Well, there we have it: Gore-Bush. Dull versus dullard. The political establishments of the two-party duopoly successfully rose up to surround, defend, and shove forward their chosen ones, both girded with tens of millions of dollars from the exact same sources of corrupt corporate money.
This means that the kitchen-table issues that actually matter to us will not even be on the table for discussion, since the money masters of the GoreBush travelling medicine show have decreed that their candidates must not disturb the populace with any questioning of the conventional wisdom and corporate order. Instead, Gore and Bush offer "Election2000: A Space Odyssey"¯completely out of touch with the real life of our country's workaday majority. Here are a few examples of what the Democrat and Republican will NOT be discussing:
#1: The Mugging of the Middle Class
Al and George are in perfect harmony on the prosperity theme, with each assuring voters that they will dutifully extend America's razzle-dazzle, Wall Street-driven economic"Boom"! Both are, totally tone deaf to the chorus of America's majority asking: A boom for whom? Real wages are lower today than when Nixon was president. Eight-out-of-ten families have seen their incomes go flat or go down in this period of so-called prosperity. More than90 percent of the gains in stock wealth have gone to the wealthiest 10 percent of families. Farm bankruptcies, corporate downsizings, and family debt are setting new records. Why is this gritty reality not being raised¯at least by the "Democrat"?
Rather than reaching out to the middle class, Gore and Bush are in agreement to continue the mugging¯both support tax and trade programs that subsidize more downsizings and exporting of U.S. jobs, both favor using immigration policy to allow high-tech companies to import cheap computer engineers and programmers to take the majority ofour high-tech jobs and undercut the salary scale for the whole industry, and both fawn over Alan Greenspan, favoring his reappointment as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, from whence he pursues a relentless policy of depressing wages.
#2: Return of the Robber Barons
In a greed-grab more feverish than a gold rush, every industry in our country is being consolidated, concentrated, and conglomerated by huge corporations merging with each other to form entities with names like Global Goliath Megahugecorp, Inc. The bottom-line is a rapid shrinking of competition and a radical rise in monopoly power affecting our jobs, health care, the news we're fed, and much, much more.
The CEOs, with wide, toothy grins, rationalize their mergers in terms of "consumer benefits." Do we look like we have sucker wrappers around our heads? Is your bank a better place, is your cable-tv bill lower, is your medical care better, is your air travel friendlier, is the nightly news any newsier . .. as the result of these rampant consolidations?
A handful of corporate and investor elites enjoy a golden windfall from the mergers; everyone else loses¯workers, consumers, taxpayers, small businesses, communities, small shareholders . ... [ read more ]
After casting her ballot for Barack Obama, Amanda Jones said simply, "I feel good about voting for him." Ms. Jones, of Cedar Creek, Texas (a town just south of Austin), is African-American, and what gives her vote some historic punch is that she's 109 years old. Her father was a slave. Her mother was born right after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. She's been through it all--Jim Crow segregation, women's suffrage, the Great Depression, the poll tax, FDR, the civil-rights movement, desegregation, 13 years of George W (five as guv, eight as prez), and now: Barack Obama. This last change fills her with joy, she says.
