What is a Republican anyway? What the hell do they stand for? They now claim about the Democrats what we’ve been claiming about them for years: that they don’t really stand for anything. They define themselves by opposition to every single issue they believe in. They’re anti-immigration, anti-abortion, anti-government, anti-homosexuals, anti-civil-rights, anti-separation of church and state, and anti-union. The only thing they stand for is pro-business, pro-war and pro-intrusion on civil-liberties which they all mask behind cute little phrases like they do with abortion. Let’s take a look at these Republicans a little closer. While we see them as ultimately voting against there own interests, they see themselves as fighting for freedom and democracy. In truth they are victims of one of the most brilliant political rouses in history.
The point is that the Right’s lack of a true ideology is more than just mere politics, it is a grand façade for the pro-business elite to begin constructing a Neo-Liberal state in this country. Yes I said the L word, but I’ve been hearing Neo-Liberal used by the Right to explain why Bush failed and I have to laugh, Bush and the entire Republican Party are Neo-Liberal. They wish to create a state with no government programs for the people, with a grand corporate welfare state that concentrates on the exploitation of its labor force and economic resources. In other words, low wages, no social security and government policy engineered in the interest of business. Sound familiar? It should, if Bush had his way we would have lost social security and be there today. This is no fantasy, the multi-national corporations have already enacted such policies in Latin America, which causes widespread immigration (isn’t that ironic) and a people devastated by low wages and little quality of life.
Take Haiti for example. Now defunct President Aristide caused severe anger to the global business community when he sought to raise the minimum wage to $0.35 an hour. The corporations simply ignored him, and a few years later he was out of power in a very shady exhibition of America’s muscle. Corporations do not care about people, they care about profit. So is it any wonder there are stories of such exploitation of Latin America around? Is it any wonder people from those countries grow to hate us or join us?
Corporations are lacking in any national identity as well, which is why they take their factories to China and flee the U.S. leaving our nation hollowed out of any true industry. We are growing vulnerable and they don’t care, they just pack up their bags and leave. As long as there are stupid consumers making them rich, they care, oh sure they care. Otherwise they leave and go to where there are consumers, like China and India. Corporations are the worst kinds of traitors, because they give comfort to both sides and are really only playing for one team, team dollar, a.k.a team yuan (better learn that one) team euro, team pound, team yen and team rupee.
This is the true agenda of the Republican party, to get their rich corporate buddies (a club most of the ruling elite in this nation are a member of) even richer. The other political nonsense they spew is mostly cover for this, while they pass bills to gain more power and wealth, cut their own taxes and get this, this week they even raised their own salary!
This can be said of both parties for the most part, with some severe differences, like the Republicans represent different business interests. It’s Walmart vs. Costco and who pays their employees better? Costco. Republicans are very much in the vain of Walmart, pushing an agenda that takes maximum while giving very little. I know I’d rather have a job that is union and can top off in the $20 range, rather than under $10 such as Walmart.
So how did the Republicans do it? Most of the people who are voting Republican now are poor Southerners. Why would they vote against their own interest? This is the best question of all, while Democrats half ass fight for the issues of their base, Republicans outright distract their base with an agenda of issues the government really can’t do anything about. They mask it behind an ideology, and tell the voters it’s about image, about values, in other words, it’s about distraction.
However this can only work for so long. There have been signs of cracks in the politics of distraction.
This “ideology†and I say so very lightly (Republicans really have been just a reaction for the past 30 years), has been twisted beyond recognition. They say they love life, fight for a brain dead woman, Terry Schiavo, and turn a blind eye to Iraq for 4 years, a blind eye to hundreds of thousands of dead innocent people. They say they want small government, and expand it to its largest size in history, well what the hell did they think the armed services were? It’s the government killing squad, intended to be used as a last resort when talk fails. They say they want more family values, yet they comply with tax cuts for the wealthy, the same wealthy that cut their wages, cut their health care, cut their pensions when they’re old and force both parents to work. This is the big secret of Republicans. Talk about the family and God and all that, while secretly destroy the middle class so they can get even richer, even more powerful, to the point of utter gluttony and self-vanity. When all is said and done, and China becomes the new power, these are the same folks that will pack their bags and leave. They’re traitors! They cheat the government on taxes, and play golf with the politicians who should be arresting them. Hell they ARE the government. When are we going to wake up? They’ve built a prison, and we are the prisoners, the wage slaves. Meanwhile the rich continue to get richer.
Thirty years of Republican rule, and 6 years of solid Republican Majority have brought us to this point. Health care is a joke, we are ill prepared for the future, and the military industrial complex, the same complex Republican President and famed WWII General Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us not to trust, get over half the Federal Budget, in the hundreds of Billions each year. Think of how many good things that money could achieve: combating the failure of a health care system, the failure of an education system, the failure of a transportation system, the failure of a government, the failed direction of our great nation. Meanwhile the rich just keep getting richer.
The Right in this country are so far to the right, it’s right around the definition of fascism, a marriage of the corporation and state. Don’t take my word for it:
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” – Benito Mussolini.
While surely it meant something different when Mussolini said it, the end result was the same. Under Hitler, the Corporations became enormously powerful and rich making bombs, guns and exploiting Jewish labor. While Hitler’s 6th Army was being crushed in Stalingrad, the corporations were still churning out Christmas toys for children, who many of which would be sent off to a Hitler Youth camp the next year, and quite possibly to the front in the Battle of the Bulge the year after.
Hitler knew that the corporations were the key to power and met with them before hand to let them know he had no intention of interfering in their business. They feared the socialist part of national socialism could get in the way of profit, but they were soon calmed and saw enormous profits indeed under the Nazis.
Of course there are significant differences between the Right and the Fascists of Germany, but then again, the biggest difference is the American System has too many checks and balances to prevent them from ultimately having their way. They use hate politics, of homosexuals, of immigrants, or middle easterners to the point where they even talked about rounding up all the immigrants and DID indeed round up as many middle easterners as they were allowed to. Had their been no A.C.L.U., no checks and balances, no Democrats, no opposition as a true Fascist state has, who knows how far they would have gone.
Yet the other similarities to the Fascists are spot on. It’s a heavy agenda of “just trust us†with little evidence to support that trust. They wage wars of aggression and talk about the good of the nation, and influence the press (as much as they’ve been allowed) to maximize the ignorance of the people. The war machine keeps turning and the bodies keep piling up. Meanwhile the rich just keep getting richer.
Still, I don’t want to focus to heavily on the fascist angle, I’m not saying that we should fear the Republicans as if they are Nazis, what I’m saying is that the Right in this country has drifted so far to the right, that our supposed “Left†is really just a bunch of wealthy people with sympathy for us “little people.†Democrats now resemble the classic Republicans in their pro-business attitudes and little interest in social programs. The classic Liberal is and always has been someone with moderate political views. Socialism on the other hand is on the true Left.
The Cold War put an end to this nation’s true Left. McCarthy’s spirit lived long after he committed suicide and it lives on today, scaring people from calling themselves socialist long after the Cold War ended. McCarthy’s squad of terror, and the lesser H.U.A.C. carried out a war on anyone who identified themselves as being anywhere near the Left in Hollywood, in the Army, the Government, and any other position of prominence to the point where the word “socialist†and “communist†were branded poisonous to anyone who used them. Sure we no longer jailed them, but the powers that be stayed far from them as well. This continues to this day.
When a guy at an anti-war rally approached me and identified himself as a communist, I couldn’t help but look around and think prominently of that Orwellian 1984 image of conspirators luring potential subversives off to the point of no turning back, only to be sent to the Ministry of Love for “reeducationâ€. I like to think I was just being a little paranoid, but you never know.
The fact that I would even think that shows just how successful the business elite have been in this country in destroying the true Left. They have even been enormously successful in branding the moderates in this country, the Liberals, as whacko Lefty pinko commies. Utter nonsense. A true Left is good for the public discourse, good for the nation and hell, good for the Right (they need someone to hate).
It is time for change!
Well unfortunately for the powers that be, politics moves in cycles. With France even beginning to move again to the right, it proves that theory. You can hold down the Left in this country for only so long. With the complete disintegration of the Bush Administration, even the Republican Presidential candidates are less to the Right. The major threats to the American system by way of a Right Wing takeover are beginning to subside and the chances for a new Left are beginning to look brighter.
Where should we go? There are so many mistakes we need to learn from, so many obstacles we need to avoid. The most important thing we can do is to continue the mobilization that has occurred in the anti-war movement, and keep that momentum fixed beyond the war, to major issues that touch middle class and lower class America. The minimum wage, and the re-establishment of a solid 8 hour work day are a good place to start. The protection of Unions, the punishment of illegal labor and a re-regulation of our utilities, and business in general are good places to continue. Education, Health-Care, public transportation, there is so much work that needs to get done.
If we can merge the pockets of organizations emerging on the Left around a few major issues, we can begin to form a solid Left that the Democrats will have to take notice.
Perhaps the Democrats are a bit of a lost cause. Perhaps the Greens or a new apparatus can be formed to help drive an issue into the Constitution abolishing the two-party domination of politics and changing the way we elect our representation in this country. I know I’m at the point of giving up on the current state of things.
No matter how we get there we need to stay together, the problem with the intellectual Left in this country has been its fragmented nature. I know we like to argue a lot about details, but if we remain divided we are easily conquered. We need to stick together like glue and prove our unbreakable nature if we really want to form a new intellectual Left in America.
The Right had their time. It’s over. Our time is upon us and we need to make it count.