Ok, let me be perfectly clear here. I know, from years of studying the real Amerikan history from writers like Parenti, Chomsky, Zinn, Chossuduvsky, even Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznik, that the fix has always been in. Meaning, that this Two Party/One Party political system has always done the bidding for the Uber Rich… Period! As a socialist I have come to understand how this Military Industrial Empire operates for the continuance of corporate capitalism. I hold few illusions as to what the Democratic Party can actually do to help us working stiffs. Are we hopelessly held hostage, or is prisoner a better word, by the wizards behind that curtain called Democracy? Well, even prisoners, maybe not hostages, sometimes have a voice through mass protest. Reminds me of a B- movie from the 1950s regarding working stiffs under the thumb of a corrupt union at the waterfront ( No, NOT ‘ On the Waterfront’ folks). In this film the union was controlled by a rich shipping magnate, a ‘ Mr. Big’ , from his penthouse uptown. The working stiffs had enough of the violence and threats from the union bosses, and did a massive ‘ Wildcat Strike’ . Along with a couple of old style muckraking reporters ( This is a fictitious movie guys ) the working stiffs closed down the entire pier and were out in the streets in force, demanding to the news cameras ‘ Reform’! The next scene is from a penthouse apartment, with ‘ Mr. Big’ watching the news coverage on his television. He quickly orders his butler to get the union boss on the phone. ” Do you see what is on every local news channel? This is no good! Do what you can to get these people back to work! Give them something, anything, and get this thing to end! This is no good for my business… or for YOU!!”
The moral to this story is not so complex. Sometimes, when things just get so bad for us working stiffs, Frederick Douglass’s words ring out: “Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has. It never will.” Well, forget the Democrats for a minute. What we have here in this, the middle of an ‘ Era changing’ pandemic, is the use of power by this administration and its Republican Party cohorts going right off the radar screen! If this writer had a few hours to list all the terrible actions ( or inactions ) of Mr. Trump and his party, maybe then I could accomplish my task. Well, to condense things to a few major items,:
A) They did nothing from November 2019 to well into this past March to meet this crisis head on. No, instead of that, all we need do is go to the news clips and videos of them calling this a ‘ Hoax’ and ‘ It is well contained now’. NO moves by them to get us all into secure face masks, or enough ventilators and hand sanitizers, along with rules for social distancing. NO moves to give funds, early on into this pandemic, to the states to help provide the proper equipment for our brave and helpful first providers;
B) The right wing that runs our government, sometimes with ‘ silent approval’ by the Dems, did not create enough money for us working stiffs and the sea of small businesses to stay afloat. Instead, most of the electronically created money went, as in 2008-09, to those who need it the If they really wanted to prop up this economy, they would have instituted what many ( including former presidential candidate Andrew Wang) advocated, that being a Universal Basic Income of anywhere from $ 1000 and up per month for every citizen ( and half for each child ) TAX FREE. Talk about economic stimulus– put the money in the hands of 320+ million of us and see how all commerce would be stimulated!
C) This desperate president and his crew, as with most politicians, only care about being re-elected. Imagine if you time traveled into the future and studied this: Trump wants to allow electoral college electors to be able to use their own judgment during an election. Translated: They can vote for any candidate they choose, rather than honor their pledge to vote for the candidate they promised to vote for. This is right out of the textbook ‘Elections in Banana Republics.’ In addition to this Trump wants to do away with mail in voting… even though he himself does it!! Obvious why he wants this done: If you make folks leave their homes to vote during a pandemic, many, especially the old and infirm, WON’T! Pollsters know that higher voter turnout always favors the Democrats. Finally, his boy Kushner has been floating the idea out there NOW that if things are not improved by November, the election may have to be cancelled. Herr Hitler never cancelled elections, only all the opposing political parties. One surmises the Trump crew figured that would be too difficult to accomplish, so just don’t have any vote at all!
We are living in more than just a terrible pandemic. We are living in a culture that former progressive radio talk show host Jay D. has always said is influenced by the rise of right wing talk radio. In many locations throughout Amerika if you stroll the radio dial you may run into Limbaugh or Hannity and their ilk on a slew of stations… at the same time!! Jay D. feels that the reality of Uber Rich right wing owned stations flooding our airwaves. along with the ending of the ‘ Fairness Doctrine’ ( whereupon rebuttals by the target of a radio host’s attacks is given air time on that same station), has signaled the end of the ‘ Good Old Days’ of balanced talk radio shows. Factor that with another sad reality of the Two Party/One Party System. That being one party, the Democrats, who would have been labeled ‘ Moderate Republicans’ in the ’60s and ’70s. The other party, as this title alludes to, is so far right that it reeks of Proto Fascism, or perhaps something even more frightening than that.
Philip A. Farruggio
May 2020