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November 2000



Shopping For Democracy

by frank scott


This is written before the November election takes place , but a few
easy predictions can be made. First, the  new corporate president will
be chosen by a minority of Americans. Sadly, and shamefully, millions of
our children  live in homes in which neither parent votes, and once
again, stay-at-homes will join the opposition in casting a majority vote
against the winner.

Second,  most who vote will  lose, because they won’t get  what they
thought their vote would achieve.

And third, no matter who wins, little will change for most Americans,
especially the middle class and working poor .

The wealthy minority will remain wealthy, the debtor majority  will stay
in debt, and the  poor will continue to be the shame of a nation that is
richer than any in history. The inequality gap between the top 2%  and
the rest of us will continue to grow, and workers will still put in more
hours to make less money, when  inflation and  debt  is subtracted from
their wages .

None of these issues were mentioned in the  corporate campaigns , while
the anti-corporate Nader-LaDuke team was almost blacked out of public
consciousness.

Our shameful system of democracy for those who can afford to buy it
prevails, and will continue until the movement for social change  is
large enough to do something about it. Meanwhile,  the  corporate
candidates offered almost nothing of substance, in a media circus
atmosphere  that treated the  election as if it were a horse race or a
boxing match.

Our corporate commissars of capital  mealymouthed  about  the influence
of big money in American politics, but none had any problem with big
American money influencing  foreign politics, as in Yugoslavia. And
while they differed on  some foreign policy matters, they generally
agreed that unarmed Palestinians  were attacking armed Israeli soldiers
with their bodies, and  threatening  U.S. taxpayer financed  bullets and
missiles.

The corporado tickets proposed tax policies to benefit their financiers.
One offered even more to the rich, while the other scattered a few more
dollars to the middle, but both saw to it that private capital remained
in control. The same global monopolies that threaten our social
environment and  our food supply will go on abusing our disabled
democracy.

And both Gorberman and Bushney avidly support the death penalty, even
putting our electoral system on death row by keeping Nader and Buchanan
out of the public debates. This, while we  lecture - and often murder -
people in other countries, to teach them  how to create democracy.

There were mumblings about prescription drugs for seniors, and
murmurings about having national health coverage, “someday”. But only
Nader proposed a single payer  program for the nation,  which is the
way to guarantee equality in health care  and assure some fairness in
the pricing of drugs.

Americans who travel to Canada, which has single payer insurance, can
purchase  prescription drugs at one tenth their cost here in the states.
Uncontrolled U.S. pharmaceutical firms charge outrageous prices to make
billions of dollars, some of which they invest in purchasing shares of
the corporate parties.That is why we see such obscene profits for our
legal dope deallers, and why we  need a system for all Americans - not
just children - to have equal access to health care.

Even the candidate’s  differences on abortion  ultimately mean little to
millions of women who either live too far way from the dwindling number
of providers - 86% of American counties offer no abortion services - or
have no insurance coverage  to pay the hundreds of dollars needed, even
for the new  pill.

A Supreme Court that protects the rights of  minorities  is what we
need, but a court that protects a minority that has more money than the
majority is what we have. And whoever the corporate winner is, we can be
sure that minority wealth will remain in control , with the legal stamp
of approval provided by a  Supreme Court that will remain strongly
pro-choice, for the wealthy.

We may have gained in this election, but only if more Americans  showed
disgust at having an anti-choice selection for our highest office. Our
people might riot if they were limited to only two choices of dog food,
automobiles or movies at a film-plex. Yet, voting for lesser evils, out
of fear, has become a habit among citizens  lead to believe they  will
return to the past if the greater evil wins. They haven’t noticed that
our political economics have already gone back to the 19th century, and
that this  happened while the nation was under the control of a supposed
lesser evil.

The revival of ancient beliefs in the market as final arbiter in all
human affairs was started by Reagan, but finished by Clinton.The assault
on welfare begun by republicans has ended with the democrats, and the
social safety net has almost disappeared.

Under  pseudo-environmentalist control , the average miles per gallon of
our autos has  decreased, while traffic, congestion and pollution has
increased.

The economy has more people  working, but they put in more hours for
less money. And they carry physical debt burdens that finance the
metaphysical profits of the electronic economy. All this, under the
reign of “lesser” evil.

A social structure  based on growing consumer debt , more  mental and
economic depression , bigger threats to the natural environment, and all
these to create more investor profits , was unquestioned  by the
representatives of corporate wealth. Until  we have an election in which
that issue becomes the focus of a major discussion among the citizenry,
we will have no more democracy than the corporations agree to sell us.

The lesson of this election should be that we  can no longer  buy the
shoddy  product corporate capital sells us under the  brand-name
“democracy”, unless we  seek moral and political bankruptcy.

Copyright (c) 2000 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.

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frank scott
http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~frank
email: [log in to unmask]
225 laurel place, san rafael ca. 94901
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