Salon | September 7 2012 | Thanks, A.L.
In 2008, the Democratic National Platform Committee spoke to the anger, pride and righteousness of civil liberties-loving Democrats. The platform proudly said that “we will ensure that law-abiding Americans of any origin, including Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans, do not become the scapegoats of national security fears.” In 2012, the Democratic National Convention dropped a Muslim prayer service from its online calendar after receiving criticism from conservative groups, and the FBI sent agents to question the Charlotte Muslim community about its event. Naturally, this year, the Democratic National Platform Committee doesn’t mention Muslims or Arabs.
Meanwhile, writer JA Meyerson, attending the convention, overheard New York delegates derisively talking about Occupy Wall Street’s fixation on drones and presumed whistle-blower Bradley Manning’s torture and imprisonment. This type of talk, according to one delegate, was really alienating Democrats from Occupy Wall Street, who presumably should have been functioning as a support arm to the Democratic Party.
Physically, at the convention, a powerful national security apparatus is in place to kettle and intimidate protesters, keeping them to their free speech zones. Obama himself was nominated by Bill Clinton, a politician so corrupt that he made over $80 million in just 10 years in speaking fees from groups with policy interests before the government he ran, and whose State Department his spouse now runs. And on the floor of the convention, a plank demanded by the Israel lobby was inserted into the Democratic Party platform over the objections of the delegates, in a rank display of internal autocracy.
At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, the creepy subtext of corruption and authoritarianism was similar, but more overt. A Republican National Convention attendee was ejected from the party’s convention for throwing nuts at a black CNN employee and saying, “This is how we feed animals.” Republicans are pursuing laws to disenfranchise poor and minority voters all over the country. Meanwhile, Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin spoke of “legitimate rape,” and high-level Republicans have argued WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should simply be assassinated. The GOP has all the appearance of the party of white male supremacy, of white men who support economic and racial hierarchies, backed by violent imperial tendencies.
Ultimately, we’re seeing that both parties are rotten. This rot is rooted in economics. Despite the bitter rhetoric, Obama and Romney are basically in agreement about how the country should be governed. Both Romney and Obama want to see the same core economic trends continue. These are, most significantly, a transition to an energy system based on hydro-fracking of natural gas and oil deposits (and some renewable energy), a large national security state, the sale of public assets to private interests, globalized financial flows, a preservation of the capital structure of the large banks, free rein of white-collar behavior and austerity in public budgets. This policy agenda is a reflection of the quiet coup that IMF chief economist Simon Johnson wrote about in 2010.
The bumper sticker on the beat-up pickup truck read: “Friends don’t let friends vote Democrat.”
The Lone Ranger was a masked man who was out to bring bad guys to justice. Ed Conard is a masked man who is out to bring bad guys to power.