Jim Hightower
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 basic 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 "Election 2000: 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:
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 than 90 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 of our 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.
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 GlobalGoliath 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 suckerwrappers 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 . . . everyone. Yet this avaricious and destructive re-ordering of
America’s economic structure is being done with no public discussion, much less
a challenge. Instead of Teddy Roosevelt or "Fighting Bob" Lafollette,
we get Al and George taking millions of campaign dollars from the merging barons
and, like the monkeys, seeing, hearing, and speaking no evil.
Globaloney
Corporate
globalization is nothing but Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economics writ
large-if we simply unleash the Great Stallions of Global Corporate Power, we’re
told, then By Gipper, these beneficent beasts will naturally produce enormous
wealth, put a Lexus in every peasant’s garage, cause every brutish and bloody
dictatorship to dissolve into utopian democracies, cure genital herpes,
eliminate halitosis worldwide, and let everyone have a Nike swoosh on their
clothing. Only it hasn’t quite worked out this way. Instead, the U.S. has lost
hundreds of thousands of good jobs, as our corporate stallions have stampeded to
poverty-stricken nations to take advantage of powerless and dirt-cheap labor;
the joint-ventures that GM, GE, Boeing, and all the rest form with the ruling
regimes of these impoverished lands further enrich the regimes, giving them the
global coin they need to keep their people impoverished and powerless; the
secret, autocratic, corporate controlled tribunals set up by NAFTA and the WTO
to enforce this global rapaciousness have been empowered, without our knowledge
or consent, to over-rule our national, state, and local laws, thereby stealing
our most fundamental right: self-government. Neither Gore nor Bush will question
this outrage. Au contraire, Bubba, both worship at the holy alter of globaloney
and insist on staying the course-a course paved with the golden bricks of their
campaign funders.
America’s
Freaking Drug War
It
doesn’t get much more stupid than this political boondoggle that wastes $50
billion of our tax money each year, that imprisons half-a-million of our
citizens for nothing but simple possession or low-level dealing, that allows
police at all levels to seize the private property (cars, homes, cash,
tupperware, everything) of even innocent citizens, that results in
unconstitutional profiling and searches of innocent citizens, that prevents U.S.
farmers from being able to grow profitable and environmentally-sound fields of
industrial hemp, that has our military spending nearly a billion bucks a year to
intervene (on the wrong side) in a civil war in Colombia . . . and et cetera ad
nauseum. Democrat Gore has not piped up in opposition to any of these
absurdities, and Republican Bush says he wants to get more repressive and spend
more on such madness, so the presidential "debate" will ignore a
failed drug policy that is doing deep damage to our people, our constitution,
and what’s left of the government’s credibility.
Tax
Reform
Even
though the corporate media is highlighting tax cuts as a "BIG"
difference between the two dominant-party candidates, their plans are like the
difference between Bud Lite and Miller Lite-weak beer all around. Both talk only
about federal income taxes, deliberately diverting any public attention from the
tax that most burdens the majority of working Americans: the payroll tax. This
takes 7 1/2 percent of the income of anyone making up to $76,000 a year (15% if
you’re self-employed). If you make more than this-even if like Bill Gates and
others you make millions more than this each year-you’re still taxed only on
your first $76,000 in income. Why should 100% of a working stiff’s income be
taxed, but only 1% of Gates’ income take a hit? Why not start the payroll tax at
$78,000, rather than capping it there, thus freeing working families from these
regressive taxes and putting the burden on the most privileged citizens? Now
there’s a real tax-cut debate! Other possibilities are an international
currency-exchange tax on corporations and speculators, and a transactions tax on
all short-term stock sales, thus taxing speculation and allowing a zeroing-out
of income tax on the labor of people making, say, less than $30,000 a year,
which is about half of Americans. Another good debate could be had over a
pollution and natural resources tax, applying a progressive rate that climbs
according to the amount of pollution you cause and the resources you consume.
But these ideas would require a boldness and ingenuity that cannot come from two
candidates shackled to the very moneyed interests that profit from today’s
regressive tax policies, leaving the candidates to think small and pick nits.
Universal
Health Care
This
was the big issue of ’92 for Clinton-Gore, who decried the fact that 38 million
Americans lacked any medical coverage at all. Seven years of Clinton-Gore later,
44.3 million Americans are uncovered. This time, Gore is a health-care
minimalist, offering a plan that possibly, maybe,
might-could-but-don’t-hold-me-to-it cover about one-eighth of the citizens in
need. Bush wouldn’t go so far. Missing entirely is the debate we ultimately must
have, which is to create an American version of Canada’s single-payer system-the
only way to provide health care for all, cut costs, and improve both service and
health. Big surprise: Both parties are butt deep in campaign funds from HMOs and
insurance giants, the profiteers that would be the only losers in a single-payer
plan.
Stopping
the Money Corruption of Politics and Government
Gore
and bush are shameless poseurs on the reform issue, cynically prancing on the
far edges of reform, while neither they nor their parties want even the modest
changes they’re willing to talk about. Both are locked onto the matter of
"soft money," the unlimited millions that corporations and unions give
to the political parties (though overwhelmingly it’s corporate cash that plays
in the soft money game). Gore would outlaw soft money, and Bush would outlaw it
for corporations and unions, but allow CEOs, fat cat investors, and other
individuals to continue pumping millions through the soft-money loophole. Not a
whisper do we get from these two reform frauds on public financing of all
elections, which is the one way we finally could get the corrupting private
money out of the process. If you want public policy to reflect genuine public
interest, rather than private interests, we’ve got to fund the democratic
process publicly, rather than privately. Doing this closes all loopholes for
special-interest money, but it does something else that might be even more
important-it allows regular people to run for office again, since a teacher,
small farmer, retail clerk, cab driver, or whomever could get access to the same
pool of public campaign funds that incumbents and the elites would have.
Already, Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont have passed state laws for
public financing, while Connecticut, Missouri, and Oregon will vote on it this
year. Why not a national debate?
The
good news is that GoreBush can run, but they can’t hide from these issues. Among
other legitimate third-party candidates who will be actively raising some of
them, Ralph Nader already is on the hustings talking about all of these and more
as he campaigns for the Green Party presidential nomination. Ralph will be a
contender-he will have been in all 50 states by June 1, he will raise at least
$5 million to finance a grassroots campaign, he and his volunteers will qualify
the Greens for the ballot in 40 to 50 states, he has an experienced political
staff on the job (campaign manager, field director, fund raiser, press aide,
scheduler, web master, et al), he has top legal minds already working to put him
into this fall’s debates with Gore and Bush . . . and he’s going to go right
into the face of power as only Ralph can do, rallying disaffected voters and the
young, filling in what’s been missing in Campaign 2000. I’m excited about his
run, and meanwhile, check out his web site: www.votenader.com.
WHY
AL AND GEORGE SING IN PERFECT HARMONY FROM THE CORPORATE SONGBOOK 66
Corporations That Have Put At Least $50,000 Into Both Gore and Bush
AT&T
Philip
Morris
Amer
Financial Group
Microsoft
Atlantic
Richfield Co.
SBC
Communications
Enron
Mirage
Resorts
Federal
Express
Citigroup
Amer
Airlines
Bell
Atlantic
Anheuser-Busch
Limited
Inc.
Pfizer
Rite
Aid
Schering-Plough
BellSouth
Joseph
E. Seagram & Sons
Bristol-Myers
Squibb
Union
Pacific
Blue
Cross & Blue
Shield
MBNA
Corp
America
Online
Amer
Intl Group
MCI
Worldcom
Ernst
& Young
Circus
Circus
Enterprises
Sprint
AFLAC
Time
Warner
Boeing
Prudential
Insurance
Ocean
Spray Cranberries
Paine
Webber
MGM
Grand
Archer
Daniels Midland
Walt
Disney
Coca-Cola
Flo-Sun
Sugar Co.
Lockheed
Martin
Intl.
Game Technology
United
Airlines
Oracle
Exxon
Mobil
United
Technologies
US
West
Pacific
Gas & Electric
Upjohn
Owens
Corning
Chevron
Park
Place
Entertainment
Bacardi
Martini USA
Boston
Capital Partners
Eli
Lilly & Co.
Georgia-Pacific
Amer
Home Products
Amer
Express
Bechtel
Group
Loews
Corp
Sunoco
General
Electric
Northern
Telecom
General
Dynamics
New
York Life Insurance
United
HealthCare