Choke on your rotten hot dogs

In every decade there is a crowd bemoaning the sorry, tragic state of the republic, usually those whose chosen party is out of power. We are sick, declining, and need strong medicine, they wail.

Increasingly, that wail has become bipartisan—and they all are right. Most of the country, including a plurality of independents and Republicans, recognized the follies of the Bush regime and turned against them, demanding, and thinking to get, a change of course with Obama and the Democratic congress. It’s been breathtaking, alright: we’re sinking another $106 billion into the 8-year Middle East crusade, shifting resources slightly eastward while antagonizing Pakistan and Iran. Terrorists don’t need mountain ranges to plot in—they can plot in an apartment in Hamburg or Florida, as the 9/11 hijackers did (with a lot of inside help). The war is a self-perpetuating feedback loop: we have to fight terrorism, the number-one cause of which is our fight against terrorism—the occupation of nations made dangerous by… our occupation. That’s a sweet racket, if you can keep it going, especially when private contractors fulfill half of military and intelligence functions at enormously inflated costs over former federal control.

The Party of Hope has also shifted boatloads of taxpayer money to service another racket: the bankster gang on Wall Street and its mob enforcer, the Federal Reserve, with a few thin fig leaves of regulatory reform. Nobel-prize economists and most disinterested financial analysts agree that virtually nothing of substance has changed. Wall Street has been given an aspirin and a vacation in the Bahamas, not the kennel and obedience training it deserves. While the rest of the country founders with accelerating unemployment, foreclosures and declining prosperity, Goldman-Sachs just tallied record-breaking profits in its 140-year history. They’re probably investing it in Chinese yen or other currencies, knowing that our own is close to collapse. Like Bruce Ismay, owner of the Titanic, these guys are real admirable survivors.

To cap the hoopla off, we are all about to get the shaft on health care reform. Let me explain to the die-hard market fundamentalists screaming about “socialism!”: whether you choose to participate in a possible public plan, or stay with your private plan, the astronomical costs of health care in this country will go down, if and only if there is a public option, like Medicare, to compete against the private insurance cartel. Multiple studies have shown that we pay more and get less than nearly all of the E.U., Canada, Japan, and many Third World countries, like Cuba, Costa Rica and Argentina. Some have a single-payer system, others have a mix, but the common thread is some form of public plan or strict government regulation of the system.

And now we are told by the Senate, aka the “Millionaire’s Club,” that there are “not enough votes” for any kind of public plan whatsoever. In a recent NY Times/ABC poll, 72% favored a public option, with only 20% opposed. Even half of Republicans (citizens, not politicians) are for it. The Democrats, elected to cure health care among other promises, control the White House and both houses of Congress… and this is not enough of a mandate?

There is an answer to these quandaries: our two-party system has become a charade of shallow differences in the most crucial, basic things (not abortion, gay marriage, gun rights or flag safety), and our government no longer gets its mandate from the will of the majority . This is no longer a democracy, but a plutocracy ruled by a triumvirate of lobbies: the military-industrial complex, Wall Street and the health insurance vampires. They own Washington. They have surrounded it like a besieging army, stifling all attempts at rescue and reform while plundering the national treasury. Why are they successful? Because most of us choose our politicians like a toothpaste—whichever can afford the most and the best lobby-funded TV commercials gets our business. “Bush—a brand name I trust!”

In France, when politicians have grown too complacent, with ears only for the corporate lobbyists who stuff their pockets, workers, professors, lawyers, teachers, doctors, drivers and soldiers swarm in the streets and organize general strikes. I know, many Americans are too obese for such stress, following our fat, fawning lapdogs in the corporate press. It appears that most of us are quite content gorging on mental junk food, or fleeing churchward to dwell on improvements in the afterlife.

The only solution I see, if we are serious about the future of the here and now, for the welfare of both ourselves and our children, is to revive some small measure of our Founders’ spirit—or emulate the French and Iranians. A third party, or several of them, would help.

Enjoy your hot dogs and fireworks.