The Elephants Behind The Curtain

HOW TO WIN THE WHITE HOUSE

In January Newt Gingrich, the arch conservative ideologue of a long forgotten time, made a book hawking appearance in the state of New Hampshire. The politically oriented took note: The Granite State is many things to many people but it is not a place to launch a book campaign. It is rather a place where presidential aspirations take root or die for lack of notice. The Newt who once stole Congress was reminding power brokers that he is still there, ready and willing to take a run at the job he always coveted.

It is too easy to discount the man who was once king for a day, before he was outfoxed by the Clinton White House and run out of town like a dealer who dropped his stash. Think again. Gingrich may not have the legs for the long march to the West Wing but there are a couple of elephants lurking behind the curtain, in the shadows of the political landscape, with the power to make paupers kings and yesterday’s jackass today’s white knight. The candidate who has the stomach to climb aboard will instantly become a major player and one that may choose the ruling party if not lead it: Immigration and Outsourcing.

As co-conspirators in the aggrandizement of free trade policy, the major parties are in a quandary. The outsourcing of American jobs should have been a Democratic issue until Bill Clinton sold out the working class with the cry of inevitability – a modern version of Manifest Destiny. One by one, Democrats and Republicans alike trot out the tired rationalization that America has always relied on its innate ingenuity. This is why they are allowed to make education the whipping post of their tired campaigns. Education is to blame for they have failed to uphold the legacy that has always enabled us to rise above our peers in the global economy.

The truth is, while America has contributed some remarkable innovations to the worlds of science, medicine, technology and industry, the nation has never relied on innovation or ingenuity to rise to the top of the economic heap. We rose because we claimed and exploited the seemingly unlimited resources of a continent. Now, as we begin to realize that our resources are severely limited, the politicians of both parties have decided that we can maintain our position of power by allying ourselves with international corporations and sacrificing the living standards of the working class. Thus, when the Democratic candidate for president addressed the issue of outsourcing, we were disappointed to find that his only solution was fiddling with the tax code.

Similarly, locking down the borders and controlling immigration has traditionally been a Republican issue. With the coming of the Great Terror, sealing the border ought to have been a fait accompli except that both parties are committed to the corporate need for an unlimited supply of cheap labor and there is no labor so cheap as the illegal immigrant. Thus, we are treated to the spectacle of a Republican president calling for amnesty by any other name.

The elephants are lurking and both parties are powerless to harness them.

The decline of the American working class is not a temporary phenomenon. At all levels of the socio-economic ladder, jobs will be sent abroad and those that remain will pay significantly less. The foundation of America’s consumer based economy, a vibrant and prospering middle class, will continue to erode until it is crushed by the weight of insurmountable debt. Bankruptcies will spread like an air born virus, homeowners will be forced to sell or default on loans, and the real estate bubble will finally burst.

Desperate politicians, culpable for their bipartisan embrace of globalization and free trade, will be searching for scapegoats and immigrants will be first on the hit list. Hackneyed politicians such as Gingrich and Pat Buchanan will raise the cry "America First!" and rally the cause of Fortress America. Organized labor (whatever remains of it) will answer the call and trade policy will be on the table. The electorate will finally begin to realize that mainstream politicians have no real solutions, that illegal immigrants are not taking good American jobs, and that innovation as a counter balance to job loss is as hollow as a two-dollar Statue of Liberty made in Malaysia. Like labor and capital, innovation has been globalized.

The solution to these monumental problems will not come from the reactionary right or pandering politicians who have already sold their souls to the false gods of free trade and a global economy. The solution will come from the progressive left in the form of seven fundamental words: The inalienable right to a living wage.

As difficult as it may be to grasp, the inhabitants of other nations are not clamoring at our borders because they love our culture or our political and religious freedoms; they come because the paltry wages they earn here will enable them to survive in their own countries. The massive influx of migrant labor will stop of its own accord when people are able to make a living wage in their native lands.

Similarly, the exportation of jobs that would otherwise go to American workers will end when the slave wages of exploitive nations are outlawed and brought into balance with the basic standards of a civilized world.

What could be more simple or fundamentally true: Any human being who works eight hours a day, three to five days a week, is entitled to make enough money to provide for shelter, food and the necessities of familial life?

The elephants are ready and waiting for a third party or candidates of independence to take hold of them. The implications are profound and far-reaching. The world’s standard of living will be raised, poverty will decline dramatically, middle class societies will spring up in third world nations, the economic playing field will be leveled, and industries will find new markets for their goods.

We have waited long enough, allowing the corporate political machine and its corporate proxies in the media to define the pressing issues of our times, beginning with the myth of inevitability and our own powerlessness to alter the course. The corporate world is in a bind. They have painted themselves into a corner and the best they can hope for now is to build towers of avarice, impenetrable fortresses, and guard the gates.

Ultimately, the only inevitability is that the people will win. The gates will tumble, the walls will fall, and the towers will home the homeless. Inevitably, even the corporate powers must realize that the only way out of the trap they have so carefully constructed for their own demise is to do the right thing.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS COMMENTARIES ARE WIDELY READ.

JACKRANDOM.COM
Home of Random Jack Commentaries