The left and the right, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and
Republicans, blue and red…all of these are examples of words whose
meanings are twisted by the political factions that have claimed them.
Left and right, for instance, became terms of legislative divergence
back in the revolutionary days in France. Back then, in the legislatures
in that country, the Aristocrats sat on the right, and the commoners
were on the left. This may seem appropriate in modern parlance if the
lefties of today look on members of the right wing as aristocrats. This
seems true only if we ignore the reality that many left-leaning
statesmen are also richer than most of the voters on either side of the
spectrum.
Back in those heady days on the continent, the left stood for
republicanism and represented the interests of capitalists. These days,
a lot of Democrats consider the word capitalist to be pejorative.
Despite the fact that they work for capitalists, despite that they
purchase and consume the production of capitalist ventures, and
forgetting that much of their investment funds are lodged in the
ledgers of capitalist countries, they are fond of using the word
capitalist as a synonym for dictators, racists, and warmongers.
Both sides of the fence are eager to forget that the words liberal and
conservative had meanings before they were pressed into service as
adjectives to describe political opposition. Liberal referred to relatively
unrestrained application of anything from food, firewood and charity,
to larger efforts such as road building, spending of public funds and
military incursions.
Conservative, on the other hand, refers to the judicious application of
anything like seeds, fertilizer, money, military power or definitions of
responsibility. To assume that government includes the right to decide
for citizens whether they can or cannot resort to behavior such as birth
control or abortion is a profoundly liberal interpretation of how much
state control is required on issues of health and family. Yet, it is the
so-called conservative side that seeks this control. Some liberals might
feel that laws regulating or prohibiting various forms of drug use, both
recreational and medicinal, should be relaxed and/or abolished. But,
again, it is conservative to believe that these and many other areas are
the responsibility of neither state nor federal lawmakers.
The Republican and Democratic parties are best defined in terms of
one another. Republicans are non-Democrats; Democrats are non-
Republican. Each side claims a monopoly on humanism, common
sense, fiscal prudence and morality. Each side is guilty of dropping all
four of those balls.
The conflict between the two sides of the aisle may be summed up in
three words: divide and conquer. Governments have always been
faced with the challenge of dealing with the masses. Over human
history, this question has been answered with genocide, slavery,
serfdom, national allegiance and conscription. These approaches have
been reinforced using tools such as imprisonment, execution, torture,
taxation and propaganda.
The newest device to quell the population is democracy. Both sides
claim fealty to this somewhat imaginary institution. Both sides claim
the will of the people when they win an election, and both sides howl
corruption, deceit, cheating and intrigue when they lose. The rank and
file on both sides remains blind to the reality that they are being ruled
by the same gang no matter who wins the elections.
It’s easy to believe it when we are told of some elected official’s guilt
in such diverse areas as fraud, bribery, cronyism, corruption,
dishonesty, criminality, immorality, cheating and treachery. What’s
hard to swallow is when one of them is portrayed as honest, fair, loyal
and kind.
There are three groups of voters that decide the vote in this nation.
These are the Democrats, the Republicans and the undecided. The
members of the first two groups vote the same in every election,
regardless of the current waves of accusation and defamation.
Democrats vote for Democrats. Republicans vote for Republicans.
The guy in the middle, who doesn’t really make his decision until he
casts his vote, is the one who determines the outcome of an election.
Of course, there are many problems with this. Members of this
category frequently do not know or care about the candidates, bills or
issues represented on the ballot. If they have a slogan, it is likely to
be, “Throw the bastards out.”
And that is fine with me. It’s not fine, however, with the ones who
like to believe that they are pulling the strings. They want to be the
ones who are actually making the decisions about who gets in, who
stays in and who is thrown out. Floating voters are hard to influence,
convince or predict. If a swing voter gets the idea that his opinion is
being covertly swayed by lies, rumors and hyperbole, he might decide
on a whim to vote the other way.
Lately, one of the most used slogans is “99 percent.” We are all
assumed to be a part of the 99 percent, except for the one percent
who supposedly own everything. The trouble is that the only thing
that all of the members of the 99 percent have in common is that they
are not part of that one percent. In all of the other qualities, including
political philosophy, religion, occupation, popularity and income, they
are all over the map.
Overuse of this catchy mantra can result in unintended results. Its
proponents are also fond of the expression “middle class.” There
complaints make it sound like they think there are only two economic
classes in this nation. If that is what they think, they are wrong.
Unbeknownst to the naïve middle class is the fact that there are a lot
of people who don’t earn $50 thousand a year, who don’t own two
new cars, a house and a boat, who don’t take ocean cruises, eat in
fancy restaurants and send their kids to private schools.
These are the people who saw tens of thousands of used cars crushed
in the Cash for Clunkers program. They might have been able to buy
one of these vehicles for a thousand or two that they would have to
scrape together. Instead, those cars were sacrificed so that the middle
class could save four thousand dollars toward the purchase of a
$50,000 SUV.
This lower class is the group that could really benefit from socialized
medicine. Instead they get legislation that orders them to pay
premiums they cannot afford to insurance companies who do little
more than churn paper and function as middlemen.
The lower class hears the middle class gripe about corporations being
greedy thieves. All of those insurance companies are corporations.
All of those auto manufacturers are corporations. The middle class,
through their investment programs, stocks and bonds, IRAs, life
insurance policies and retirement plans are heavily invested in the
corporations of the world. They are blowing smoke when they claim
to despise the corporations. They say that corporations are not
people. This is true, but they forget that the stockholders of these
firms are people, the widows and retirees, the startup entrepreneurs,
and even the one percent.
It’s the same as saying that labor unions, churches, political parties and
benevolent organizations are not people. We are all people!
When the folks who own one used car, work two jobs, earn less than
$20,000 a year and pay rent to live in a rundown neighborhood of
apartments and two bedroom homes realize that the middle class is
claiming them as part of the movement to overthrow the ones at the
top, they just might get miffed. They just might vote for the other side.
The problem for them is that there really is no “other side.” If all of
the so-called one percent were taken out and shot today, I guarantee
there would be a new one percent tomorrow.