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september 2002
The Degradation of Democracy
by Frank Scott
The anniversary of 911 nears, and there will be heartfelt memorials
commemorating the dreadful day, but productions suitable to terrorism
theme parks may be more common. Far deadlier than that one day
performance, which will fast be forgotten, is the longer range
performance potential of an intellectually disabled regime, presiding
over a structurally disabled system.
The assault on American democracy that followed the bloody terrorist
attack has been matched by an assault on global humanity. A rush to
repression imprisoned many innocent Americans ,threatening every
citizen’s future, and it has been accompanied by the equally
thoughtless murdering of innocent foreigners. Beginning with
Afghanistan and close to a greater slaughter in iraq, our pea-brained
government warheads approach insanity, with few mainstream voices in
opposition, and without any critical discussion of national policy.
Objection to US behavior has been strong internationally , online and
in activist circles, but the “homeland” mainstream has featured
uncritical repetition of preposterous propaganda about threats from
Iraq. The public can be forgiven for swallowing the disinformation it
has been fed, hardly having been offered a healthy information diet.
But it must ultimately show more sense than its leaders , or we will
all suffer the consequences of our rogue nation’s increasingly arrogant
and murderous behavior.
The American government is run by a regime of materially rich and
intellectually poor fanatics. Some, like the president, made millions
simply by being born, or being placed on corporate boards run by
marketplace swindlers who made them rich . And many of these dim-wit
serial killers are breathlessly awaiting, along with their half-wit
allies in Israel, something called “the rapture”. That’s not a porn
film, but a scriptural ,hallucinatory fantasy, a promised orgasmic
epiphany featuring a savior-messiah from heaven returning to earth,
vanquishing satanic evil - once communism, now Islam - from the “holy
land”, and rewarding his gentry with prime real estate, in UFO land.
This biblical pipe dream serves to rationalize a mad policy that
endangers the entire world, and not just monomaniacs in the USA and
Israel.
The American cabal gained power by losing a popular vote, and winning
an unpopular decision. They were enabled to do so by the ineptitude of
an alleged opposition party. But the communist party of the USSR had a
lesser hold over that nation than the capitalist party of the USA
exercises here. Its official opposition wing acts in craven cowardice
at a time of desperate national need. These defilers of democracy watch
polls and focus groups, hoping to gain the courage to finally speak up,
when Bush’s numbers go down. Meanwhile, we move closer to further
savaging Iraq and further endangering Americans all over the world,
with only some conservatives speaking critically, and with the real
problems of our system remaining unquestioned.
The present economic bust is the result of an artificial boom which was
about credit and nothing more. As the nation’s savings rate tanked, its
collective debt skyrocketed and the inequality gap between the rich and
the rest of us became greater than ever . The most affluent made so much
that they could afford paper losses in the tens of millions and still
remain wealthy. Their obscene riches are not derived from production of
material goods, but from faith-based, immaterial financial profits,
which nevertheless cause personal, social and ecological material
degradation .
Consumers take on ever more debt , and Wall Street witch doctors hail
that as a sign of confidence, rather than a sign that the consumer,
as the nation, is dangerously over extended . Personal and corporate
bankruptcies are at record levels , but the capitalist party moves to
make it more difficult for private citizens to erase their debts. This,
while additional financial burdens are put on their backs, through
colossal corporate bankruptcies, which are more permissible than ever .
The American economic structure rests on a foundation of debt and is
kept standing by a constant infusion of new credit, which is created by
religious belief that has nothing to do with material production. If the
flow of credit ever stops, or begins to be understood, the whole
structure could collapse. How are we dealing with this? By finding
terrorists under every bed , and using military spending to create
production that isn’t simply financial paper castles, but wastes
resources with more murderous haste. We’re alienating the world with
our arrogant foreign policy, and treating our own citizens like
children , when they stay distracted, and like traitors , when they pay
attention.
The minority president’s “axis of evil” does exist, but not in a
foreign country. It isn’t international terrorism, whatever that is
supposed to mean. The evil that threatens American workers by stealing
their jobs,their pensions and their future, is the evil that threatens
the globe with exploitation, injustice and pollution . It treats
certain people as less than human, in places like Palestine, the
developing world, and in centers of poverty here at home . It markets
politicians as though they were automobiles , uses mass media as a
weapon of mass distraction, and creates debt, poverty and conflict for
a majority of the planet’s inhabitants. And this, to benefit a tiny
minority which gains wealth far beyond its capacity to use, let alone
its ability to create.
This axis of evil’s attack on democracy didn’t begin on 911, but the
pace of assault has increased since that day. The source of
democracy’s degradation is the political economics of capitalism . The
intellectually anorexic Bush, his religious fanatic cohorts, and their
disgracefully inept opposition have declared war on an invisible,
external enemy. But our enemy is visible, internal, capitalism. Don’t
expect to hear much about that in the outpouring of 911 commemorations
offered by mass media. But citizens need to understand that evil and
act on it, by seeking, creating and voting for alternatives, before
terminal damage is inflicted on democracy, and the planet.
Copyright (c) 2002 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.
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Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on
other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the author
frank scott
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