Even with all that I still hope that the Democrats win at least one house of Congress. I don’t have any hope that Democrats will help the people of the country besides those who are in the country club. They won’t stand tough for a measly minimum wage increase to 1970’s levels. They won’t stand up against the polluters who pay for them to be elected. They won’t stop Israel’s ethnic cleansing of its indigenous population. They won’t get us out of Iraq. The one thing they may do is slow down the American Empire just a little bit. If this is the case, that alone is a reason for hope. Maybe just maybe our country will end up in a gridlock and we will stop harming the people of the world all just to make the tiny white rich assholes obscenely richer at the expense of real human beings, no matter if they are brown or white.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
At the heart of your argument, I find a rather intriguing point: the US two-party system leads to political parties without strong convictions. People often complain that there is actually very little difference in either party, and there is good reason for this; it is necessary for acquiring power.
The American public is not homogenous in their political views. There are degrees to which an American will identify with certain ideology. Certain ideologies are also associated with each political party, whether correct or not.
If an American political party were to marginalize part of "the middle," where ideologies are either less strongly defined or split between party associations, by strictly enacting (rather than just espousing) a certain ideology, it would risk losing them to another party.
The game, then, is to minimize the amount of voters lost from the "middle" (and I hate that word, but it does work for this purposes) and minimize the loss of voters who identify with the perceived ideology of the party. This is a contradiction, but it's true. Parties water down their policy, but try to energize the ideologues nearly every day through political rhetoric and the corporate press.
The fact that Justin believes that Democrats could stand for strong environmental policy, a higher living wage, and a just foreign and domestic policy, yet is aggravated that they do not, illustrates this fact. If the American public actually wishes change rather than the status quo, there needs to be a real revolution in this country, a complete change in the US political system to a multiparty democracy.
Will a populist revolution ever occur in this country? It's hard to say, but I'm not too optimistic about it.
peace out.
Post a Comment