BENEATH THE CANOPY
The calm sky above the tree tops
is so blue, so happy!
Above the trees’ cryptic crowns
a waning moon shines beautiful and serene.
Beneath the sapphire sky,
silently mendicant childhood gently departs.
A songbird, we see, perched on a branch
sings sweetly of its joy!
Dear God, life is here today
simple and sincere; and,
the peace and love that’s here
comes from beneath the canopy.
What are you doing,
you who are reflections in each other’s eyes?
Embarking on life’s journey,
completing God’s circle of love - seven times.
Do you realize even yet, standing at the end of your youth,
just how wonderfully blessed you are?
Embarking on God’s holy equation,
the wonderful 1 x 1 (= 1) !
NOT IN VAIN
Sleep shines from your eyes, bright Heliobores that during dark days flower,
not in vain. And, phantasmal foliage
your skein hair castes radiant showers
of sparkling fireflies; illuminating the velvet darkness – not in vain.
Before the red wine dried on your lips,
I said, “Heart’s lips, where wisdom’s salt rests,
sweets of fun and wit will mix with your truthful satirical quips,
and, it will not be in vain.
Your mouth, the mountain spring where life begins,
a serene pool covers over the deep stream of tears beneath;
and Death shadows life, as every happily married couple surely knows;
but knows it not in vain!
God grant you a long and joyful life!
Not selfishly, I your loving husband prays;
a gentle rain, twilight stirrings, and solemn silences become garments rent by strife;
the hollow shell of bleak pre-emences, when transformed into funeral flowers on
a grave – aren’t experienced in vain.
Are you tortured, too, by cruel oppression; and, afflicted with the pain
of bondage, and burdened by bitter labor, whose only reward is preapproved joyless play? The cries and tears that other indogens have shed today, we repeat again &
again
oh heart, are not shed in vain!
Tonight, a vicious storm blew over the city visited by my wife and I.
Hurrying back to our rooms after dinner two large bodies, darkly outlined,
filled & blocked the doorway;
smiling & laughing, they stopped & asked us stupid contrived questions, to see if
we were hi.
Oh lily, oh rose, the tears that fall and flood my heart: they’re not in vain.
And John, though the heart inside you dies
hiding the iniquitous yoke of tyranny from curious eyes:
ah, not in vain your tears, not in vain your tortured pain:
it was all not needless – and, in vain!
A SIMPLE SONG
My poem’s are stripped of their raimament.
They’re not proud in their attire and finery;
they would build a barrier between you & me;
their rustle and ringing would create such a din, it would drown your gentle murmur.
My paltry poet’s pride expires before your presence.
O Source of poetry, I have sat at your feet.
Let me make a poem of my life, simple and serene;
and, fly like light illuminating your Truth, filling Heaven with beauty.
PUPA
The Sun expires, its corpse settles in a blazing pyre;
thick masses of foliage
the lurid and livid trees, hoarsely howl;
age enriches, as expectations fade away;
day resigns and evening pinions us
against the black coruscate background
partners in the adventurous aurora,
where I embark on an interminably long voyage;
evening shedding heat, dust and color,
as traffic thickens and cars gradually replace the trucks,
and people change clothes, tossing their discards carelessly in piles on the floor;
and, distilled sidewalks float languidly by,
in straight lines of empty symmetry
that teeter on the birth of something vague and intangible.
I lay fading, awake and watching,
bitter I disappear beneath a pyramid of experience
accumulated from the collective delusions of the preceding age
that presses and weighs me down, like a pressed flower between two pages,
reduced to a tincture on another reality, on another Earth;
and, the infinite mercy of Art,
Love, the pupa in me of you and of Death.
My grief bears new green buds,
but invisible hands bump against branches
and brush against curtains at open windows,
where people stare out at sadness
shut in their desolation,
and time stretches but never touches
that which leaves me gray, gnarled and stripped of my leaves.
In you I immerse myself: a cool respite
the cella in the architecture of my heart,
where I can gaze out of the rose fenestration of our love
at mankind’s infinite ignorance.
The Sun casts a last ray of light on the somber landscape
and the evening star raises into the deepening blue,
along the dark street naked footsteps sound in the indifferent night.
FOUR DOG NIGHT
The old man kept his dogs, four at last count,
in his slovenly bachelor apartment, just off Washington Park.
Shaking their heads, neighbors inquire
on seeing the old man’s dog digs,
saying, “Damnation, he’s got a screw loose
keeping so many dogs.”
Scotch and a nose red as a tomato,
his voice rasped rough and hoarse,
he, for no apparent reason
keeps Fido, Thor, Argus and Cerberus, and chaos,
with bacon grease and dog food buffets
the bowels are nightly scenes
of ravenous canines happily wolfing down dinner.
Town tales report that in years gone by
he strutted about, rooster sure and proud,
a popular jock,
he had more conquests than Don Juan, with blue flashing eyes,
lately he’s developed a beer paunch, a confirmed bachelor
who eccentrically prefers the company of dogs to son of a bitches.
Once we kids, on a dare, snuck over to the old man’s to spy
and there he was and there he was snoring in a living room steepled
with empty beer bottles. On a sofa, on the rug, on an easy chair
and under the dining room table the dog’s snoozed,
while the sports channel blared
among the comfortable clutter of bachelordom.
With nudges and whispers, we peered,
ready for a precipitous flight, through darkened panes
into darkened quarters, when a stentorian din
erupted from the guardian dogs
who surrounded their Jovian master,
and the yellow eyes and drooling fangs charged after the fast dwindling figures.
Look! There he goes the PacMan!
We smirked as he rambled down to the supermarket
to shop for his companies provisions,
more rotund and disheveled with each passing year;
“He’s gone daft, keeping company
with them durn dogs!”
But, now we’ve grown kinder with our own disappointments,
we see him watery eyed and alone
sadly looking at the young Achilles and Sir Lancelots on the playground
and distant young couples huddling timorously, oblivious under the shade of trees
to jests yet somehow sacred, as arrogant would be Romeos fain indifference
and studied nonchalance on nuptial nights: Doomed as a pack of wild dogs.
NO LONGER EMPTY ECHOES
Day dies in slow motion
with its death rattle imbedded
in the most solitary of solitudes.
Serpentine trees form jaded seas;
alluring breasts hold petrous hearts
cold prison to innocence.
Kind forests serve as willing refuge, far from resistance,
hard and crafty, my smoky magic, mild, helpful and happy;
and, remote from the destiny of calculating coquettes,
with their bleak path to future decadence.
Don’t we fear the custodians of skulls
who hunt with vicious seductions
and whose blind fingers grope the rocky darkness
populated by granite sculpted people searching for fools gold.
Days of toil unravel, where we’re almost blinded by infinite dirt,
and Easter egg’s black pearl nights and diamond afternoons
reflect rain’s redundancies of mental inbreeding.
One corpulent obelisk, a crystal blue dream matrix
to house the Earth’s teeming millions; spurned and persecuted,
we work diligently with words and other Arts, creating companionship
for our dreamers exiled cosmos,
home of fantasmagoric vegetation, and honorable heroes,
and a good and loving God.
Resurrected free on this gracious gift,
forgetting the lies of the wind scavanger
and forgiving their needless persecutions,
I cauterize the open wound that is today,
and float upward in the heavy fragrant smoke –
where I fly phoenix like with an ancient griffin.
As below laughing children search for the hidden Easter treasures
and delight in the dazzling Faberge displays
that decorate the enchanted emerald gardens,
we wisely resurrect Democracy’s Equality and Liberty,
while respecting our neighbors Civil Rights; and, our children are free
to grow into whatever they dare to dream, and are brave and strong enough to strive for.
A HAPPY LITTLE DITTY
Only you
have twin stars
instead of eyes,
eclipsed only by the radiant moon,
like ancient artifacts,
your possessions are holy
forever blessed
with eternal beauty.
Conscience constricts
as the door opens
to your high holy home
absorbing enigma, infinitely rich with life.
And the night opened
like a blossoming flower,
everyone floating off
in character on stage,
And there was a sense
of insects flitting
about a light, the soul
bracing itself to endure.
Here, the pain pure night
reflects in your eyes.
Here a procession of impressions
of beautiful objects overflows the eye.
The sacred ceremony of your embrace
pale luminous arms
and loins that separate
in a thousand mysterious butterflies.
The quiet murmur of people
settling down for the night,
most people are already asleep; but, me,
I lay awake in wonder, at how perfectly happy I am
HEY JOE
I’ve traveled all across America,
been to N.Y. and stayed among its cliff dwellers;
its spawned smaller copies across the continent.
I’ve been uplifted in Geometrically perfect rectangular shapes,
they’re the result of exploitation, generation after generation
of wage slaves falling exhausted on both of America’s shores.
Little copies of churches clone themselves
with extraordinary ease, generating a massive homogeneity.
Stylish Crucifixions dangle from affluent walls in dark rooms,
which are lit up once a week, committee work and social functions
conduct their business in plush offices and in obscure basements,
and Christ never climbs down from the cross…. so the gift shops
strategically located by the main entrances now must be ok.
The electronic media talks to everyman that is to say Noman,
which is just as well its steady diet of shoddy imitations of life –
means it says Nothing at all. And, serves as social models for poor ignorant souls.
who’re fodder for the exploitator’s creed, which was like manifest destiny
which had saved souls after their blood had fertilized the soil
fighting to the death the next tribe and group a skill which was learned and perfected
and one more blessing of civilization.
Syphilis and Small Pox were part of the better way of life,
For the few who remained, between Geronimo and Chief Joseph,
they were left with severe reservations. If fate assigns your corpse
to carrion and coyotes, its batter your murder be an ambitious dog soldier
for pay than a disgruntled vice ridden private citizen receiving corrupt bounties
from profoundly ignorant officers parading as sages.
Watch the Nightly News for how it really didn’t happen, and what we’re supposed to think. It functions as a distraction, while making corruption ok;
and, it helps facilitate the process where the slaves embrace the ruling master’s vices
and it helps make the next style of extremist’s bigotry fashionable.
Where ever you go it’s the same sad thing, everywhere stupidity and cruelty
come up and say, “Hello, here we are.”. Because, where ever you are, there you are.
STREET THEATRE
Class - A Dude
“My shaven head glistens like a polished globe, resembles a bowling ball;
my clothes are as clean as a Continental restaurant’s tablecloth,
and my sports jacket is no older this year
than the tailor made apparel of Warren Beatty.”
“Would anyone ever think, seeing my smart stride,
that starvation resides inside my stomach,
hurts more severely there – the torturer –
that shocks me like an electrocuted man in an electric chair?”
“Damn, if only from the vendor at the corner, where light falters,
a cooked sausage had slipped into the corner of my stylish hat
instead of these faded flowers.”
“Tonight, Broadway is, with its neon lights, as bright as a church!”
“Get out of the way Mack, the limo needs to unload its passengers!”
“Smell the fresh ground coffee from Starbucks?”
“Steaks cooked to perfection on our grill, at the sidewalk cafe!” “Listen, little one,
let me taste a French Fry dipped in your Prime Rib’s sauce.”
“Hey! Stop it thief! Your April Fools joke is a little out of season!”
“Look isn’t that Meg Ryan with Sean Connery? There are three pouches playing at her feet. She has lovely jewels for eyes, the young actress!
He has a nice tie pin, the dirty old man, he’s old enough to be her father!”
And, the Dude struts his stuff, hand poised on a hip,
rubbing shoulders with men of means and flirting discretely
with their ladies. He’s not enough money for a cup of coffee:
he bought a bouquet of petite bourgeois roses.
MOCKINGBIRD
All of the following are the opinion of the Mockingbird staff.
THE FALL ELECTION 2004
Mockingbird has been trying for the last few issues to develop a series of essays concerning contemporary forms of tyranny. This issue will be a digression into pragmatic considerations pertaining to the upcoming national election. It will develop the current Republican administration’s record. It will review their position on certain select representative issues, and where possible contrast them with their political opponents. It will attempt to develop and discuss, after each section, what the implications and ramifications of the Republican Party’s proposals and programs are. Finally, a concluding section will discus what the parties’ positions mean in terms of models of government. It is the earnest intent not to exaggerate and only editorialize in each issues concluding section. If there appears to be any negativity in the presentation, it is not the intent of the editor, but a candid and honest report of poor policies and performance can not help but be perceived as negative. The honest presentation of incompetence and greed always run the risk of appearing to be a biased exercise in political bashing. In an endeavor to be as truthful as humanly possible, within the limitations of the public information available, which is imposed in America by means of a massive propaganda machine, whose primary function is to shape public opinion along lines compatible with the factional interests which own the media, the editorial slant of this effort will be pro Democracy not necessarily pro Democratic. The saving grace, to the informational base on which our Democracy currently functions, is that the propaganda machine, while it misinforms the public in three fundamental ways (distortions, omissions and overt lies) must provide a base line of information adequate to enable the power elite’s executives and technocrats to make functional decisions, otherwise the factional interests of the right wing can not be effectively pursued. If information becomes totally divorced from reality, then the executives and technocrats who conduct the daily business of the ruling elite class becomes incompetent. It is in this narrow margin that truth must be sought and discerned.
It is the belief of Mockingbird that this administration was acquired by deceitful means. Roger Moore’s recent documentary centering on the Bush/Cheney administration points out some very disturbing facts in that regard. In spite of a close family relation erroneously stating that Bush had won the election on a major national news service, there is now conclusive evidence that Bush lost both the electoral and popular elections. And, if true the Republican dominated Supreme Court action that gave Bush the election should never have occurred, and could correctly be construed as an act of fraud.
THE REPUBLICAN RECORD ON THE ISSUES
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Once the Bush administration was established by fraud, it then proceeded to pursue policies personally advantageous to the factional interests of the right at the expense of the rest of the nation. The Republican administration started a war and invaded Afghanistan after the US was attacked by terrorists. A war which continues four years later, with our troops still supposedly fighting, at great public expense, the Taliban tribe! One tribe the Taliban has successfully fought and withstood the Worlds’ largest military. And, there is currently no end in sight, a prospect which costs the American tax payers tens of billion each year. Next, the Republican administration invaded Iraq for reasons never publicly disclosed. The reasons presented to the public were determined to be all false. America has already spent well over $87 billion, and are busy paying Republican supporters to rebuild an incredibly rich OPEC nation, so that other Republican supporters can receive the stolen Iraq oil revenues. This scenario, which leaves the Republican Bush administration open to charges of corruption, is being paid for by American taxpayers. Also, expensive new equipment was provided by the Republican Bush administration to the oil industry in Iraq for free, an industry which is currently making record profits paid for by the American public, which helped a third set of Republican supporters with direct business ties to VP Cheney, at great public expense. There was a third little war, where the US invaded and deposed another OPEC country’s government replacing it with one acceptable to the right wing, but it was so small a conflict and of such short duration that by comparison it hardly bares mentioning. But for those who are counting that represents three wars during the Republican Bush administration’s first term in office. Also, it resulted in the US becoming the largest debtor Nation in the World. Currently, the United States has become recognized throughout the World as the single largest threat to World peace. In the mean time the US was declared as being unsafe to terrorist attack after four years and three wars, in other words we fought for four years and accomplished nothing but failure.
In foreign affairs today, the war option is utilized as a policy instrument of last resort. The prohibitively vast expense associated with waging contemporary war means that belligerent nations, even if they win, rarely receive adequate compensation to cover the costs of waging war. The fact that the Republican Bush administration has gone to war three times means that they failed with all other attempts to implement foreign policy first, and they failed in all other attempts to implement foreign policy three separate times. This represents an uninterrupted record of failure and incompetence never before experienced by the United States, all at tremendous public expense. Because America is not safer now than when we started the Republican Bush administration’s policy of military adventurism, it must be concluded that we have fought three extremely expensive wars with nothing to show for it, but the largest national debt in the history of the World. And, the US is thought, around the World, to be the single largest threat to World peace, and resentment over our military aggression in the Middle-East has left the US as the biggest and most preferred target to international terrorism.
– The Republican Bush administration’s policy benefits the right wing factional interests by pumping billions into an otherwise obsolete industrial-military complex, at great public expense. Remember this kind of public expenditure if it doesn’t promote safety represents a form of corporate welfare for the industrial military; and it functions as a conduit from the American public to the right wing factional interests’ bank accounts. Profits in the hundreds of billions generate quite a large motive to establish a perceived (bogus/real) terrorist threat to extort government policies that in turn spend large sums of money in inefficient economic patterns that impoverish the nation and don’t benefit its citizens.
ECONOMY: The Republican’s economic record is as disastrous as its foreign policy. Under the Republican Bush administration we witnessed the single largest collapse in the history of the stock market, where many citizens lost 75% of their life’s savings. We have suffered through over 3 years of what many economists have called a depression. The recent staged recovery is just in time for the fall elections and is considered by many to be unsustainable. Many challenge whether it is possible to sustain an economic recovery and simultaneously make American labor markets competitive with the Third World, which the Republican record demonstrates they are committed to doing. The fact is that after four years America is in worse shape than they were over four years ago. And, even though depressions provide the prerequisite conditions for economic recovery the Republican Bush administration has prevented it, with its greed driven incompetence. A thoroughly deplorable performance, one characterized by mismanagement by the Republican Party and its Bush administration.
- The Republican Bush administration’s policy benefits the right wing factional interests. The obvious question is how does a depression benefit anyone, so why would anyone deliberately pursue policies which result in a depression. These are difficult questions that ultimately are beyond the scope of this essay. However, the fact remains the Republican Party has caused major depressions the last two times it has acquired the US Presidency, and controlled the US economy. The reason for this is that instead of pursuing policies beneficial to the country as a whole, the Republican Party pursues policies which exploit America for the benefit of a few, namely the factional interests of the right wing which currently controls the Republican Party. It has repeatedly advocated greater unfair tax cuts for (themselves) the rich to prime the economy, which has not worked for over three years and resulted in the World’s largest National Debt. Their stated reason was to fuel a recovery, but a few rich people can not spend enough on luxury goods to generate the wide spread economic recovery, which they keep claiming. And, the deleterious impact that the tax cuts that the fiscally irresponsible Republicans made had by increasing the National Debt impaired the US government’s ability to effectively utilize its fiscal and monetary tools to improve the economy. First, an example of Government’s fiscal tools being impaired is federal expenditures on infrastructure, when what government money is squandered away on the industrial-military which is corporate welfare and benefits only a rich few (have you ever seen anyone with a tank in their driveway) then there is no money for roads, bridges, and port facilities, which promotes commerce, provides jobs, relieves congestion and infuses money into local economies, which then travels around benefiting a community in a multiplier effect. Second, an example of monetary tool’s being impaired is the Fed interest rate, if you have a depression the thing to do is lower interest rates, which makes money cheap encouraging companies to borrow money to leverage business activities and in turn improves expectations which catalyzes economic growth. The Republican Bush administration has created the World’s largest Debt largely funding three wars which put money in the bank accounts of a few industrial military corporation owners, but forced up interest rates which functioned to dampen expectations and discouraged most other economic activity.
- Also, the establishment of a large National Debt provides the Republicans with a Republican Bush created pretence to claim that we no longer can afford Medicare and Social Security, and again proposing to the public the inferior Republican privatized plans, which benefit the right wing faction which owns the insurance companies and mutual funds, at great expense to all other Americans. Privatizing these essential programs stand to make up for the factional right wing’s short term loses due to the depression. A depression which has not been so devastating to factional interests of the right wing who have done rather well during the depression by elevating oil prices by over 100%, increasing insurance revenues by attacking and privatizing part of Medicare , and from profits derived from three Republican started wars.
- These profits create problems that undermine the rest of the economy, by forcing other sectors of the economy to shorten their economic planning in order to create competitive rates of return, which ultimately impair economic development. And, have helped create and sustain the depression.
- The Republican Bush administration’s anti labor position, which is committed to lowering labor costs to Third World levels, seriously injures consumer demand and private savings rates, which help fuel economic activity; and, it functions to further impair this countries’ economic performance, by impairing the US market, as a result of reducing 80% of the citizens’ standard of living to Third World levels. Losses the right wing factional interests are counting on compensating for by developing other countries at America’s expense.
- Increasing the US National Debt prevents the US from being free to follow any policies it chooses. Because, if the US attempts to follow policies the individuals who own the debt don’t like, then the debtors have the ability to demand their money, which would leave the US in an unsatisfactory position. The US would confront a series of untenable alternatives, like curtailing pursuing the appropriate policy, or, printing more money than prudent which would generate inflationary pressure to only mention two possibilities.
- The Democrat Party balanced the budget during the last administration, when it held the Presidency. Further, the Democrats eliminated the National Debt making the US debt free, a responsible position that it is still committed to following.
NATIONAL DEBT: The Republican Bush administration while starting and fighting three foreign wars decided to cut taxes for the rich. They cut taxes in spite of the fact that there were inadequate revenues to meet the pre-war US government’s expenses. Its tax cut was supposed to fuel an economic recovery. It failed to generate the Republican promised recovery, and resulted in the previously mentioned World’s largest National Debt. But, besides not working, the tax cut was unfair and only benefited the extremely rich, with what was left of the middle class and lower classes receiving almost no help what ever. Further, if they had truly desired to stimulate the American economy, the Republican Bush administration’s tax cut was incompetently designed. Finally, the tax cut prevented the effective utilization of the US government’s fiscal and monetary tools, which unfortunately resulted in a deepening and widening of what should have been a simple market correction and down turn in the business cycle being unnecessarily extended into over 3 years of economic depression.
The Republican Bush administration policy on National Debt benefits the factional interests of the right wing by increasing the rate of return on the National Debt, which generates more secure revenue for the investors in the government debt instruments during the period of increased instability. The World’s financial markets had recently experienced the worst crash in the history of those markets under Republican Bush administration’s supervision, and the US National Debt represented a guaranteed risk free and tax free source of income.
Rising interest rates tend to be accompanied by a general constriction of wealth, as weaker positioned participants are forced from more active forms of competition and into more passive subordinate economic profiles. The reduced competition results in companies trying to maximize their previous investments rates of returns which further slow the economy among other detrimental effects.
Please see ECONOMY section above for other factors that benefit the Republican right wing factional interests.
SOCIAL SECURITY: The Republican Bush administration has supported privatizing social security. This has been a treasured objective of the Republican Party since Pres. Clinton’s first administration, when the Republicans refused to fund the US government unless Medicare and Social Security were privatized; and, the Republicans had incredibly held the American government hostage from its own people, in an extortionist effort that failed. Since the failure of that ill conceived attempt, the Republican Party has attacked Social Security indirectly, in an attempt to escape from the inevitable negative political fallout that directly attacking the popular and essential entitlement programs would inevitably generate from the American people. However, the recent events on Wall Street have necessitated that the Republicans temporarily delay any attempts to privatize Social Security, as being politically inexpedient at present. Remember, Social Security has eliminated abject poverty among the voting elderly in America, it is a program that works and is immensely popular. It is a blessing for business, too; because, it provides business with a base line of guaranteed demand that helps provide a floor for down turns in the business cycle, and it helps stabilize the American economy functioning as a ballast, both are essential attributes to America’s economy; and, both features are conspicuous in their absence from the inferior Republican privatized plans, which offers no guaranteed return to senior citizens, no stability for the American economy and no stable level to arrest down turns in the business cycle. The only positive prospect the Republican privatized plans have offered is that it seems to guarantee a systematic increase in market values, with the annual infusion of retirement money; however, increases in price to stocks without a corresponding increase in real value is illusory and ultimately inflationary. Also, the persisting serious charges of systemic corruption, by no less than the head of the FED Greenspan among others, have resulted in a deserved widespread disaffection for a system that offers tremendous risks and no appreciable long term improvement over the current US social security system’s guaranteed return of just under 10%. And, finally, the event that shook the financial World to its foundations, when under the supervision of the Republican Bush administration, which stood helplessly by, while the largest single stock market crash occurred in the history of stock markets, where people lost up to 75% of their life’s savings in an instant, demonstrated to even the greed blinded Republicans the potential for disaster inherent in any privatized plan for Social Security. The consequence of the criticism and stock market crash is that the Republican Bush administration has had to delay and camouflage its plans to privatize the Social Security System, just like they did with Medicare, and attack it indirectly by means of accruing large sums of debt, temporarily lying low, and then eventually attempting to pass legislation that will erode its financial solvency, just like they have done with the other public entitlement, Medicare.
–The Republican Bush administration’s policy to privatize part of Social Security, with the publicly stated goal of eventually privatizing the entire program, is a policy which benefits only a wealthy few mutual fund owners of the factional right wing, at the expense of the vast majority of American citizens who would be exploited by the Republican program. It represents a regressive economic policy based on obsolete economic theory over 100 years old, which didn’t work then; and, the inadequacy of this economic theory to effectively mitigate negative economic features, like depressions, was the reason why Social Security and Keynesian economics were developed. The policy would result in expanding available labor, by eliminating retirement for large segments of America’s work force; and, when coupled with the Republican plan to make a significant portion of American Labor’s salaries competitive with Third World labor’s salaries, would result in scenarios where up to 80% of America’s work force would be seriously impacted. Consider the fact that now 50% of American workers retire after working hard all their lives without one concrete asset to show for it, with the erosion of American labor because of the Republican program to third world American labor markets that figure swells by approximately 30%. Under the Republican Bush plans many American workers would never receive any benefit from their money, because they could not afford to retire. Their money will not only be used for the duration of their lives as though it were the owners of the mutual funds, it will be divided into relatively small amounts among the worker’s survivors and passed on to the next generation, who in turn will save it in their retirement accounts in generation after generation of futile efforts to retire; which means it functionally becomes the factional right wing owners, who are supporting these Republican efforts to privatize US Social Security. Further, the mutual funds become the real owners (check your mutual funds by laws, the mutual fund owners can reinvest your investment money at will were ever they want whenever they want) by virtue of their control of the money invested in the mutual funds, the consequence of this is that control of significantly greater portions of American corporations is attained, and the true constriction of wealth in the United States is effectively camouflaged. Next, America will have their marginal labor negatively impacted by the infusion of large numbers of Senior citizen labor, who in spite of greater work experience will work at a reduced capacity than their younger counterparts. And, the negative impact on issues like a reduction in vocational opportunities for younger generations will become increasingly significant serving to reduce profits and slow progress, which will ultimately result in an aggregate diminution in people’s expectations. Finally, the Republican Bush administration’s plan to privatize Social Security, becomes another conduit between the American public’s pockets and the relatively few factional right wing owners’ private bank accounts.
MEDICARE: The Republican Bush administration is in favor of privatized health care. And, it is committed to bankrupting the current Medicare system. The recent Republican measures where voted for along party lines, without any Republicans dissenting, and is designed to take the relatively affluent and healthy people who can afford to pay into Medicare throughout their working lives and divert their money to the private insurance industry, leaving the poorer people, ethnic groups and the elderly, in short people who make poorer insurance risks, to drain the Medicare system. The obvious intent is to bankrupt the system, which eliminates it from competition and forces every one, who can afford it, into some form of private insurance. Under the Republican Bush plan there will be significant numbers who will not be able to afford private insurance. Further, many citizens wont be able to afford the increasingly expensive premiums and co-payments, and will be dropped from coverage in the near future, when they can’t afford the premiums; or, other people simply wont be able to seek out needed medical care, when they can’t afford to pay the co-payment for necessary medical attention. Thus, many citizens will end up paying premiums to the insurance companies for nothing. The overall effect of the Republican proposals is a private system that provides worse health for those who need it most. Under the Republican Bush privatization plans, America gets stuck with the most expensive system to operate in the World, a private system which results in worse health for 50% of its senior citizens, poor (including poor children) and chronically ill every three years. And, the Republican plan gives families and children the worst health care in the industrial world, with many Third World countries providing superior health care systems. The Republican Bush plan is the most unfair system in the World, and it continues to make the US only one of three counties in the industrial World to not have some form of universal health care.
A brief digression into how the doctor’s office work in the Republican Bush administrations privatization plan is helpful in understanding the nature of the problem. The insurance industry in order to survive the rigors of competition tries to maximize market share while optimizing profits in order to be competitive with other sectors of the economy like energy and the industrial military. The private insurance Companies biggest expense is labor, and of their labor costs the doctor is by far the most important factor. The insurance companies start beginning Doctors out with practices averaging between 2,000 and 3,000 patients, and then gives them about 15 minutes per patient per visit. Obviously the doctor is a perfect stranger to the majority of their patients, which compounds the complex problem that correct diagnosis which is the foundation of cost effective, capitol intensive, technological based health care. The problems are exacerbated when insurance companies’ non-medical management discourages testing patients, because it tends to erode profits. The other alternative and current favorite by the insurance industry is to charge the patients for tests conducted to determine their correct course of care. It is important to realize that insurance companies own most labs, buildings and pieces of capitol which conduct the tests, and this means that the bills charged to the patient do not reflect the costs to the insurance provider. The insurance companies’ recover some of their costs by portfolio investments and horizontal integration, which means that the insurance companies many times either own out right or own significant shares of the companies whose products they consume in the course of business and which represent major portions of their actual costs. This is a cursory look at the business side of privatized health care plans.
The Republican Bush administration’s privatization plans unfortunately generate many serious mistakes. Besides trying to meet the needs of many patients who can’t afford the essential diagnostic tests and who are part of those who receive worse health from the Republican system, the Republican supported private plan has generated 1,000,000 wrongful deaths in one year alone, which incidentally is the number of sick patients that they have refused to care for in a one year period of time. The insurance industry rather than try to improve its health care model, by hiring more doctors, providing more tests, and lengthening the average time for doctor patient consultations, they have repeatedly tried to strip the American public of the right of legal redress. They have tried to camouflage this effort as patients’ bill of rights, which became a bill of wrongs, and they have bribed patients into systems which offered perks like partial prescription relief in exchange for litigation restrictions, like they are currently doing to lure people away from Medicare. However, the most serious effort is currently being carried on at the state level where they pass bills in what is nothing less than a full scale nation wide campaign to cap law suite rewards under the two faced pretence of preventing doctors from leaving states because of high malpractice insurance premiums that stem from citizens receiving large rewards for damages received from law suites. The law suites wouldn’t be necessary if the Republican backed insurance companies’ private health care plans provided better health care rather than larger profits. The Republican Bush administration plan creates an inherent conflict of interests, with the insurance industry’s profits winning out over private citizens’ health.
The Republican Bush administration’s private plan has responded to all criticisms by stating that market competition will solve its problem. This ignores the fact that the private market has created the problems that the Republicans claim it will solve. The fact is that in health care related industries their have been a continuing reduction in competition. What has happened to Vaccination manufacturing is representative of the overall health care sector of the economy, where most of the time only one company will specialize in a single vaccination product, when only a few years ago dozens of companies competed to produce dozens of products. Today, most medical product markets are oligopoly supplied. The private health insurance companies which used to be regionalized have now in many instances become oligopoly markets at the national level, with some companies already internationalizing. Obviously this means that it is impossible for market competition to solve the health care problems it has created, as the Republican Bush administration has erroneously claimed.
– The Republican Bush private plan benefits the few factional right wing owners of insurance companies at the expense of all (under the previously discussed Republican plans to make American labor competitive with Third World labor which will be at least 80% of America’s population) the working poor, senior citizens and chronically ill. It provides adequate coverage for the healthy citizens who least need health insurance, but it will leave swelling numbers, either without insurance, or forced to pay premiums for health care that they can’t afford to use. Either way the American citizens loose and are again exploited. In what is fast becoming the largest insurance scam America has ever experienced. The Republican Bush administration has found another issue to pick the pockets of the public, while misusing the US government as a conduit to the private bank accounts of a few wealthy owners of the factional interest of the right wing.
– See SS
JOBS: In spite of a malingering depression and artificially elevated interest rates, the Republican Bush administration supported economic policies which resulted in the job flight of over 3.5 million high paying jobs to India alone. The jobs were good paying ones, like technocrat positions, many in engineering and computer programming. Further, the Republican Bush administration funded one feeble and grotesquely inadequate attempt at job training for adults, but it was seriously under funded and conducted while universities had more qualified students applying than it could educate. And, the new college graduates continued to be unemployed and underemployed. Also, no coordinated cooperative efforts were successfully being made to rejuvenate the economy, which as has been noted was experiencing an artificially protracted depression. And, during the same time period the Republican Bush administration did nothing to staunch the loss of an additional 2 million domestic jobs. What did occur was the recent few manufacturing jobs that were reinstated, jobs that used to be good paying, were filled with employees who were subsequently paid service sector salaries. The policy to Third World the American labor market guaranteed that any attempt toward a recovery would be superficial and short lived.
____The Republican Bush administration’s policy proposals were designed to sacrifice American labor to the right wing factional interest, which included peddling their influence abroad. The loses the factional interests were creating by eroding American worker’s historically solid salary structures were supposed to be compensated by gains coming from the developing Third World countries. These gains wont be forthcoming because of two mutually interacting factors: first, the primary market which was to generate demand for these exported jobs’ goods and services has remained recalcitrant, which isn’t surprising considering the extreme degree which the American market has been exploited and the extent that the depression was extended which is compounding the problem; and second, in an attempt to take full advantage of cheap foreign labor, the radical right motivated by greed has paid the foreign workers as little as possible, in countries where one salary is supposed to support an entire extended family, which doesn’t exactly create a ground swell of foreign demand for the US companies’ goods and services, their consumer purchase patterns still remain at levels only designed to meet basic human needs. The Republican’s have attacked and sacrificed American labor markets in an attempt to optimize factional right wing profits. The Republican policies pertaining to job flight and efforts to make American labor markets competitive with the Third World are nothing more than US government serving as a conduit between the American public and the right wing factional interests.
ENERGY: The Republican Bush administration has failed to develop a meaningful policy to contend with oil prices that have soared by over 100%. They have not moved to develop either short term strategies or long term strategies in an effort to minimize the negative effect of such huge increases on America’s economy. There are many short term programs that should have been developed. They have not encouraged conservation measures. They have not developed assistance programs for our Senior Citizens on fixed income, single working mothers and other American groups at risk. They have not effectively tried to curtail the oil cost increases by consuming government oil reserves. Nor has the Republican Bush administration effectively tried long term measures, too. They have not tried to encourage increased domestic production. They have not tried to switch to alternative energy sources. They have not intensified research and development in conservation and alternative sources of energy. They have not made sure of adequate production facilities. The consequence to the US economy has been repeated rounds of cost push inflation. An important contributing factor was the Republican Party’s efforts to privatize America’s energy grids, which sacrificed them to private concerns. It is a policy that has certainly backfired and exacerbated what has been a disastrous three year plus depression. In short the Republicans by not effectively employing any of the short term and long term measures in an effort to relieve America’s energy needs guarantees continued problems in this essential economic area. What the Republican Bush administration has done is to, like Nero, idly watch while energy transformed itself into a primary debilitating economic factor.
----The Republican Bush administration has pursued policies which have blatantly sacrificed America’s broad based public interests for narrow private factional
right wing ones. Republican policy serves to maximize energy company profits, which help the factional right wing compensate for their loses in other areas of the economy due to the depression. Again the Republican Bush administration is utilizing the US government, this time by doing nothing, which allows a sort of negative conduit that enriches the right wing factional interests, at great public expense, with privatized energy markets and inflationary generating oil price increases.
STANDARD OF LIVING: The Republican Bush administration has ignored the consumer price index. Also, it has not reported to the American public recent relative International standard of living reports. It follows that if the Republican Bush administration is committed to making American labor markets competitive with the third World, and consequently supposedly increasing their factional right wing supporter’s profits; then, the standard of living of those American citizens should reflect that fact, with the US showing a corresponding precipitous decline. Even if the full impact is disguised by a relatively few extremely rich individuals, the downward trend is overwhelming. For a true depiction of the plight of American workers and the decline of America’s standard of living, a study should be made class by class. The results would be startlingly deplorable.
-The Republican Bush administration’s callous disregard demonstrated by its failing to even recognize the issue let alone effectively address it, constitutes another example of using US government almost exclusively as a conduit for enriching the narrow factional interests of America’s right wing power elite.
HOUSING: Always a part of the American dream, the prospect of owning your own home is increasingly fast receding beyond the realistic prospects of significant numbers of American society. In the local real estate market finding a house for less than $200,000 is very challenging. The cost of renting homes is becoming prohibitive, too, with rents for houses soaring in excess of $1,000 and apartments going for correspondingly exorbitant rates. And, compounding the difficulties confronting the residential real estate markets, the eroding structure of US salaries that are increasingly diminishing, to make them competitive with the Third World will function to prevent individuals and families from generating enough personal savings for many people to purchase homes. Also, increasing interest rates will prevent many buyers from borrowing their way into the home owner markets, the prospect, under the Republican Bush administration, of realizing the American dream, and owning your own home, becomes increasingly bleak. The third factor is the rising cost of housing starts contractors wanting to realize the greatest returns possible are increasingly building top end houses, this coupled to the negative impact of cost push inflation raising materials and labor elevate prices and minimize market participants. All of these factors effectively function to discourage potential buyers from participating in the home owner market, which effectively functions as a brake on the American economy. And, finally, the Republican Party does not support public housing.
__ The Republican Bush administration’s policies which have benefited the right wing factional interests in other issues have combined to negatively effect American housing markets. Consider the following combination of factors; The Republican incompetent foreign policy, with its three wars, has increased the National Debt, which has driven up the Fed interest rates which negatively effects residential real estate sales; the Republican tax cuts for the wealthy few negatively effects the National Debt and increases the Fed interest rates, too, and consequently negatively effects domestic housing; the Republican Bush efforts to make American labor competitive with the third world minimizes savings and peoples ability to afford payments, both negatively influencing residential real estate sales; the Republican Bush policy supporting the oil industry’s price increases generate waves of cost push inflation, which act to dampen demand and slow housing starts; the Republican Bush policy not supporting public housing negatively effects the housing market, and the expense and lack of money available for housing loans and economic circumstances which minimize the number of people who qualify all negatively effect American residential real estate markets. The Republican Bush administration’s incompetent policies have combined together to inadvertently negatively effect American residential real estate markets. And once again confirms the fact that Republicans use government as a conduit from the public to the private accounts of a wealthy few.
FOOD: The rising cost of fuel, which has been supported by the Republican Bush administration, has resulted in waves of cost push inflation flooding America’s grocery stores. In addition, the Republican Party has consistently supported, over the last couple of decades, policies that resulted in a dramatic reduction of the number of distribution suppliers. Today, America’s food markets have fewer distributors and now almost all of them are affiliated with about a half a dozen national food distribution chains. Besides supporting the constriction of food distributors, until America’s food supplies are now oligopoly supplied, the Republican Party supports large agribusiness concerns, in their ongoing efforts to squeeze out of competition the smaller independent family farms. This results in reduced, hence more expensive, per acre yield farming practices and fewer growers supplying the nation’s food production needs, which in turn results in higher food prices at your local Supermarket store. This is done with a very low profile, because the Republican Party gets most of its local political support from rural America. If the family farmer learned of the Republican voting patterns and how the Republican’s have manipulated agricultural loans for the benefit of large agricultural concerns and to the direct detriment of the independent family farms, the Republican’s would find themselves a party with out a base of political power.
-The Republican Bush administration’s energy policies which benefit the wealthy at expense of the majority negatively effect their food bill because of the cost push inflation it unleashes among other things. Further, the Republican policy supporting large agribusiness will function, in the fullness of time, as another example of government serving as a conduit from the American public to the same wealthy few.
ENVIRONMENT (FDA/EPA): The Republican Bush administration has grossly under funded the FDA and the EPA. The staggering National deficits have left them claiming we can not afford to fully fund these important agencies. This decision was reached regardless of the fact that during the time frame in question the mad cow disease had stampeded across our borders. Further, the Republican Bush administration revoked all of the final increases in our national parks and public lands made during the last Democratic administration, and they have made no increases to national parks and public lands of their own during their time in office. And, as for the EPA the Republican Bush administration has retreated and reneged on every environmental protection policy gain made over the last 12 years. It is pro clear cutting old growth even on public lands, which is doubly vexatious to the environmentalist because these trees are milled outside the US and so don’t positively effect our economy to any great degree. Also, Republicans have recently championed strip mining on public grazing lands, too. And, the air quality has deteriorated to the point where we are re-interring the acid rain era, which afflicted us during previous Republican Presidencies and resulted in our being sued for damages by our Canadian neighbors. In Texas while Republican George Bush was governor, Houston became the most polluted city in North America. His lack of concern for our environment has not improved with time, as the Republican Party under his leadership has consistently voted against environmental measures.
_The Republican Bush policies are designed to theoretically minimize costs and increase profits. It blindly subscribes to the belief that to deregulate industries immediately increases profits by cutting expenses. The problem with the Republican position is that efforts to deregulate haven’t resulted in an increase in profits. Only, proving that simplistic, absolutist responses that over generalize don’t satisfactorily explain anything. What is obvious is that the Republican policies pertaining to the environment are an environmental disaster, which erodes the quality of life of the public. And, they are designed to take money from the American public and use the US government as a conduit to benefit a wealthy few owners of the factional right wing’s interests.
CONCLUSION
The Republican Bush administration has consistently pursued the same policy line on each issue. The policy line is to develop a plan that utilizes the US government for the exclusive benefit of the factional interests of the right wing. The policies pursued all had the same primary goal, to exploit the nation’s resources. And, usually the government’s primary function was as a conduit from the public to the private investments of the factional interests of America’s political right wing. On certain issues such as Energy, the Standard of Living, Housing and Food, The Republican Bush administration has deliberately not acted so that in other policy areas like Jobs, National Debt, Medicare and Social Security where the US government actively functions like a conduit from the American public to the factional right wings few wealthy owners, their greed driven policies can continue uninterrupted without any impairment. The results are the same on every issue. In another example, the Republican anti-abortion position cynically parades itself on the moral high ground, when in point of fact it merely helps generate a sustainable supply of cheap readily available labor, which will serve, if successful, to suppress wages and optimize profits, even if the majority of citizens standard of life deteriorates due to stresses caused by overpopulation. And, the Republican’s position on crime and public safety, where they claim to support tough measures; and, they back their claims with statistics that show the US has the greatest incarceration rate per capita in the World. But, the vast majority of the prisoners are classified as political prisoners one’s whose crimes do not involve any victims, which mean society is merely being condition to accept the oppressive tyranny of a privileged few, who has reshaped laws to reflect their bigoted bias, which is characteristic of tyrannies, rather than have laws function as they should protecting the rights, both personal and property, of societies’ citizens, which would promote the egalitarian characteristic inherent in Democracy. And, while its outside the domain of this essay, its interesting to note that Democracies champion equality and liberty, rather than subordinating people’s rights to the whim of tyranny. If the Republicans were serious about crime and public safety, they would pursue policies that improved a wider base of prosperity, like better education. It is a proven fact that with higher levels of education come greater levels of prosperity, which result in the safer and more stable communities that the Republicans claim to be after.
The Republican policies that were more extensively evaluated in this essay were remarkably singular, to the point of redundancy. And, this author began to feel it was riding a hobby horse, not of its own making. The central economic problem with regard to the Republican Bush administration making the US government an exclusive instrument to further the right wing interests is that exploiting resources impoverishes and exhausts them. This causes the Republican backed factional interests to expand their search for new and additional resources to exploit for its exclusive benefit. The consequence of the further exploitation is to increase the negative effects of the expanded exploitation, which are both broadened and intensified. This results in an economic pattern that is cumulative and circular, until it becomes a cumulative circular causatory spiral in a negative direction, which impairs economic development At a minimum it functions as a drag on the economy and exaggerates the negative effects of down turns in the business cycle.
The United States of America serves as a perfect case study in the second half of the twentieth century, which has been dominated by the Republican Party who held control of the White House over 60% of the time and dominated the Senate, with its important committee and subcommittee chairs that controlled the power of US government’s budgetary purse strings, almost always. The Democrats’ political base of support resided in the House of Representatives during that same time period. The departing speech of Eisenhower serves as our point of departure. It marked a fully developed industrial military, which functioned as a superstructure on the back of the US economy; but, it initially filled the legitimate functions of providing arms for the Korean police action and kept the US armed, while NATO got organized and the UN established.
This symbiotic economic relationship persisted on a positive base during the initial phases of the Cold War, it was only after the Kennedy military coup during the mid-60’s when the US was at its apex that the industrial military motivated by greed forced the US government into a Himalayan blunder – the Viet Nam War.
The Viet Nam War marked the point where right wing factional interests began in earnest its policies of exploitation, and they caused the US to diverted resources into ways which wantonly wasted them, and which created major perturbations in the American economy, and when combined with major OPEC price increases eventually resulted in stagflation. The US economy was placed on a war time base, and the US economy became poorer as a result of exploitive policies which misdirected and squandered valuable resources, and which in turn resulted in the US standard of living which had been preeminent to begin to crumble. And, thus the cumulative circular causitory spiral started, in its downward direction. The Cold War was foolishly extended another twelve years, due to corruption bought by the influence of the factional interests of the right wing. The Republican Party, which had recently been commandeered by the factional right wing and was being purged of all centrist and moderate elements under a puppet President a retired actor Ronald Reagan, then proceeded to go on a spending spree, which among other things replaced one obsolete navy with another and then proposed a star wars military spending program, which I guess would have made the US safe from Martians or ET. This occurred during the period of peace after the end of the Cold War, when beside a religious leader in Iran the US had no threat in the entire World, not exactly the kind of scenario to continue bloated American military budgets. It was at this point, when the US standard of living was sliding that a mistake occurred from the Republican point of view, a Democrat was elected, Pres. Clinton, who balanced the budget and generated an unprecedented period of prosperity extending for eight years, fought and won one war and eliminated the National Debt to only mention a few Democratic accomplishments. But, the right wing dominated Republicans were waiting, to defraud the American people.
The Republicans tried to extort the US government. It was during the Democratic controlled White House, when Republicans dominated both Houses of Congress that the Republicans tried to impeach the President, and extorted the American people by shutting down the US government and refusing to sign the funding measures that kept government functioning unless Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid were all privatized. They claimed that they wanted to down size government, but later events proved that they lied; because, they refused to reduce the size of the federal government, when eight years later the Republicans regained the Presidency and were provided with the opportunity; but, their actions showed what they really wanted was to transform government, by converting it into a conduit from the American people to (and for) the benefit of the wealthy few owners of the factional right who dominate the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is trying to expand their exploitation. The Republican Bush administration’s efforts to transform the US government into a conduit from the American public to a few wealthy factional interest right wing owners and the Republican Party’s repeated efforts to privatize Medicare and Social Security both represent efforts consistent with the injurious economic pattern the cumulative circular causatory spiral. And, under the Republican Bush administration with its four long years of wars, national debt and depression, the direction of the spiral is negative.
The Democratic Party provides a dramatic stark contrast to the Republican Party. The Democratic Party believes in sound economic policies that develop a healthy economic environment, and the Democrats believe in good models of government. The Democratic Party believes in the traditional core values that lie in the heart of Democracy. The Democrats champion an inclusive government by all the people. The consequence is that Democratic government policies instead of striving to exclusively further factional interests try to develop balanced policies that, while not giving any one group its complete way, tries its best to address everyone’s concerns, so that they all end up getting some of their concerns satisfactorily addressed. And, the Democrats by broadly approaching the issues tend to employ policies that develop the country, instead of exploiting the country’s resources for the exclusive benefit of a few narrow factional interests. The Democrats support meaningful campaign finance reform, because they realize that $300 million represents an attempt to buy the US government, and as with any investment the investors intend to optimize their rate of return, which means that the Republicans intend to follow the same exploitive policies that have recently proven so ruinous to our once great nation. The Democrats are in favor of public entitlements and will protect Social Security and Medicare, they understand the importance of programs that meet the needs of all of its citizens, for functional Democracies truly are by the people and for the people. The Democrats are for fiscal solvency, the Democrats want to eliminate the National Debt. A financially sound America is independent, it can guarantee that sufficient funds are available for a variety of programs, like educational opportunities for all of the deserving students who qualify, and not just some fortunate gifted ones or corrupt privileged few. In short the Democrats intend to carry on in the great tradition of western Democracies, and see that our most precious treasure, which is our collective heritage, continues intact, as our nation moves forward in the new century. A heritage based on freedom, equality and mutual respect for one another’s civil rights, including those we disapprove of and unpopular minorities. Our cultural heritage forms a most cherished legacy, one which has made America great, and the leader of the freedom loving World. It is a legacy in stark contrast to the Republicans with their subordination of everyone else to their passions, National Debt which financially impoverishes us and foreign policy that makes the US not the greatest nation in the World, but the World’s greatest perceived threat to World peace. In the fall election we as a nation will stand at a cross roads, and the American voters will determine which path our nation will take.
The fact that individuals use the US government to make money is not exactly the stuff of revelations. What is significant about the Republican Bush administration is the extent and degree of their efforts. The Republican Party, during the Bush administration, views the US government exclusively as a vehicle to make a small number of people extremely rich. These individuals are the owners of the factional right wing and who since the Republican Reagan puppet Presidency constitute America’s power elite. The US government has become for them a $300 million investment, and like all investments they want to maximize its rate of return. It has, in their hands, provided them with the means of exploiting America’s considerable resources, which of course includes its citizens. It is a process that has been gradually growing since the end of World War II. And, it has developed, under the stewardship of the Republican Party, until they’re experience with government is restricted to only their negative examples of bad government, ones that are systemically corrupt. After 50+ years it is all that they know of government. The people who Republican’s elect are like those who have advanced either in the Republican Party, or in the right wing factional business interests, and they do so not by serving the nation but by supporting and furthering that which advances the interests of the ruling factional right wing. It is an unfortunate fact that factional interests can only be furthered at the expense of a broad base of others, whose interests are injured; and, in the case of the right wing factional interests that broad base includes the rest of the United States. This exclusive process of advancement has continued in the Republican Party, until all other voices have been driven out. And, this has developed to the point where the Republican Party has PAC’s in each state, whose express purpose is to fund only candidates who are ideologically acceptable to them. If you do not subordinate to the party will, “their will”, then you do not get elected as a Republican. This fact is easily verified by the homogeneous voting record of the Republican Party in the US Congress. Unfortunately, this constitutes government by exclusion, and not the inclusive form of government that is essential for good models of Democracy.
What does this mean? It means that gradually and insidiously the Republican Party has transformed itself into a tyrant. And, the US is now suffering under the oppressive yoke of its tyranny. An examination of the Republican Bush administration’s position on the issues confronting America confirms this fact by virtue of the fact that every one of its responses serve to enrich the right wing’s factional interests. If one wishes to see if America manifests other social and political characteristics representative of tyranny, the reader is encouraged to peruse other issue’s essays.
The nation is at a cross roads. America’s fate literally is on the line in this critical election. And, the Republicans have many advantages, they hold the Presidency and so can manipulate events like catching a terrorist in a timely fashion, domestic violence campaigns can be employed in various critical districts, the right wing owns the media and their financial spending ratios are at critical proportions. But, the interesting thing about our species and our Democratic form of government is that they perform best when the situation is most bleak. I believe Americans will reaffirm their heritage and vote Democratic in the fall elections.