U.S. elections: Dollars play a decisive role

 An article by Gary Younge in the Guaradian (UK) claims that the dollar plays a decisive role in U.S. politics. Younge starts out by noting that to outsiders many of the Republican candidates have made astonishing statements often supposedly resulting in their losing popularity in the race. The German magazine Der Spiegel Mirror perhaps summed up the view of some foreign observers noting the the campaign seemed to be a parody of the stereotypes that many foreigners have about U.S. politics: . "Those who follow this race daily may have long since lost perspective on how absurd it is,". "Each candidate loves Israel. They all love Ronald Reagan. Each loves his wife, a born first lady, for a number of reasons." Younge should at the least note that it is Republican politics in the primaries for choosing a presidential candidate he is talking about and this does not involve the Democrats. However no doubt part of the description would apply to them as well! But the real decisive element in the campaign is not the debates but cold hard cash.'
    While the role of cash is not new it is made even more decisive by the Supreme Court ruling that allows unlimited spending by PACs. Younge notes that in 2008 168.8 million was spent on the election. Just since voting started less than a month ago Super Pacs alone have spent about 40 million. The trend has been up and up. Election spending doubled between 2004 and 2008.
     Money of course is not the only determinant of success. Santorum won Iowa with expenditure of 74 cents a voter whereas Perry spent a humongous 358 dollars a vote and came in fourth. But as Younge points out in many other situations huge spending on ads seems to be key to campaign results.
   Younge claims the influence of money in elections is corrupting the political culture. The problem is not personal Younge claims but systemic. As Younge puts it:"" it means a group of wealthy people in business will decide which wealthy people in Congress they would like to tell poor people what they can't have because times are hard"  Actually what Younge is pointing out is hardly new. What may be happening is that money is coming to play a larger and larger role. This is hardly a phenomenon confined to the U.S. either. It is no doubt common in all democracies. It is just expensive to run a campaign so that only those who have the support of those with funds can be expected to get very far. There are exceptions but that is the rule. For more see the Guardian article.

Chomsky Warns of Risk of Fascism in America

I am always wary of talk about Fascism in the U.S. Some on the left seem to enjoy calling any repression or even any right wing protests they do not like as fascist. Fascism arose in a context when there were strong working class movements challenging the status quo in times of crisis and economic troubles. The working class in the U.S. is extremely weak and although there are some right wing groups targeting unions this does not seem to be a prominent feature. Also, in Germany in particular Jews were targeted. This surely is not happening much in the U.S.!

This is not to say there are not family resemblances between what is happening now and during the rise of fascism. The left should be busy critiquing the Obama administration and its policies not worrying about whether the Tea Party is Fascist--which it isn't Many in the Tea Party support people such as Ron Paul who is if anything a bulwark against Fascism and U.S. imperialism. All this being said Chomsky as always has many excellent points, I just do not think they add up to anything like Fascism yet.

Chomsky Warns of Risk of Fascism in America

By Matthew Rothschild

15 April, 2010
Progressive.org

Noam Chomsky, the leading leftwing intellectual, warned last week that fascism may be coming to the United States.

“I’m just old enough to have heard a number of Hitler’s speeches on the radio,” he said, “and I have a memory of the texture and the tone of the cheering mobs, and I have the dread sense of the dark clouds of fascism gathering” here at home.

Chomsky was speaking to more than 1,000 people at the Orpheum Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin, where he received the University of Wisconsin’s A.E. Havens Center’s award for lifetime contribution to critical scholarship.

“The level of anger and fear is like nothing I can compare in my lifetime,” he said.

He cited a statistic from a recent poll showing that half the unaffiliated voters say the average tea party member is closer to them than anyone else.

“Ridiculing the tea party shenanigans is a serious error,” Chomsky said.

Their attitudes “are understandable,” he said. “For over 30 years, real incomes have stagnated or declined. This is in large part the consequence of the decision in the 1970s to financialize the economy.”

There is class resentment, he noted. “The bankers, who are primarily responsible for the crisis, are now reveling in record bonuses while official unemployment is around 10 percent and unemployment in the manufacturing sector is at Depression-era levels,” he said.

And Obama is linked to the bankers, Chomsky explained.

“The financial industry preferred Obama to McCain,” he said. “They expected to be rewarded and they were. Then Obama began to criticize greedy bankers and proposed measures to regulate them. And the punishment for this was very swift: They were going to shift their money to the Republicans. So Obama said bankers are “fine guys” and assured the business world: ‘I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.’

People see that and are not happy about it.”

He said “the colossal toll of the institutional crimes of state capitalism” is what is fueling “the indignation and rage of those cast aside.”

“People want some answers,” Chomsky said. “They are hearing answers from only one place: Fox, talk radio, and Sarah Palin.”

Chomsky invoked Germany during the Weimar Republic, and drew a parallel between it and the United States. “The Weimar Republic was the peak of Western civilization and was regarded as a model of democracy,” he said.

And he stressed how quickly things deteriorated there.

“In 1928 the Nazis had less than 2 percent of the vote,” he said. “Two years later, millions supported them. The public got tired of the incessant wrangling, and the service to the powerful, and the failure of those in power to deal with their grievances.”

He said the German people were susceptible to appeals about “the greatness of the nation, and defending it against threats, and carrying out the will of eternal providence.”

When farmers, the petit bourgeoisie, and Christian organizations joined forces with the Nazis, “the center very quickly collapsed,” Chomsky said.

No analogy is perfect, he said, but the echoes of fascism are “reverberating” today, he said.

“These are lessons to keep in mind.”

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine