US capitalism, corrupt hypocritical system.

The US government, its corporate leaders, its military, they swagger and plunder and wage war around the world under the flag of democracy and anti corruption. Recently they have been particularly aggressive in their lecturing of African countries about corruption. There is of course a lot of corruption in these countries, but we have to ask who is corrupting them. It is mostly the huge corporations of the advanced capitalist world buying the political rulers of these countries. This is the main basis of the corruption. But the big corporations not only corrupt other countries. They also corrupt their own so-called democracies. We have argued on this blog that US capitalism is utterly corrupt and its democracy is very limited to say the least. We maintain this position.

The corruption in the US system comes basically in two forms. One is the corruption of the actual structure of the electoral system. Every state has the same number of senators whether it is the huge California or the tiny Utah. In other words there is not one person one vote in the US. Votes are not of equal value. The vote for the Senate of a person in Utah is worth much more than a person in California. This affects the election of the President because the electoral college which elects the President is based on a variant of this system also. Votes for President and vice President are not of equal value. This is a fundamental corruption at the heart of the US electoral system. There is not one person one vote. The system was set up like this to reduce as much as possible the voting power of the urban working class and increase the voting power of the rural population. This fundamental corruption at the heart of the US electoral system is a class question. The small rural states have more mainly farming property owners. The large urban states have more mainly working class people.

But the corruption in the US does not end there. As soon as a representative arrives in Washington they are descended on by swarms of people who bribe them, who buy their vote. These utterly corrupt and degenerate scum are called lobbyists. They are in Washington to bribe the representatives in the interests of the corporations. Because of the anger about this corruption the so-called representatives set up rules which they claim restrained this bribery. They are a farce. And naturally so. After all they are being set up by the very people who are being bribed.

Trips abroad and staying in fancy hotels are a very common way of bribing the politicians. The recent rules have pretended to act on this. Well not exactly as you can imagine. Lobbyists themselves are not allowed to pay for trips but their corporate clients can pay!!! But the lobbyist was working for the corporate client in the first place and is still working for the corporate client. Non profit organizations are being set up as never before and these then bribe the politicians on behalf of the lobbyists on behalf of the corporations.

One politician recently received a paid trip to Germany with his spouse. This was paid for by a non profit group called the International Management and Development Institute. Since 2005 this outfit has paid for 34 trips to Europe for members of congress and their staff members. The cost has been $400,000. This is a $400,000 bribe. The trips were largely financed by companies such as Deutsche Bank and Lufthansa. Like International Management there is another similar outfit called Franklin Center for Global Policy Exchange, such bland innocent names. These outfits exist only to sponsor trips for members of Congress that is to bribe and corrupt.

The top travelers by cost of all trips since 2007 were Senator Lugar Republican Indiana ($82,226) and Lloyd Doggett, Democrat ($81,637) Texas. Anytime you hear a politician speak ask yourself if you know how much money he or she has been given in campaign contributions and bribes by whatever corporation is involved in the topic about which he or she is talking.

This corruption of the US political system is well known. There are many jokes. The devil came to Washington and met the politicians. He offered to have them all elected again to their seats if they sold him, the devil is always a man, their souls. They all looked at the devil for a while in puzzlement, and then one of them spoke. "But what is the catch."

I will not go into the campaign contributions here. But hundreds of millions are put up to control and bribe and censor the politicians as they run for office. And the mass media which is owned by the same bribers make sure that what is said and campaigned for is within the bounds of their capitalist system.

Our position is simple. All lobbying should be made illegal. The lot of them banned from Washington and all state capitals and cities. Bribing, that is lobbying, politicians is as much a felony as armed robbery. This is a reasonable position, why should those with big money be able to determine the policies of the country, keep themselves the tiny minority in obscene wealth and the majority in insecurity, debt and poverty. This is not democracy this is corruption. And as to campign contributions. These should be banned from all corporations, only individuals could make campaign contributions and then these should be capped at the level of the average industrial wage. Unrestricted campaign contributions are not in the interest of the working class or a genuine democratic working of society.

Some will say this will hurt the workers movement as the trade unions also make major contributions and hire lobbyists. The labor movement leadership in their pro capitalist way of working adopt the capitalist way of politics. This puts them and the working class at a big disadvantage. The labor movement can mobilize tens and tens of millions on the streets, in the workplaces, it can build a mass political party with a genuine active mass base in every workplace and neighborhood and educational establishment. We the working class have the power to build a mass political movement, unlike the capitalist class we do not need to hire lobbyist bribers and con artists. By adopting this policy not only would we be playing to our strength and forcing the capitalists and bosses to play to their weakness, but we would be the champions of real democracy and a non corrupt society. You cannot have capitalism without corruption. You cannot have real democracy and an end to corruption as long as you have capitalism.

Of course as we fight for this we need to keep one thing in mind. If the capitalists think they are going to loose the battle on the electoral field and a genuine working class party will come to power and move to change things in the interests of the working class it will move if it can to use military measures to hold onto its power. So as we expose the corruption and anti democracy of capitalism, as we explain and fight for the real democracy that only the working class can establish, we must also explain and prepare for the military reaction that capitalism will try to use if its power is threatened.

Sean.