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These periodic ramblings are written, produced and directed by Ronald Dale Karr, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Obviously, the opinions expressed here are my own, not those of the University. |
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These periodic ramblings are written, produced and directed by Ronald Dale Karr, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Obviously, the opinions expressed here are my own, not those of the University. |
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 Late Tuesday night, December 12, 2000, American democracy died. The experiment that began two centuries ago came to an end, when the revanchist SUPREME COURT driven by its rabid 5-4 majority, tossed out the results of the presidential election and gave the Presidency to GEORGE W. BUSH. American democracy now seems to be little more than a pious FRAUD, a masquerade orchestrated and paid for by the corporate RULING CLASS. In America, the LAW means nothing, MONEY and POWER everything.
WHO CARES? After all, we've argued all along that the differences between GORE and BUSH are meaningless--both men champion unrestrained globalism, increased defense spending, punitive welfare reform,the death penalty, etc.--and differ only over symbolic social issues, like abortion, gay rights, and school prayer, over which the president has little say. But the fact that the right-wing corporate ruling class reacted so outrageously against someone as unthreatening as Al Gore gives some indication of what they would do if a genuine leftist ever challenged their interests.
DAYS OF RAGE?In other countries an election fraud this BLATANT--disputed ballots from a state governed by one of the candidate's brothers, the state's chief election official his campaign chairman, and the use of thugs to disrupt the counting of ballots--would be followed by fighting in the streets. Here, NOTHING of the sort. Foreign observers not familiar with American customs will be mystified when armies of protestors fail to appear at W's inauguration. The few hundred lonely radicals who do bother to show up will be isolated, then SAVAGELY BEATEN by the brutal DC cops, as were their predecessors at the WTO demonstrations last spring, and as usual, the servile American media will look the other way. Even Al Gore's most ardent supporters don't think that he's worth risking a BROKEN SKULL.
AS FOR AL GORE his political fate now rests in the hands not of the American voters but with the handful of powerful corporate donors who now determine our Presidents. If they continue to favor him, he will be able to mount an effective campaign in 2004, but if their whims should bestow their cash on another (say HILLARY), then he will be trounced in the early primaries, regardless of how hard he campaigns. Frontloaded primaries can only be successfully contested with large bank accounts. Although reporters and columnists like to think that they help pick the candidates, by and large the MEDIA follows the money--would you rather eat caviar or Big Macs? It's a lot more FUN covering candidates with money, and it shows in their reporting. Besides, today's trendy overpaid "journalists" run in packs, driven by the beat pounded by their corporate bosses. We'll be following fund-raising over the next few years, and by the middle of 2003 we should know whom they've chosen to face Bush.
AN AMERICAN TRADITION? A hundred years ago, to be sure, American Presidents were also chosen by a handful of men, but these were the state party bosses. Men like Roscoe Conkling and Mark Hanna were public figures, whether they held office or not, well known to any newspaper reader, on whose support their power ultimately rested. By contrast, today's elite work in secret and the media that they control hides their identity from all but a few political scientists.
RALPH NADER  was the real loser in November. Shut out of the debates, meagerly funded, and ignored by the media, his total was expected to be low. But his failure to win more than 3% of the vote, despite a vigorous effort, was a bitter disappointment. He gathered only slightly more votes than he when he ran the last time without really campaigning. His hope of establishing the Green Party as a national force was smashed. His was one of the most disastrous serious third party efforts in recent U.S. political history. True, his 3% matches what Socialist GENE DEBS received in 1920--but Debs at the time was in federal prison!
WHAT'S LEFT FOR THE LEFT?Nader's dismal showing is only one more indication that the American left has all but ceased to exist. The possibility of driving the Democratic Party further to the left is remote at best. AL GORE tried to revive the populist New Deal rhetoric of the past without convincing anyone that he was serious. His own proposals were so modest as to be almost indistinguishable from Bush's. Nobody is listening to us. Nearly every mainstream politician endorses the unrestrained globalism, death penalty, racist drug laws, the war on the poor, increased defense spending, and military intervention whenever corporate interests are challenged that the media ceaselessly promote. As former Attorney General Mitchell so presciently put it long ago, "We're going to take this country so far to the right you won't even recognize it." Never in American history has the left ever been this weak. Even at the height of McCarthyism, there was a vigorous liberal movement within the Democratic Party, that though opposing Communism and supporting American militarism, nevertheless championed civil rights and the poor, supported labor unions and the right to organize, and battled corporate power. Today, "liberal Democrat" has become an oxymoron and "conservative Republican" a given.
BUSH LITE IN THE WHITE HOUSE Conventional wisdom has it that Dubyu will be a figurehead dominated by his old man's advisors and his own Texas cronies, and that his policies, despite some hard-line rhetoric, will be moderate/liberal Republican (that is, Clintonian). We've always thought so, too, but the circumstances of his accession give one pause. In his heart of hearts even the dim-witted Bush knows he is a usurper. And as Shakespeare reminded us in Richard III, usurpers are dangerous people, driven to lash out at real or imagined enemies, always trying to prove their legitimacy to the world and ultimately to themselves. Watch out! A symbolic crack down on the final remnants of the left might well be in the works, as the media whips up hysteria against "terrorists" who threaten to disrupt our way of life. Don't be surprised to see RALPH NADER behind bars. Stay tuned.
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Send all comments on the Karr Report to Ronald Dale Karr
Ronald_Karr@uml.edu