|
A Whig's Worth of Difference?
Useless Democrats
By Dave Lindorff
02/25/06 "Counterpunch.org"
-- -- The past few weeks have amply
demonstrated why the Democratic Party is headed for history's scrap
heap.
At a time when the vast majority of Americans have concluded that
the president is a lying incompetent and, most likely, something of
a nutcase and a Johnny One-Note, and that his vice president is a
secrecy-obsessed booze-swiller lacking in basic decency and human
feelings (and a bad shot into the bargain), at a time when most
Americans think that the administration's single enduring legacy--a
three year war in Iraq--was a stupid idea, at a time when the White
House has been caught violating the law and spying massively on
ordinary Americans, at a time when virtually every major domestic
policy initiative of this administration, from education to homeland
security to Medicare, has proven to be an unmitigated disaster, the
nation's leading Democrats have been galvanized around ... the sale
of port operations on the East Coast to a firm based in Dubai.
Of all the venal, stupid and evil things this administration has
done over the past five years, this is probably the least
significant you could come up with.
The port of Long Beach, California was long ago turned over to a
state company owned by the Communist government of China--a country
it might be recalled, whose military leaders not long ago threatened
to attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons if America were to interfere
with China's efforts to capture the island nation of Taiwan.
Nobody's fussing about that.
The truth is that with the long-standing mob involvement in East
Coast longshoring, not to mention the general stench of corruption
that has been attached to the whole cargo transhipment industry
since the days of "On the Waterfront," anyone who wanted to slip
some horrible weapon into a container could do it for a lot less
money that it takes to buy up a global port operations firm.
Heck, a suitcase nuke could as easily be brought into the city and
checked with the concierge at a midtown New York hotel...and most of
the hotel industry is also in the hands of foreigners. Where's the
outrage?
If Democrats are so concerned about foreign companies buying up
critical U.S. industries, they should take a look at the
international trade agreements they've been foisting on the country,
from NAFTA and CAFTA to the WTO, and to budget-busting tax cut
policies that have been turning the U.S. dollar into a joke
currency--and all American assets into firesale items.
The country is being hollowed out not by Bush and the Republicans,
but by the two parties, working hand-in-hand to serve the interests
of the global corporations that are ready to shift capital in a
flash to wherever it can generate the best return. And guess what?
The best return is not earned here.
Forget port operations.
My prediction is that it won't be long before foreign companies will
start buying up the U.S. technology, aerospace, energy and
telecommunications sectors.
Why not?
So what should Democrats be getting wound up about? How about a
society in which one in ten families has to seek food assistance
every year? How about a society where the average worker is seeing
her income decline every year (down 2.6% between 2001 and 2004), and
where real unemployment is rising towards 10 percent? How about a
society in which schools have become factory assembly lines
producing future burger flippers, endless numbers of sales clerks,
and, of course, lots of unemployed and unemployable young people who
end up serving as cannon fodder for the U.S. military?
How about a country that is spending more on the military than the
rest of the entire world combined so that crazed militarists in the
White House and Pentagon can operate over 400 military bases around
the globe, meddle in the business of most of the rest of the nations
of the world, and engage in major wars that are sucking up hundreds
of billions of dollars a year?
If all that the Democratic leadership, and Democratic presidential
hopefuls can get worked up about is something like the sale of port
operations to an Arab-based company (or in the pathetic Sen. Hillary
Clinton's case, the threat of someone burning an American flag!),
the Democratic Party is properly going the way of the Whigs.
And none too fast.
Dave Lindorff is the author of
Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia
Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled "This
Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press.
Information about both books and other work by Lindorff can be found
at
www.thiscantbehappening.net.
He can be reached at:
dlindorff@yahoo.com
Translate
this page
(In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.
Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the
originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) |
