How I finally woke to smell the corporate coffee
author: sassykathy464
 e-mail: sassykathy464@gmail.com
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I have often stated that progressives must abandon party labels to vote for issues - not for a Democratic (big D) party logo or for corporate sponsored candidates of either party. Frequently, I have also insisted that the many apathetic citizens who don't vote are not going to be motivated by more of the same but some Democrats have told me that, "Really frustrated Dems, like yourself, have been saying essentially the same thing for 70 years, at least." - I wonder if really frustrated Dems continue to repeat the same complaint because fascism has lurked in the wings of our national life since the era of the robber barons. I have very lately come to believe that corporatism or fascism infects both parties, and that the conservative counter-revolution could not have succeeded so well without the votes and complicity of centrist Democrats.
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I really think most Americans are aware to some degree that my contentions hold some vestige of truth, but I think many Americans might object to the use of the word "fascist", so I want to be certain that I define the word "fascist" as corporatism. The defining characteristics of a "fascist state" by my definition include one:
* where corporate benefit is prioritized as a policy above any national benefit.
* where the middle class is in jeopardy because a healthy democracy is impossible without a healthy middle class.
* where the middle class increasingly suffers and labor conditions worsen.
* where the safety of our environment, the safety of our food supply, & the safety of the work place are no longer a national priority but one where "corporate economic health & safety" is the only over-riding priority.
* where the costs of health care, housing, and higher education soar without any corresponding effort by that state's politicians to stem those costs because that would jeopardise corporate profits.
* where a nation's decision to wage war is ultimately for the acquisition of another nation's resources for the good of private corporations.
That is my definition of fascism - let's examine America's national landscape to see if any of those characteristics exist.
Today, America's natural resources are being ripped out of our national parks without benefit of royalty payments, pharmaceutical companies receive research grants paid with our tax money but we Americans are charged higher prices for our drugs than Canadians or Europeans, and, as the ultimate example of corporate welfare, our troops are used to secure the oil fields for oil corporations with no contractual agreement that the oil will be sent to the U.S. or at what price.
Our national media brings news of yet another mining industry disaster without any assurance by this administration that enforcement of federal safety standards will be more strictly enforced. What I find is even more distressing, I have yet to hear the Democrats in congress raising an outcry or proposing new legislation to deal with the problem.
Within the last 6 years Americans have heard a number of news reports that E. coli and mad cow that infected our food supply, but I have not seen the Democrats in congress demanding more food inspections or protesting the closure of the FDA testing labs.
"Americans were shocked to learn that the world's
largest wheat exporter now imports more than 70
percent of its wheat gluten; but we also import 20 percent of our generic and over-the-counter drugs, 40 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients and 80 percent of our seafood --much of it from developing nations with lax standards and little regulatory enforcement. Yet even as the FDA struggled to track poisoned gluten through the food supply (during the pet food " scare" that killed many of our nation's pets), it announced plans to close seven of thirteen regional testing labs."
Don't worry, be happy, just last week we learned that there are only a 1 million lbs. of suspect Chinese seafood in the U.S. "One of every four shipments the got through without being stopped and tested, and were sold without inspection in spite of an "import alert," which meant the FDA was supposed to hold every shipment until it had passed a laboratory test." This incident occurs at a time when millions of Americans are without health insurance and in 2005 according to The National Coalition on Health Care (the latest year data are available), "total national health expenditures rose 6.9 percent -- two times the rate of inflation (1). Total spending was $2 TRILLION in 2005, or $6,700 per person (1). Total health care spending represented 16 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP)." Has anyone heard that the Democrats are pressuring the administration to step up inspections by the FDA, or did I miss something? Other than Kucinich, has any of the major presidential candidates proposed a health care plan that will not add excessively to the cost of health care as a percentage of the GDP when our national deficit is so immense that the value of the dollar is falling?
The explosive number of home foreclosures is evidence, I think that conservative economic theory and policy has had a devastating affect upon the middle class. I have often said that the middle class will continue to experience great financial risk if the cost of health care & education continue to escalate as a proportion of the household budget while wages continue to stagnate. It looks as if I was right. According to a FDIC study of the escalating problem of housing foreclosures quoted in an article in My Left Wing:
 http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=18293
"The Causes of the Rise" (in housing foreclosures)
"The FDIC study explored the role of these "trigger events" in foreclosures and concluded:
In fairness, although some trends appear to support the trigger event hypothesis, others seem to work against it.
In the end the FDIC study zeroed in several interesting statistical variables that appear to have had an impact on foreclosures. You will never guess what the first is.
It is health insurance:
Thus, the increase in the portion of the population without health insurance constitutes a significant increase in the overall risk profile of households. ....
It is no surprise that the FDIC study reported that the portion of the population not covered by health insurance.
Has increased by more than one-third since the data were first reported for 1978....
Not to beat this horse too much, but it does need beating, because again the date marks the beginning of the Republican Counterrevolution when Ronald Reagan became president....
The FDIC study also identifies something every American knows instinctively because a lot of us have done it--use our homes for financial purposes such as financing a child's education, paying off a car loan, and dealing with the copay on a family member with cancer. Because our wages have not kept pace with our costs, most middle class Americans--including me--have used the only remaining financial leverage they have--their homes."
How and when did fascism gain so much ascendancy in America's political life - that members of middle class have become its hapless victims with so little control over the politicians they've chosen to represent them?
Once, while I was cleaning Weyerhauser's executive offices as a union janitor I came across notes on a blackboard that outlined how to break unions. The idea I saw outlined on that blackboard was to move the centers of production in the U.S. from region to region - more or less unpredictably - whenever union activity threatened to gain too strong a toe hold in any one region. When I began to hear about Clinton's free trade agreements - because of those blackboard notes - I thought, "Oh shit no!", because I thought that instead of playing games within national regions, our corporations could play their game on an international board and inevitably say "checkmate" to labor. I was confused by Clinton's willingness to endorse free trade agreements, but I thought he was simply misguided. It was also during the Clinton administration, that I remember myself and other entirely un-riotous peace demonstrators were photographed by the FBI in front of Seattle Federal building within 6 months of the WTO police riot. The fact that the FBI purposely attempted to intimidate peaceful demonstrators confused me; I was reluctant to think that Clinton, himself, had no respect for the first amendment so I preferred to think our democracy remained healthy and intact. Because I refused to face reality I remained confused even when the police, using the flimsy pretext of a tiny group of anarchists, forcibly intimidated thousands of peaceful demonstrators during the WTO demonstration. Even though I was already aware that the application of Reagan's War on Crime fell most heavily upon the poor and upon racial minorities, and I knew that corporations were taking private sector jobs and turning them over to the virtual slavery of our huge and growing prison population, I refused to recognize the earmarks of fascism.
For a very long time I have said that the one of the best arguments for impeachment is peace; impeachment is the only way to ensure peace, but I was reluctant to think that the Democrats did not want peace any more than the neocons. I experienced a growing suspicion only when Democrats not only failed to pursue impeachment, but added insult to injury by voting: for the new bankruptcy bill, for some of the pharmaceutical industry give-aways, & for funding for the war. Finally, when Nancy took the Iran clause out of the funding bill so that Bush could attack Iran without seeking specific and prior use of force approval - I finally saw Pelosi is a corporate imperialist every bit as much as any neocon.
When I finally mentally juxtaposed our over-inflated economy with Pelosi action on the Iran amendment that 's when the light finally came on: What would peace do to the economy when we currently have an unfavorable trade deficit with China and we are so deeply in debt to China? I began to wonder what would happen to the unemployment rate if all our soldiers came home as more and more American jobs are outsourced, and what few jobs remain are related to the defense industry? I suddenly realized that neither a neocon nor a centrist will ever regret voting for the war or the Patriot Act. Only a bad economy might cause voters to turn upon their politicians more viciously than they have after a war gone bad." The neocons responsible for the war and the centrists responsible for the free trade agreements simply must collude to ensure America's continued participation in the war to avoid the political & economic repercussions of peace - in a country with a war dependent economy.
Had conservative (red and blue) politicians already concluded that the U.S. military would have to be broken and then privatized? Now, when so few leading (at least in terms of $ and media hype) Democratic presidential hopefuls dares to sound any less militaristic & avid than a neocon, I have to wonder if there is any thing like the "loyal opposition" that remains intact? As Glenn Greenwald in a Slate column, The foreign policy community:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html?source=newsletter
"The Foreign Policy Community -- our establishment "scholars" -- were almost unanimously supportive of George Bush's invasion, worked themselves into a lather over Saddam's WMDs and mushroom clouds over U.S. cities, stayed silent in the face of obvious Bush abuses and excesses, embraced the most manipulative and fictitious neoconservative doctrines, and they still continuously issue all sorts of theoretical constructs to justify America's increasingly militaristic and imperial role. There is no real dispute within it about the most fundamental foreign policy questions we face (which is why the "liberal" Brookings Institutional "scholars" are so pro-war and work so cooperatively with the neoconservative AEI). And they not only have a monopoly over deciding who is Serious and who is not, but also in declaring which issues are off-limits from real debate. The foreign policy disasters of the last six years, at least, are their doing."
So, I had finally begun to suspect that impeachment is off the table so that the Democrats can continue to blame the Iraq War (and soon a war with Iran) on the Bush administration, but I never suspected that Clinton had waged a war for oil until I read an editorial this last week If Hillary is it, Vote GOP:
08 http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_esbe_070807_if_hillary_is_it_2c_vo.htm
"The Clinton War For Oil in Yugoslavia. Every bit as phony as the current war is, it was sold to the brain-dead majority of self-proclaimed "Liberals" who's only evidence of cognitive function was the capacity to use a television remote as they sucked up NBC like red white and blue heroin. The right-wingers who opposed it didn't oppose it because they don't like wars; they opposed it because Clinton was actually able to convince them that -like Clinton convinced almost everyone else- it wasn't what it really was: A brutal assault on an innocent nation who's only crime was a refusal to sign away their natural resources (the coal, natural gas, and oil rights in the Caspian basin) in exchange for a "loan" he didn't need, by the IMF. He managed to convince the "smarter half" of this country that it was about "human rights". My ass it was. It NEVER is. A pirate nation: That's what America IS and always has been: The global Mafioso, coming into town, breaking out the windows and then offering "protection" for a price. The price is unbearable for everyone but you, the American."
Because I have finally recognized the reality that fascism infects both of America's two priniciple political parties, I have become very concerned for our country's future.
Many Americans, like myself, are convinced that the best presidential candidate would be one who contrasted most starkly - yet positively - to the neocon & the centrist two faced fascist farce.
As Jim Jubak puts it,
Congress follows the money on energy
link to articles.moneycentral.msn.com
The Democrats now run Congress, but big contributors -- agribusiness and oil and gas -- continue to call the shots. The U.S. auto industry, though, faces a battle.
The names may change in Congress. Democrats may replace Republicans in the majority. But when it comes to energy legislation, the same rule always applies: Money talks.
So is it any surprise that agribusiness, a sector that gave $44.6 million to Democratic and Republican candidates in the last election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, came out the big winner in the energy bill passed by the Senate on June 21? The oil-and-gas industry, which gave $19.1 million as part of a natural-resources sector that gave $46.4 million, didn't do too badly, either.
Automakers, who gave $14.2 million of the $39.9 million contributed by the transportation sector, wound up with the short end of the stick in the Senate bill but look poised to recover in the legislation now moving through committee in the House. The auto industry is likely to benefit from the second rule of political giving: It's not how many politicians you buy but which ones. The first rule, by the way, is give early and often."
That's just the donations made by agri-business, the oil and gas industry and automakers; I don't have the figures for the huge media corporations, or the health care industry. Our parties' leaders choose their candidates by the size of their campaign chests which in turn is dependent upon their corporate appeal not their "voter appeal". Americans would do well to ignore media hype & the DLC's selection to choose to choose our future president very carefully, and minimize the influence of money by choosing to vote strictly upon POLICY.
"When people vote exclusively on the issues that are important to them, without being influenced by name recognition, celebrity, or millions of dollars in advertising, Congressman Kucinich wins in a landslide," his campaign said today basing that statement on a recent independent survey.
If Americans are going to get the attention of their politicians - in spite of their inability to counter weigh the financial impact of corporate campaign donations, serious campaign finance reform must be the first aim of the American people. Continuing to elect GOP or even DLC & centrist candidates will NOT lead to campaign finance laws strong enough to separate the powerful suction action of corporate money which binds candidates for national office to their corporate masters . If We Americans are going to put a crack in the fascist wall, Americans simply must elect a president who considers campaign finance reform a priority and who has made it a part of his platform, and a president who has the imagination, the insight and the plan to convert our war based economy to a peacetime economy.
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