American Politics – Pepsi or Coke?
Believe it or not, I once spent a bizarre twenty minutes or so in a diner listening to two teenage girls arguing the respective merits of Pepsi and Coke. Each perfect little consumer-chick swore allegiance to her chosen brand and sniffily dissed the other. They even got quite heated over it, as folks are wont to when grappling with the great intellectual questions that bedevil our age. Pepsi or Coke, Eh ? Who’d of thought it ? To one with a less discerning palate (or less susceptible to bullshit) such as your humble correspondent Joe Hack , they’re both just brown’ish fizzy drinks, similarly laden with the caffeine-drug and some good ‘ol tooth-rotting sugar . But then again, I thought, maybe it wasn’t so comical after all. I mean, these are the same weird people who grow up to argue with as much heat, and just as little justification, that theres a genuine difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. You couldn’t make stuff like this up.
To listen to the vicious war of words that always breaks out come election time you’d be forgiven for thinking some mighty big principles were at stake, some genuine divide between right and left, some real choice between capitalism and a socialist alternative, or between ’small’ government or ”big’ government, or whether the country is run for the benefit of the few or the many. But is that so ? Is it hell ! To people in America the dirty, bitch-slapping, slug-fest that passes for electioneering may seem to be about big differences but to any objective observer looking in from outside thats just plain, unadulterated rubbish ! By any normal political standards, you can’t pass a cigarette paper between the two big parties. The great American political debate is being fought out by pygmies dancing on the head of a pin, squabbling over the same tiny inch of right-of-center ground. Both parties, Republicans and Democrats, believe in almost exactly the same things. You think not ? Ok, well does either one offer a radical alernative to the status quo ? Of course not. Whichever party controls the country, you know that things always stay pretty much the same. The agenda of no-change is largely dictated by the big business interests that control the politicians. Did you really think it was any other way ? Oh come on ….
Perhaps you think I’m being too cynical ? Well ask yourself this. In this great democracy where is the poor but honest presidential candidate whose pockets are empty but whose heart is pure ? Answer.. he’s out scrabbling around for at least $30 million if he’s to have even a remote shot at ever becoming president, which means that unless the good fairy turns his pumpkins into gold bullion, he will have to put himself into hock to big business interests who will undoubtedly expect a payback in some form or other after he’s elected. Have we all observed this very thing happening recently folks ? The post-presidential election payback to big business, I mean ? Oh, I think we have. And whichever party a compromised, bought-and-paid-for president represents, will it really make any difference to you or yours ? Of course not. Will you be offered a genuinely more liberal or socially conscious alternative by either party ? Will you see any real change in the way society is structured so that the colossal wealth of the richest nation on earth begins to be used for the benefit of the majority of the people who live in it ? Free access to health care for all ? Better welfare and pension plans for old age ? Higher minimum wages ? Better schools ? A genuine commitment to fight climate change ? A promise to stop meddling in foreign countries and to start addressing the real problems at home ? A genuine undertaking to finally introduce sane gun laws ? The banishing of big business interests and its sleazy paid lobbyists from the corridors of power ? All of the other things that would make the USA stronger and happier and more at ease with itself ? All of the things that would make it more respected in the wider world ? Do you think you’ll be given the chance to vote for any of that ? Hell no, buddy .. dream on. It’ll never happen with the present system where self-interest perpetuates self-interest.
Sure there are sometimes temporary aberrations in this cosy little club, as when Bush and the loony-toon neo-cons got delusions of invincibility and started throwing their weight around in the world, trashing constitutional freedoms at home, and trying to turn the USA into a police state, but we all know that those neo-crazies are already dead-men walking and after the next election you can bet that shell-shocked politicians in all parties will be scrambling back to the safe right-of-center concensus so they can return to business as usual. However heated and bitter the next election gets, however many millions of dollars that could be spent on doing real good they waste on infantile, vicious TV campaign adverts, you have to remember that its all just candy-floss. Its theatre. An elaborate entertainment put on to con you, the voter, and fool you into thinking you enjoy something called democracy. No big conspiracy, though, just a lot of trusting folks and some sleazy politicians pulling together as if by instinct towards that same old trough.
Does it have to be this way ? Well no. In France they recently had a national election where there was a genuine choice for the voters between a right-of-centre conservative moderniser and a traditional left-of-center socialist. The voters knew the result would fundamentally change the way the country was run, one way or the other, so they turned out to vote in record numbers. In some other european countries too (with the exception of the UK which has sadly followed the US model of two indistinguishable right-of-center parties) there is still a real battle of ideas comes election time between different political philosophies. I’m not saying any system is perfect. Far from it, but at least in some places you still get a genuine choice. Its up to you which way you go, right or left, and thats what democracy is all about. For democracy to flourish there must be a real contest of ideas and a genuine choice for the voters. Not just an illusion of choice. Of course it is perfectly possible to reclaim democracy in the USA. You just take the money and big-business interests out of politics, deny undue influence to the special interest groups and media moguls, regulate the electioneering process to ensure equality of exposure and spending for all candidates, and insist on a genuine, honourable contest between different political visions for the betterment of the country. You demand a system where ideas talk louder than money. Its not rocket science, is it ? But its not in the interests of self-serving politicians to make that happen, so I guess it won’t.
Sure you *could* have the democracy that the founding fathers dreamed of all those years ago, but you won’t. Not here in the good old US of A. Here, my friends, you’ll only get a choice between Pepsi and Coke .. so enjoy ..
Bookmarking is the bomb 
Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation’s wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government.
The government’s about-face goes beyond the banking industry. It is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were unthinkable in the era of market-knows-best thinking. With the recent takeovers of major lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the bailout of AIG, the U.S. government is now effectively responsible for providing home mortgages and life insurance to tens of millions of Americans. Many economists are asking whether it remains a free market if the government is so deeply enmeshed in the financial system.