Michael Schwartz Schwartz is a
fifth-year sociology student who can be reached at [email protected].
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I don’t really feel like taking part in the
“healing” now that the election is over. Personally, I
couldn’t care less which one of these representatives of big
business won. What I care about is the millions of voters who were
disenfranchised during this election.
When thousands of African Americans began demonstrating against
the outcome of this election, many carried signs that read
“This is more about Selma than about Bush or Gore.” The
signs were a reference to the blood African Americans spilled in
order to defeat racist laws that kept them from voting. Today there
are over four million people who are denied the right to vote due
to some sort of “criminal record.”
The Miami Herald has documented the fact that many African
Americans were denied the right to vote due to misdemeanors,
something that should not have kept them from voting. A CNN report
stated that William Whiting, a church pastor, said poll workers
told him he wasn’t registered. According to Whiting, who said
he always votes, poll workers told him “You are listed as a
convicted felon. You are purged from our system. You have lost your
civil rights.” He said, “I was slingshotted into
slavery.”
Right here in Los Angeles, a commission has been set up to look
at hundreds of complaints of racism during the election. In fact,
so many complaints have been filed that the U.S. Justice Department
has been forced to create a panel to deal with the racist practices
carried out in Florida.
 Illustration by CLEMENT LAM/Daily Bruin Some people have
told me that the fight Al Gore put up proves that there is a
difference between Democrats and Republicans. Like author Michael
Moore says, “sometimes R.J. Reynolds gives a million dollars
to the Republicans and half a million dollars to the nonsmoking
Democrats.” If there is such a strong difference between the
parties, why is Al Gore asking us to join together and support
George Bush? If Bush stole the election and his policies are so
radically different from Gore’s, why should we be taking part
in healing? We should be out in the streets demanding that the
person who won more votes be put into office. The point is that
there is no difference.
Every four years we get a chance to vote on which representative
of the multinational corporations will sign the next free trade
bill. On Dec. 15, The Associated Press reported that a Congress
which is almost evenly stacked with Democrats and Republicans
passed a half-trillion-dollar budget by a vote of 292-60. The
budget was filled with money for corporations, including more money
for the war budget. During the second presidential debate it was so
hard to find differences between the candidates on foreign policy,
the moderator had to press them to find some.
Look at our government and try and find a senator who is not
worth over a million dollars. Look at the cabinet that Bush has
selected filled with representatives of Fortune 500 corporations.
Bush named Mitch Daniels, senior vice president of corporate
strategy and policy at Eli Lilly, an Indianapolis-based
pharmaceuticals company, as director of the Office of Management
and Budget.
Before working for General Motors, his chief of staff nominee
Andrew Card served as chief executive officer and president of the
American Automobile Manufacturer’s Association, a trade
association that represented the Big Three American automakers.
Commerce secretary Don Evans raised $100 million for the Bush
campaign and established a “Pioneers” program that
required a $100,000 contribution to participate.
Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld headed the electronics firm
General Instrument, now part of Motorola. He’s also served as
a senior adviser to investment bank William Blair & Co. and as
a director of various other firms.
Condoleezza Rice is my favorite. Rice was a board member of
Chevron, Charles Schwab and J.P. Morgan’s International
Council. Chevron apparently appreciated her so much they named an
oil tanker after her. She will be our national security
advisor.
Our new secretary of agriculture, Ann Veneman, is considered an
advocate of big agribusinesses and biotechnology; she served on the
board of biotech firm Calgene. To top it off, our new Treasury
Secretary Paul O’Neill was the head of the major industrial
firm Alcoa for ten years.
I do not recognize George Bush as my president and I
wouldn’t have recognized Al Gore either. A Gore cabinet would
have had the same corporate ties. This last election has ripped
away the pretense that we live in a “democracy.” It was
a lesson for people who now understand that the only thing we did
on Nov. 7 was vote on who should go select the president for
us.
The real issue before us is not who sits in the White House.
It’s been Democrats and Republicans responsible for the
murderous sanctions which have caused the deaths of almost a
million children in Iraq. It’s been under Democrats and
Republicans that our prison population has increased from 400,000
in 1979 to almost two million today.
The richest one percent of the United States now owns 95 percent
of the country’s wealth. Bill Gates alone owns more wealth
than the bottom 100 million Americans put together. All this has
been under Democrats and Republicans.
In this last election the Republicans raised $239,163,867 in
soft money alone, while the Democrats’ “party of the
working people” raised $217,945,676. Many people claim that
the Democrats are on the side of the people while the Republicans
are on the side of the rich. If this is true, why did securities
and investments firms donate $13,782,003 to the Republicans and
$10,370,038 to the Democrats? Why did telecommunications firms
donate $9,058,026 to the Republicans and $8,713,920 to the
Democrats? Why did computer and electronics companies give
$6,469,521 to the Republicans and $6,658,172 to the Democrats?
It’s because the winner of this election was decided long
before Nov. 7. It didn’t matter who won the “Electoral
College;” Corporate America knew it would win either way.
So forgive me for not taking part in the reconciliation process.
I know real estate speculators thought there was enough of a
difference between Bush and Gore to donate $6,383,653 to the
Republicans and give $6,400,021 to the Democrats, but I think
they’re pretty much the same.
For those of you who are worried that Bush will take away
hard-won rights, remember it was Bill Clinton who signed the
welfare “reform” bill, Bill Clinton who kept up the
sanctions on Iraq, and Bill Clinton who kept up the severe
restrictions on abortion. The National Organization for Women
points out that 86 percent of counties provide no access to safe
and legal abortion.
Rights will be won where they’ve always been won ““
through mass protests. Rights will be lost the same way
they’ve always been lost ““ when people trust the twin
parties of corporate rule instead of their own power.
There will be a forum tonight in Math Sciences 5148, where the
recent elections will be discussed. The winner of the elections was
clear either way. Now that the corporations have officially claimed
their victory, the question is, what are we going to do about
it?