Democracy and its discontents

Socialist Review, 2001 by Brook, Dan

Democracy and Its Discontents*

1. The chief defect of the Democratic Party is that it is only marginally different from the Republican Party. These two business parties, in reality, are nothing more than factions of the same Capitalist Party. The issue, however, is not whether there are any differences between them, but rather, as Michael Parenti suggests, whether the differences make any difference. In any case, a two-party state is only one more than a one-party state. Like any other duopoly, the Democrats and the Republicans compete much more on style than on substance, and effectively cooperate with each other against any other alternatives. As the so-called "liberal" faction, however, the Democrats deserve special attention and must be held to a higher standard by progressives. Rather than dictating from above, these theses deeply respect and reflect the democratic diversity of progressive responses from below to the Democratic Party and what progressives have done and are doing, as well as what we might and will do, to challenge the oppression of the status quo.

2. The Democrats must be condemned for supporting -- with the Republicans -- the manic speculation on Wall Street at the expense of the continuing desperation on Main Street, the hate crime of the death penalty, the fascistic CIA and NSA (National Security Agency), the slaughter of Iraqis through war and sanctions, regressive taxation, the top-down economic globalization of corporate control through NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the IMF (International Monetary Fund), and the World Bank, the TWO (World Trade Organization), and the proposed MAI (Multilateral Agreements on Investments), the embargo of Cuba, massive arms sales to authoritarian governments, corporate welfare and other corporate special interests, foreign military bases, the expanding prison-industrial complex, the manufacture and export of carcinogenic chemicals and torture tools, the invasions of Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere, proxy wars in Angola, Nicaragua, Colombia, and elsewhere, corporate "rights" at the expense of citizens' rights, the expansion of the expensive and ineffective Star Wars program and other financial fiascoes, the use of jingoism, taxing earnings from the stock market at a lower rate than income from actual work, the so-called War on Drugs, the Pandora's Box of genetic engineering and potential biodevastation, the madness of nuclear weapons and power, McDonaldization and Coca-Colonization, megalomania and monoculturalism, the weakening of bankruptcy and tort compensation laws, Christian hegemony, quantitative economic growth as opposed to qualitative social development, the extension and enlargement of NATO, casino capitalism, and dozens of deadly dictators. The Democrats must also be censured for opposing - with the Republicans - publicly financed electoral campaigns, single-payer universal healthcare, free university education, full gay rights and liberation, free and unrestricted abortion, legalization of marijuana and hemp products, Puerto Rican independence, massive military budget cuts, strict gun and ammunition control, the full inclusion of other political parties in the electoral process, the Precautionary Principle, Tobin taxes on speculation, maximum wages, fully funded Head Start and other effective and efficient early intervention programs, needle exchange, and (non-Orwellian) full employment (and full enjoyment) policies. Further, the Democrats should also be denounced for downplaying or ignoring - with the Republicans - the hungry and homeless, Indonesian genocide in East Timor, continuing racial discrimination and segregation, lack of adequate and affordable childcare, corporate crime, D.C. dependence, the plight of indigenous people, Nigerian terror and murder, increasing concentration of capital, the bombing of pharmaceutical and water purification plants, as well as other civilian targets, the mess of mass transportation, fair trade, stateless peoples, authoritarianism in Mexico, organic and sustainable agriculture, just about everything in Africa, corporate chartering, issues of diversity (biological, agricultural, and linguistic, in addition to ethnic, racial, and sexual), toxic trade and environmental racism, independence for Tibet, historical and contemporary slavery, the crisis of contingency labor whereby workers are permanently temporary and temporarily permanent, chronic recession and depression in many communities of color, the many CIA-drug connections, "promiscuous privatization," alternative renewable energies and higher fuel efficiency standards, animal intelligence and torture, urban decay, the decline of leisure, numerous injuries and deaths on the job, the use of Social Security surpluses to help balance the budget, bank and brokerage house bailouts, unconstitutional secret government budgets, systemic police brutality, the potential of liberation technologies, the cataclysm of Rwandan genocide, workplace authoritarianism (including electronic surveillance), increased drug running in Panama, continuing torture in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the promise of the peace dividend, countless forms of environmental destruction (corporate, military, and otherwise) in the United States and throughout the world, and various other forms of political gentrification, deleted history, and "great forgettings." Tragically, these are only partial lists. The Democratic and Republican parties are merely two sides of the same hundred dollar bill.