BRATTLEBORO — In a normal healthy democracy, the elected government represents the people - and their best interests, which usually means the interests of the majority. With this financial catastrophe staring us straight in the face and the election of a new president (with all his promises) still fresh in our minds, it is becoming glaringly obvious that we do not have a democracy. We do have a flourishing corpocracy - government through corporations, for corporations, and by corporations.
We have to realize that although we elected the government, it does not represent our interests. As voters and taxpayers our interests are irrelevant to the bottom-line calculations of Republican and Democratic politicians. Far too much power has been ceded to the corporate world. In every sphere of our lives we are exposed to corporate abuse.
All the actions and pronouncements of the incumbent administration are a political “sleight of hand.” A delicate political pas de deux, where one's position appears to be one thing but slowly rotates toward another position. So in this present crisis everything is made to appear as though it is for the people, but the reality is geared toward the needs of those financial corporations who have bribed the Democrats. Each new wave of criticism produces a new fallback position, which is yet another indication of where the loyalties lie.
National politics is now a charade, a futile, delusional fantasy in the great Hollywood tradition. And it is all lies. I remember hearing Bob Dole say so trenchantly in 1988, “Voters do not pay politicians' bills.”
After all, corporations have invested heavily in the elections, and they certainly did not throw this money (by the truckload) into the election mix for charitable reasons. The election process has been cleverly evolved over the years so that candidates are now totally reliant on the corrupting influence of corporate money. The process is outrageously long, requires vast sums of money to sustain it, and the candidates (the carefully chosen few) are guided (via the delusional debates) through the obstacle course. The corporate world owns the whole process of presidential elections, with the people as a polite background prop to provide a veneer of authenticity.
With this in mind, a good, decent government would have come to the aid of its people and shielded them from corporate abuse. The government, knowing full well that many of the financial practices were outright fraudulent and were driven by rapacious greed, should have come down heavily on the corporations involved.
In the best case, a moratorium should have been put in place to stop families being tossed out into the street. Harsh regulation and scrutiny of financial services, the banning of fraudulent financial instruments, and nationalization should have been the order of the day. CEOs who engaged in fraudulence should have been banned from employment in this sector, as they had shown themselves to be untrustworthy.
Furthermore, employees tossed out onto the street as a result of corporate mismanagement should also have been protected. Executive bonuses funded by federal bailout money (our tax money) should have immediately been expropriated - at the very least.
None of this has happened. How could the Democrats rise up to protect the people they purport to represent when it was they who made this catastrophe possible in the first place? It is they who relaxed the regulations. On Slick Willie's watch they even quietly passed legislation preventing the SEC from scrutinizing these bizarre financial instruments. How about them Democrats and their change?
The AIG scandal would be hilarious were it not so depraved. AIG is being supported by vast sums of taxpayers' money and it still has the audacity to pay out huge bonuses. Now let's remember AIG has poured a lot of money into getting Obama elected, and so that company's officials have to be protected from the scorn that is coming down like a mighty river on top of it. The Democrats are obligated to protect them (there is honor among thieves, folks), and so the Democratic spin machine comes to the rescue.
We are told that these bonuses are part of a contractual agreement, conveniently omitting that the very basis for these bonuses was fraudulent. The whole financial mess is fraudulent, and we have flouted all kinds of international laws (rendition) and constitutional law (wiretapping) without so much as a blink, but now, in the twinkling of an eye, we are told that we are a nation of laws, laws that really have to be respected. And we are all law-abiding citizens. The spin is beautiful.
The interesting thing about this crisis is the potential for it to barrel completely out of the government's control. The crisis is becoming so vast, the government may justifiably be petrified of massive mob unrest. Well-behaved, indolent, apathetic Americans will become enraged as they finally “get it” (that they have been totally conned) and take to the streets, especially when they compare the meager benefits received from all their taxes compared to other industrialized nations (for example, a single-payer health system, instead of the predatory, rapacious system that we have to deal with. Or free secondary education, as opposed to our for-profit education system).
As things become more and more financially constricted, people are going to start asking ugly questions like, "Where is all the tax money going?" The answer: We're funding a vast military empire (760 military bases in 130 countries costs a lot of money). And why do we have such a vast military? Certainly not for our safety, as the traditional explanation goes. If we stopped interfering in other countries, then other countries would leave us alone. It is a very simple concept. The military is there to add muscle to the American corporate empire.
The moral of the story is that Democratic supporters of this new administration are as delusional, conned, and manipulated as the Republican supporters who put Bush in for two terms. Voting for either party necessarily is an endorsement of their corruption too. And the corporate world with all its “person” rights controls the whole political process.