The last refuge of the Bush supporters, their so far unbroken credo of faith, is
that the federal government, for that matter -- any government, is the most
efficient then when it does not gather taxes at all. But then again, it can
hardly exist on such a premise and such a definition of efficiency. Hearing this
argument from the Bush supporters repeatedly, the following questions pop up
into my head immediately – do we need the government at all, who are we and who
are they, and why then do they seek to take control over the government?
After an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the present Democratic
executive branch of federal government, the Californians, who gave the country
Ronald Reagan, are called to deliberate upon a new chief executive for the
United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending
in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the federal bureaucracy
and the efficiency of its parts, which are the piers of the destiny of our
empire.
It has been frequently remarked in the liberal media that it seems to have been
reserved to the middle class to decide the important question, whether our
society is really capable of establishing an efficient central government from
reflection and choice, or whether our fate is to depend on accident and money in
our political decisions. Particularly now, when Hollywood (Spielberg, Douglas,
and Co.) is eagerly promoting the notion that "greed is good" and they are not
hypocrites if they openly demonstrate their greed or prostitution, as in the
case of that multi-millionaire of San-Diego who chose his wife among 50 women
that paraded their legs in front of him and TV-cameras.
They want to say to us that if it is selling your body for millions or stealing
millions of dollars from the middle class, then it is OK and it is not
prostitution or theft but respectable marriage and business practices. However,
if a working woman will ask a man for 50 bucks for her service on 42nd Street in
New York, then it is prostitution… because it was done not so "openly" as in
Hollywood. That is when Orwell’s 1984 becomes reality and we can no longer
discern good from evil and liberty from slavery.
If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we have arrived may be
regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made. And a wrong election
of the part may deserve to be considered the general misfortune of our people
and the whole of humankind, which has been looking up to us for the past half of
a century.
This idea, in my view, should energize those common folk, who consciously and
keenly feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by
a judicious assessment of our true, long lasting interests, not prejudicial and
biased by considerations and not connected with the good of the majority.
However it can be, this is a thing more zealously to be wished than prudently to
be counted on.
Our present deliberation might involve a variety of views, passions, and
prejudices not quite favorable to the pursuit of truth and happiness of middle
class.
Among the most formidable obstacles, which the rule of the majority and the
middle-class will have to encounter, may readily be distinguished by the obvious
interest of the upper class in every State. The aristocrats will resist all
changes that may jeopardize their power, emolument and consequence of the
offices they hold under Federal and State establishments. However, the perverted
ambition of the leaders of the lower class may also contribute to the demise of
our rule and our empire. The lower-class leaders may either hope to aggrandize
themselves by the confusions of the middle class or may flatter themselves with
fairer prospects of their own elevation from the subdivision of the empire,
favoring the State bureaucracies as "fairer" representatives of the long-run
interests of the lower class minorities.
It is not, however, my desire to dwell upon these observations. I am well aware
that it would not be prudent and scientific to resolve indiscriminately the
opposition of any two factions by their political values, merely because their
particular economical interests might subject them to suspect my intentions. You
can never be good for everyone, but you can always try to be good for the
majority of them.
The scientific principles of transparency and veracity oblige me to admit that
even the aristocrats may have upright intentions. And it cannot be doubted that
much of the opposition that has made or may make its appearance will spring from
sources, if not respectable by the middle class, then, culpable only as
negligence for the lack of interest. The latter means the honest errors of minds
that were led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears of the aristocrats.
Indeed, the causes which serve to give a prejudice or bias to a judgment of a
member of the upper class are so numerous and so powerful that even we, common
folk, upon many occasions, fell under their spell, and saw wise and good among
us on the wrong side of the issues that are key to us.
This circumstance, if properly pondered, would furnish a lesson of moderation to
those who are so fervent of being right in any controversy. And a further reason
for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not
always sure that those who say that they advocate the truth are influenced by
purer principles than their antagonists, who also say that they are protecting
the truth, "their" truth.
Personal ambition, avarice, and animosity, short-term group interests, and many
other motives, no more respectful than these, become transparent in supporters,
as well as in antagonists, of the right side of an issue. Were there not even
inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill conceived than that
intolerant partisan spirit, which has indicated the political factions at all
places and times. For in politics, which is the implementation of ideology and
religion, it is suicide to proselytize your dream by warfare. Heretics were
rarely cured by fire and bullet.
Yet, we already have sufficient indications that it will happen in the present
election campaign. A torrent of angry and malignant passions have been let
loose. To judge from the conduct of the Bush aristocratic camp, we shall be led
to conclude that they will hope to prove beyond any reasonable doubt the truth
and justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by
the money-induced loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their
invectives. However, their energetic commencement will likely finish in another
inefficient federal government for the middle class because the Bush
aristocratic camp is more eager to stay still than to move forward. The
aristocracy has already achieved their American dream, and they will always
suspect that the enlargement of the upper class will not only inflate their
money but also their prestige, both of which mean power.
Bush, Baker, Reed, & Co. used an array of arguments to try to convince middle
class voters that McCain was not worthy of the Republican nomination. Among
their arguments are:
• That McCain was not the anti-Establishment reformer he claimed to be.
[Probably, because he is not an aristocrat-extremist, as they are.] To convince
the South Carolinians that it is so, Bush customarily referred to McCain as "Mr.
Chairman," accenting his role as head of the Senate Commerce Committee (which
oversees our industries) and alluding to the heads of communistic regimes (like
that of Chairman Mao).
• That McCain's proposals were Democratic. "One of the reasons why Democrats may
choose to vote here is that McCain has taken the Democrat position on key
issues." In a radio ad, a Bush supporter, former South Carolina Governor,
Carroll Campbell, said, "McCain is getting support ... from some hard-core
Democrats ... Clinton-style Democrats who oppose everything conservatives stand
for." [As if middle-class folk can never be liberal Democrats.]
• That McCain's opposition to abortion was questionable, because McCain's
campaign chairman, former Senator of New Hampshire, Warren Rudman, has "a very
pro-abortion voting record" in the Senate. In the taped phone-calls to the South
Carolinians and Michiganians, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson attacks Rudman
as "a vicious bigot who wrote that conservative Christians in politics are
anti-abortion zealots, homo-phobes and would-be censors." Rudman angered
Robertson and Reed in 1995 by defending retired General Colin Powell against
their attacks over abortion. Rudman wrote a book about that controversy, in
which he stated that there are many "bigots" among the religious extremists. And
they should be, otherwise they would not be "the right wing." However, Bush
renounces his obvious connection with Robertson, whose long time collaborator
until past year was Mr. Reed, and who is now the left hand of the puppet master,
Mr. Baker. Bush said that Robertson and the Christian Coalition are doing those
calls on their own. Yeah, Right!
Before the South Carolina primaries, Bush paraded with meaningless campaign
slogans trying to define his policies as defending the interests of all people.
However, after a loss in New Hampshire, Bush was forced to declare himself the
anti-McCain, a definition that served him well in an ultra-conservative state
but ruined his presidential prospects in the national arena.
Bush said in last week's debate in South Carolina. "I'm not going to let it
happen again." And like his father, who once told: "Read my lips, no more
taxes," and then rose them, Bush-junior has lapsed into direct contradiction
with the facts of life, when "it happened again" in Arizona and Michigan.
However, Bush’s strategists, Baker and Reed, defined his course for beating
adversaries as to avoid being defined at all and to blur whose interests he gave
priority, in order to avoid any such lapses. Bush was supposed to be good to all
people — a "compassionate conservati-vist" untouched by old Republican
controversies, but he lost that virginity in South Carolina. In order to break
McCain’s triumphal march, Bush had to redefine himself as the man who would
adamantly defend the interests of the aristocratic minority and save the
Republican Party from the moderate republicans, the majority of whom supports
McCain. Thus, Bush won a battle, but he lost the campaign.
History teaches us that the aristocrats and the leaders of the lower class have
been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotic governments
than the leaders of the middle class. And that of those aristocrats and
libertines who have overturned the liberties of the republics, dominated by the
middle class, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an
obsequious court to the needs of the lower class people. They all began as
demagogues, and they finish as tyrants.
The more closely you examine Bush's parade of slogans, the more you realize that
their defining line has been to avoid defining whose interests he will defend.
However, the irony of this vagueness is that the different classes of people
have different interests, which must be openly debated in order to be socially
protected. Therefore, Bush, Baker, Reed, & Co. had to define what they stand
for. And what did they do? They decided to define it through what they not stand
for.
Thus, Bush was forced to redefine himself as everything McCain is not. He is not
the one who would put debt reduction before tax cuts. He is not the one who is
soft on abortion and gay rights. He is not the one who would fine tobacco
companies and accept the consequent cigarette price hike. He is not the
republican candidate who is glad that some Democrats and Independents support
him.
After losing New Hampshire, Baker re-packaged Bush as a "reformer with results."
Then, Mr. Limbaugh proclaims this slogan the stroke of genius that
re-invigorated his campaign. However, what does "reform" mean? From Baker and
Reed’s prospective, a reform means whatever Bush has done. Thus, his Texas
policy of public education becomes "education reform" and his policy of
preventing juvenile crime becomes "juvenile justice reform." And what do
"results" mean from Baker-Reed lingo? Whatever resulted after Bush's policy was
implemented. If something good came out of it, then Bush can call it a "result."
If it did not, then, as in the case of his health insurance policy that
important to the middle class, he can say that he tried to do something about it
and the "result" is that the policy became a Texas law. Thus, the result is the
reform, and the reform becomes whatever is positive in his record. And the
magician can come out of the box and pronounce himself a reformer with a record
of results, again silencing which class those so-called reforms profited.
McCain is telling voters that he's running against Republicans who want to be
the "party of special interests," meaning ‘the party of aristocracy’ and he is
accusing Bush of putting tax cuts for those rich before Medicare and Social
Security that the middle class needs.
Therefore, Bush’s words about his reformism lacks energy, and his speeches are
the stale baits for dummies, who cannot discern their own long lasting from
short lasting interests. Therefore, those folks, who are only in the process of
the materialization of their American Dream, should go into the McCain camp of
moderate reforms, the implementation of which will elevate more middle-class
folks into the upper class.
02/22/00
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Victor J. Serge created this page and revised it on
04/10/03