I CAN TELL YOU WHO
LOSTby Husayn Al-Kurdi
Halloween came one week late this year. A corporate-fascist
Democrat, an Oily Nazi born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a
consumer advocate pretending to "revive" a "democracy" that never existed
joined
in conducting an electoral charade whose formal outcome remains uncertain
as we go to press. Although we do not have a declared winner, I can tell you
who
lost. We, the American people, and the people of the world, lost.The plutocracy selects, the beguiled voters elect and the most
powerful and dangerous entity in known history is "confirmed" and thus
certified
as the system of choice. Every four years, we collectively practice falling
off
the turnip truck, pleasing our overlords and confirming their uncontested
hegemony. Just as I can tell you who lost, I can identify the usual winners &
#8212;
those who have owned and operated the country for over 200 years.The distribution of membership in socio-economic classes has
been a constant. In 1953, a study published by the University of Chicago
assessed the class situation in the following terms:upper-upper
1.4%
lower-upper
1.6%
upper-middle
10%
lower-middle
28%
upper-lower
33%
lower-lower
25%(source: M. Lloyd
Warner,
American Life:
Dream and Reality,
University of Chicago, 1953)Note that 86% of the population are in the "lower-middle" down
to "lower-lower" category. The picture hasn’t changed much since then,
or since
1776.As exemplified by the Bush Pit Vipers, the Clintons and Gores,
et al., a Criminal Lawyer Politician (I repeat myself) Managerial Elite runs
the
political circus on behalf of itself and its sponsors.Muckraker Lincoln Steffens summarized the situation over a
century ago when he declared, "That’s the system. It’s an
organization of social
treason, and the political boss is the chief traitor". Our "society" is run
by
its worst elements, as described by poet E.E. Cummings: "A politician is an
arse
upon which everyone has sat except a man".Although Nader is a reformist who seeks to make the system more
palatable as opposed to uprooting it, he did accurately describe the two
principal contestants for captain of the Titanic. We had the spectacle of a
"Giant corporation running for president, disguised as a person" vs. a
"Fork-tongued, Pinocchio-nosed certified political coward". Actually, the
terms
are interchangeable, with both Gore and Bush filling either description.Nader’s explicit goal was to gain 5% of the vote, get federal
matching funds and turn the Greens into a "disciplinary watch-dog" on the
Republicrats. He is undeniably pro-capitalism. His "consumer interest group"
approach is part and parcel of the panoply of pseudo-"Alternatives" paraded
by
the Establishment to stultify popular aspirations. As Nader-hanger-on and
erstwhile "progressive" figure Jim Hightower put it, "We better be building
something new or these people are going to be in serious rebellion". Of
course,
Hightower hopes that "This ends up in the Democratic Party".Nader confirmed his system-enhancing thrust in Harper’s
(September 2000):"Change invariably begins with people whom the defenders of the
status quo denounce as agitators, communists, hippies, weirdoes. And then, 10
or
20 years later, after the changes have taken place, the Chamber of Commerce
discovers that everybody’s profits have improved". The capitalist
"bottom line"
herein invoked is the very "principle" to be done away with as the practical
basis for what currently passes itself off as "society".The Socialist Party Platform of 1912 describes a situation
similar to our own, in which, "Under this system the industrial equipment of
the
nation has passed into the absolute control of a plutocracy", with
"multitudes
of unemployed" (we have up to 10 million homeless persons and many millions
who
are out of work but not "officially" unemployed) and "Republican and Democrat
Parties reminding the faithful servants of the oppressors". Similar
complaints
echo through our history, from the "Anti-Federalists" of the aborted
Revolution
of 1776 to a variety of populist and popular insurgencies spanning over over
the
past century. Whether at the birth of America, my father’s birth year
(1912),
the period when I was growing up (the 1950s) or the present day, the
configuration of power and the system for which it stands has been a constant
given. It has given us the world war, mass murder, brutal exploitation and
insufferable oppression.As stated by Frederick T. Martin in Matthew Josephson’s The
Robber Barons (1934):"It matters not one iota which political party is in power, or
what President holds the reins of office. We are not politicians or public
thinkers; we are the rich, we own America; we got it God knows how; but we
intend to keep it if we can . . .".Two metaphors come to mind. One is that conjured up by Ace
Hayes elsewhere in this issue — that of scorpions in a bottle: We the
people
stinging each other on command. The other involves a scenario in which they
rattle our cage once too often, causing enough people to see the enemy
clearly
enough to start vanquishing it.
Husayn Al-Kurdi is Editor of the Portland Free
Press.Title:
I Can Tell You Who Lost
Format:
Op-ed
Release Date:
November 24,
2000
Contact:
Husayn
Al-Kurdi
ph: 503/625-7692
fax:
503/625-6150
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
