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US Elections &
Party Politics
The Sameness of the Republican and Democratic Parties by Sophia Barkat Are Democrats Hiding Behind a Liberal Mask? Last month, I was sifting through Ann Coulter's book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, and I must say I learned a lot about the way some Conservatives think. I didn't agree with most of what she said, but it's a good read and brings to light much of the Conservative anger over Liberals in America. Of course by Liberals, Ann Coulter means Democrats, namely the Democratic Party, and shares examples of how the Party has always opposed what is good for America - American power, War on Iraq, Patriot Act, etc. She also points out that Conservatives, on the other hand, have always been in favor of what is good for America. From Truman to Clinton, she points out that Democratic Presidents have always hurt the American interest. These are ridiculous comments, as far as I see it, for in my limited and albeit recent clarity, I do not see much division between the way Republicans and Democrats set foreign policy or domestic policy. The realization that both parties are as different as Microsoft Office 95 and 98 brings to light the fact that there are too few liberals in Washington DC to begin with, and that Democrats do not deserve the unintended praise that they are getting from Ann Coulter. Same Foreign Policy Whoever in White House or Congress Clinton's policy towards Cuba, China, Russia, Iraq and Israel-Palestine have been quite the same as both Bushs', Reagan's, Nixon's and Carters. The actual steps taken to carry out policy might differ slightly, but the theme is intact. Clinton, for e.g., had spent $97 million on Iraqi opposition fighters to over throw Saddam, building on Bush Sr.'s policy to put a Trade embargo on Iraq. Kerry and Bush Jr. would differ on how the war was waged but not on why it was. And yet, Ann Coulter, in her ignorance, blames Clinton's alleged silence on Iraq but throws accolades on the Bushs, thought both the Presidents have followed the same policy. Coulter seems to belong to the naive electorate who believe in a difference being there. That or she is part of the big media's ‘misinformation machine’ to give the public the false assurance that indeed Democrats are Liberals are different. Similarly, Democratic President Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion is no different from Bush Jr.'s recent harrassment of Cuba, in tune with his preemption policy. Kennedy's embargo on Cuba was not lifted by any Republican nor Democrat. Americans learn from big media -- which too is supposedly "liberal" – that Cuba's leadership, Fidel Castro, is a murdering dictator, when in actuality he has given Cuba free public education -- school to Ph.D. -- free health care, and near full employment. Indeed, Cuba is the largest exporter of trained doctors in the world and boasts a far greater literacy rate than America in Math, Science and English. The Cold War too, was a tool used by both Parties before Clinton to help the US GDP grow at a fixed level, the threat of a greater enemy created on every continent possible, just to keep the National Defense Expenditure up. The Cold War is over but a new enemy will always be necessary to keep up this expenditure, an income source a service economy considers important. (See Barkat: "Raising G to fight the modern day recession?) On China, US policy has been to increase trade, ignoring all other issues such as the Tianenmen Square, despite the human rights violations of the incident. Perhaps this was because the incident did not mirror any damage to US-China interests, as Gurtov and Hwang mention in China's Security. The reason why foriegn policies of Presidents don't change as Parties change is that Presidents don't formulate foreign policy. The CIA is a major player in shaping US foreign policy. When Presidents take office the CIA grooms the President on what has to be done. The CIA's clandestine operations are funded by drug trade -- mostly from Latin America and Asia -- for which CIA agents are often targets of FBI investigations, as FBI officials testified to Congress. Congress has done little to interfere in CIA operations. In fact, the Foreign Relations Committees in Congress do nothing more than spunge up information they get from the various intelligence committees, treating each as infalliable until after the damage is done. Case in point -- the Sudanese medicine factory bombing by Clinton in 1998. A more recent case of fake intelligence was presented to Congress by Bush Jr. on the case of Iraq, with regards to the presence of WMD's, something that the CIA did not publicly decry. Congress voted overwhelmingly to give Bush Jr. the discretion to wage war on Iraq and always plays a similar unengaged role in Foreign Policy-making. Republicans & Democrats: Paid to protect Big Business There is no greater parody of Democracy as the one we have today in the US, where campaign finance from corporate PACs and Unions is not equated to bribery and corruption. PAC money accounts for both the Republican Party's and the Democratic Party's hard money contributions. Both parties, until the McCain- Feingold Act of 2002, did take soft money from corporations and unions alike to finance State Elections, which by accounting trickery often made it's way back into Federal Elections, as District Attorney Ronald Earle, pointed out on this weeks NOW With Bill Moyers regarding Senate Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) and countless other Democratic candidates. In the last ten years, Democrats received huge campaign contributions from the corporate donors, much like Republicans. And they did passed laws to protect large corporations over small ones. In Continuity and Change in House Elections, Ansolebehere and Snyder show how Money and Office go hand in hand, and how elected officials of the Congress find themselves raising thousands of dollars every day from the very first day in office. They showed that a major change in campaign finance for the re-election of incumbents comes from corporate and other Political Action Committees (PACs) which give most generously to members who are on the fence, support their issues, or hold membership on influential committees. More so, PACs gave more to those in office than not, and it did not matter which Party was in power in the Congress. The committees that got the most amount of money were labelled "good" committees and included the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy Committee, and the Commerce Committee. Here the members, on average, got $75,000 more from PACs as soon as they became members of the committee, irrespective of the Party affiliation. The leaders of the Party in House and Senate got the most amount of money from PACs – the Majority Party Leader getting about ten times more than a mere member on a good committee and thrice what the Minority Leader got. Those in "bad" committees got half of what a good committee member would make from PAC money, the Chairs making the only comparable sum of money. The way both Parties are courted by big business PACs and special interest groups once in office exposes their absolute maleability to money, and consequent selling out. Benign Differences The differences are few -- on Gay Rights, Abortion, some other public finance items. The lines gray again when you bring up Immigration, Health Care Reform, Fossil Fuel Conservation, Renewable Energy Use and Higher Education Costs. And yet, it is the slogan of Democrats who support WTO, GATT and NAFTA allow big businesses to import cheap foreign labor and hire prison labor for dirt cheap, though small businesses are fined and put in jail if they fail to pay U.S. minimum wages for hiring illegal immigrants. Both Parties go the length for big businesses while passing laws that hurt Small businesses. Congress recently passed laws to ban Spamming, or unsolicited e-mail advertising, giving the excuse that people got lots of porn ads in their e-mail. Meanwhile, Television advertising goes unregulated by Congress, even though they are as big a nuisance as Spam. And the pornography industry in the US goes unhurt, protected as it is by large companies, such as AT&T, that distribute porn to hotel chains. So, what are they debating in Congress and what does it mean when they disagree? As Ansolebehere and Snyder point out in their paper, Money and Office, most bills will be killed before they make it to the floor, and the Party leaders, the highest financed members of the Party in the House or Senate, will make the decision to do so. Some bills will be brought to the floor, nonetheless. Bills that get voted on do so because the majority of members cannot turn away from them due to raised levels of political awareness amongst their constituents. Take the Accounting Reform Bill of 2002 for example. The only reason why Congress did anything to put white collar criminals in jail is because billions of dollars of investor savings were lost in the Stock Market debacle of 2000. With impending mid-term elections Congress had no choice but to pass the Bill, despite both parties having amassed millions of dollars from the Finance & Banking Industry Lobby to do just the opposite: (see opensecrets.org) It’s the same reason the McCain Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill found any momentum in the 2002 Congress and finally got passed, despite hundreds of bills being proposed prior to it being nipped at the bud. So, why do members of Congress debate issues if their goals are to keep massing large PAC contributions? They debate partly to show their major donors -- hard money contributors are mostly indiviiduals or constituents -- that they care about constituents concerns, knowing that most Bills won't get passed and partly when their re-election is on the line. The system is inherently deceptive, like the Supreme Court. There are seven judges who were elected by Reagan, Bush Sr. and Nixon and only two by Clinton. A 5:4 vote on Prayer in Schools could well be a 7:2 vote in disguise. How would we know it? Needless to say, there are far too many Conservatives in the US Congress -- people, wittingly or not, who are aiding and abetting the concentration of capital amongst the very wealthy. Isn't that what Conservatism is all about, anyway? It would be interesting, therefore, to have Ann Coulter write a new book titled, "Hypocrits in Congress: How the Democratic Party hides behind Liberalism to get elected and then turns into Corporate Sychophants." About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
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