"This is the most affluent nation the world has ever known. This nation - our nation - has a food producing capacity unrivaled in the history of the world. Yet, in the midst of our great affluence, children - American children - go hungry, some to the point that their minds and bodies are damaged beyond repair", Robert Kennedy spoke these words 28 years ago.

The very same is true for America today. Perhaps even worse. Recent statistics estimate that about one-fourth of the children living in the United States live in extreme poverty. Scientists say in 20 years the suffering will be huge here if this society continues at its present course. The enormous crime we are witnessing already is a result of poverty and despair. The social structure of an American capitalist society causes a host of social ills. The whole American capitalist system is brutal. It has created the rampant poverty of today. The welfare and justice of people are being sacrificed to the liberty of greedy corporations. Measured by per capita wealth, the US is now the richest country in the world. Judged by the percentage of its citizens who live in hopeless poverty, however, America is the worst on the list of developed countries. The United States has become the most economically stratified of the industrial nations. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That truism, is an accurate description of what has been happening in the United States in recent years. And the only remedy is to overthrow it and establish a true social-democracy of people, that would mean moving from a competitive society to a cooperative one.

The point is that there is no democracy today at all in America. The people do not rule. Power and wealth has gone away from ordinary people and is now in the hands of the very few, and the few are using that power and wealth to enrich themselves, ignoring the needs of the vast majority of working people. That is why so few Americans vote in elections - because they no longer feel that their government works for them, but rather, for the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. Elections in America are a scam, they are entirely dominated by big money. Both, Democratic and Republican parties are the representatives of big businesses whose lobbyists buy their votes for the highest price. Under the present election system US citizens do not have the freedom to make a real choice of political leadership. In this exploitative society single-seat elections tend to create two dominant parties in order to impress upon the exploited. The illusion of choice at the ballot box. The lesser of two evils has become the formula that Americans employ to elect their servants. Americans vote in such small numbers not just because they are apathetic, but also because the concerns of the public are never articulated by the politicians. So, voters are sick of having the so-called freedom to elect the lesser of two evils , and no other alternative exists.

There also is the financial aspect of the elections. Money not only talks in America, it rules. The candidate with the most money wins. Money buys elections. Politicians get money from big businesses, which demands in return a politician s allegiance to corporate status quo interests. Any change is impossible as long as politicians are responsible of private instead of public interests. The act of voting is worse than useless if business elites decide who will run and who will win. This is precisely why wealthy Americans vote and the poor do not. The wealthy are capable of affecting election outcomes with the money they spend to buy politicians.

Only 38 percent of the qualified US citizens voted in 1994 election, and only 52% of those who voted, a mere 12% of those eligible to vote, voted for Republican candidates. Now Republican Party claims to have won a mandate for massive change. With that so-called mandate , the Republicans in US Congress are now making legislation which, if enacted, would cause intense pain and suffering for tens of millions of Americans. At a time when the gap between the rich and poor is growing wider and wider, when the United States already has the most unequal distribution of wealth in the industrialized world, when at least 5 million American children go hungry, the mean-spirited Republicans proposes lowering taxes on the wealthy and cutting back severely on programs needed by the poor, the elderly, and especially children. There is no doubt that the Republican Party of the United States is the single worst and most dangerous terrorist organization in the world today. But, on the other hand, if Republicans openly represent evil, Democrats represent slick hypocrisy. And well-established republicrat monopoly of power keeps status quo for this system, based on oppression, exploitation and fundamental injustice.

However it may be, Americans have only themselves to blame for what they now have. When only 30 or so percent of eligible voters nationwide bother to vote, it enables a motivated minority of as little as 20 percent of the country s population to set the agenda. It means that small percentage of mean-spirited people can unleash the disaster, which is now being called the "republican revolution"...

It seems that Americans are fundamentally passive and unrevolutionary citizens. So many people here simply prefer to stick their heads in the sand. Too few Americans think in terms of class structure. But they should. It s their life and the life of the society in which they live. How to free the slave who believes his chains to be part of the natural order...