US DYSFUNCTIONAL ELECTIONS
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-02/dysfunctional-america
INTRODUCTION
by Hugo Adan
There is not such a
thing as dysfunctional society. We are the society and what is dysfunctional in
this society is the electoral circus. Even though, the electoral system work as
it is expected to work by its rulers. So, this system is functional to them as
it is functional to some of us, the ruled, the 99%, because among us 50% really
enjoy the electoral circus and clap one of the contenders and woo the other. We
take sides -as Paul Craig did it in favor of the GOP and against the Clintons’
party- like the free in Rome. We are
like those free citizens of Rome who enjoy watching slave gladiators fighting
for their life. They fought not to entertain the emperor or the free observers. They fought for their life until one
Spartacus arise among them and lead the great rebellion that liberates all of
them. Then the show, the circus, was over and the system became dysfunctional
to all of them. This is not the case today in our society, even if more than 50% of us get out from the
stadium the circus will continue, just because it is a trap for us. The less inside, the best for rulers. Even if the
stadium have less than 50% and only few free-citizens
remain close to the 1%, inside the stadium, the circus will be legal and the
fight and winner legitimate.
1- Is “United States a dysfunctional society?”. If society refers people joined together by
common interests, values or goals, most of them defined by the Constitution and
declaration of independence, then by
definition America is not a dysfunctional society. Assuming that a dysfunctional society means
that those interests, values or goals do not function anymore, that there is a
vast civil disobedience movement inside, or a radical separation of states, or revolution
or anything that talks about the dissolution of the union, then the phrase “Dysfunctional Society” does not describe the US nor any modern structured
society in the world. Dysfunctional societies don’t exist anymore. What exist are dysfunctional institutions
(political, economic, ideo-cultural, etc) inside our society-system and around the world system
that provides the macro-context for our
society.
2- Functionalism
is one way of addressing such reality. This theory departs from the idea that
social systems have “needs” and that their institution and political practices
have to function in a way to satisfy such needs for the survival of the whole
system. The electoral system has the
function of reproducing the economic, political and ideological system and
certainly not by bringing political cohesion, but instead by unleashing all
rivalries in a controlled environment so that the creative- destruction bring
about a further integration and equilibrium in the aftermath. We all know that
the main function will prevail and order will be restored. So, if we really want
to use functional approach we have to focus on their economic, political and
ideological objectives and the way it is benefit or affected by elections.
3- If the goal
of elections is to maintain the capital system in which the event takes place
by focusing on the good or bad effects that
“the slander season” produces, then we are taken these effects as
causes, and that is the weakness of this type of analysis. Instead of focusing on
how elections help to maintain the neoliberal capital system, the focus here is
on effects. It contradict the common
logic (cause precedes effects) and it leads to miss-assessment of human
political actions and biases against one of the parties contending for power. If there are two contenders and one of them is
favor and the other discredit, then you
are helping the other, knowing that both are pro-neoliberal policies.
4- The right
functional explanation –of elections in our case- has three principles: 1st , it requires the discovery of
P (political practice) that is a persistent pattern or feature within a S or system
(with the background assumption that features that do not have causal
explanation will tend to disappear in the random process of social events). 2nd it requires a degree of
certainty that P has causal powers to produce expected outcomes. 3rd
It requires to offer hypothesis about the true causal explanation of the
persistence of P to produce B benefits in a given time to the whole political system.
In sum: the
explanatory model is : P’s disposition to produce B, CAUSES the persistence of P in S
One example of
this type of analysis can be found in John Foster “Class Struggle and the
Industrial Rev (1974). Here Foster studies the functional adjustments within
the social and political system to reduce political crisis and stabilize bourgeois
interests in three English towns. Some of his insides were used during the last
attempt of separatism in the UK.
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INTRODUCTION by Tyler Dunden
If you require more evidence
that the United States is a dysfunctional society, observe American elections. Election season
is slander season. Each party’s attack teams focus on misrepresenting,
defaming, and ridiculing the opposing party’s candidates. Attack ads have
replaced debates and any discussion of what the issues are, or should be, and
how candidates perceive the public’s interest. Each attack team tells lies
designed to enrage various voters about the other team’s candidate. Whoever is elected is indebted not to voters but to the
special interests that provided the campaign money.
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If you require more evidence
that the United States is a dysfunctional society, observe American elections. Election season is
slander season. Each party’s attack teams focus on misrepresenting, defaming,
and ridiculing the opposing party’s candidates. Attack ads have replaced
debates and any discussion of what the issues are, or should be, and how
candidates perceive the public’s interest. Each attack team tells lies designed
to enrage various voters about the other team’s candidate.
Whoever
is elected is indebted not to voters but to the special interests that provided
the campaign money. Once elected the official serves the private
interest groups that put the official in office. In America the government can
be bought and sold just like everything else. In its Citizens United ruling, a
Republican Supreme Court put its stamp of approval on the right of corporations
to purchase the US government.
Each
state has its own dominant interest groups that win every election. In Florida real estate developers routinely
defeat the environment and local communities. Developers have even been known
to form organizations that pose as conservation supporters in order to
misrepresent and defeat conservation measures.
Yet,
despite their long string of losses to special interests, voters still
participate in elections. I once read
a theory that elections are a form of entertainment. President
Clinton’s encounter with the young woman on MTV–”boxers or briefs”–is one
indication of the lack of seriousness that Americans bring to politics.
Perhaps the lighter moment of a young woman’s interest in the
president’s underwear should be cherished. The Clinton years will be remembered
as scandal after scandal with dark events unresolved and covered up. The
Clinton years were transformative. For those who don’t remember and those too
young at the time to be aware, Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard’s book, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories
(1997), will be an eye-opener. Perhaps the Democrats should
read the book before nominating Hillary as the party’s presidential candidate.
Evans-Pritchard was Washington bureau chief for the Sunday Telegraph, one
of the main British newspapers. He was stunned by how the American
media ceased to function during the Clinton years. The Clinton years gave
us such events as the federal government’s murder of the Branch Davidians in
their Waco compound and subsequent coverup, the Oklahoma City bombing and coverup,
and the coverup of the apparent murder of White House counsel Vincent Foster.
Almost
everyone who paid attention saw coverups, not investigations, of these
extraordinary events. Evans-Pritchard was one who payed attention, and what he
saw did not pass muster. Yet, there was no press asking questions.
For example, the official story was that Tim McVeigh was the “lone nut”
responsible for blowing up the Murrah Federal Office Building with a truck
bomb. Yet, at McVeigh’s trial the prosecution did not call a single witness who
could place McVeigh in Oklahoma City on the day of the bombing. “This
is a rather astonishing fact,” writes Evans-Pritchard, and indeed it is. The
reason the prosecution could not provide a witness to place MvVeigh at the
scene of the crime is that the many witnesses all reported seeing McVeigh in
the company of other men, and the prearranged official story was that McVeigh
was alone. The FBI and the prosecution had to make this case, not conduct a
real investigation and discover what really happened.
Experts who have examined the Oklahoma City bombing have concluded that
the truck bomb was cover for explosives set inside the building. For example,
US Air Force munitions expert General Benton K. Partin provided
an extensive and detailed study and wrote to the US Senate: “The
attached report contains conclusive proof that the bombing of the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was not caused solely by the
truck bomb. Evidence shows that the massive destruction was primarily the
result of four demolition charges placed at critical structural points at the
third floor level.”
Miquel Rodriguez, the associate independent counsel assigned the
investigation of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster’s mysterious death
resigned after four months convinced that he was dealing with a FBI coverup and
that his investigation was being sabotaged by personnel within his own office.
The FBI’s official story differed completely from the story of the witness who
discovered Foster’s body. Again, as in Oklahoma, the FBI’s case required the
creation of a make-believe scenario at odds with the evidence. With no
interference from a silent press, the FBI created the story that was needed.
Evans-Pritchard wrote that the Foster case was “taboo for American journalists.
In private, many concede that the official story is unbelievable, but they will
not broach it in print.”
When
Americans think of Clinton era scandals, they recall “Whitewater” and Clinton’s
sexual escapades with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Evans-Pritchard
writes that these two scandals were small potatoes compared to the Waco,
Oklahoma City, and Vincent Foster coverups. Evans-Pritchard concludes that these
minor events were used by the press to distract the public and perhaps Congress
from inquiring into FBI coverups of criminal acts.
I remember asking my Wall Street Journal colleague Robert Bartley why
he put so much energy and editorial ink into Whitewater, a minor scandal
involving some real estate payoffs to the Clintons that did not pan out. Serious
events were ignored while Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky became a matter of
impeachment.
From
Clinton to George W. Bush and Obama was another transformative change. The crimes of the Clinton regime were
covered up and not acknowledged. The crimes of the Bush and Obama regimes are
openly acknowledged by the presidents themselves and by their attorney generals
who assert that the “war on terror” frees presidents from the Constitution and
from domestic and international statutory law. Thus, we have indefinite
detention, torture and loss of protection against self-incrimination,
destruction of privacy, and execution of US citizens without due process of
law.
Almost
overnight the US government became unaccountable, released from constitutional
and legal constraints. Elections serve only to validate
the unaccountability of government.
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