“It’s a
truism, but one that needs to be constantly stressed,
that capitalism and democracy are ultimately quite incompatible.”
(Noam Chomsky, Feb.1970 at a talk at the
Poetry Centre, New York)
To present a random sample of examples to back up this statement:
Received opinion in the so-called ‘developed’ countries would have one
believe that democracy is grounded in the electoral system; that if one
can cast a vote periodically then representation of the people is
taking place and one can’t grumble. However, even at that level the
electorate are fooled at best and cheated at worst. Fooled into
believing they elected a government of the majority of the electorate,
as with Blair and New Labour and cheated – twice – by Bush who
effectively stole both of his presidential terms at the expense of
thousands of disenfranchised voters. Once in power it’s quite simple to
strengthen that power. Bush conveniently sacked unfriendly District
Attorneys in favour of more right-leaning, cooperative allies during
his term but was then surprised and disappointed when one of his
international allies against terrorism in Pakistan recently followed
his example and sacked his judiciary because they dared question his
constitutional right to a further term as president/dictator. On the
healthcare issue in the US, specifically the attempt to bring free
healthcare to millions of poor children, Bush simply and brazenly said
that whatever Congress voted he would veto it – democracy in action.
Deliberate lies and misinformation were promulgated about the use of
depleted uranium during the first Gulf war and later in the Balkans
conflict. A US army report released six months before the first Gulf
war detailing the risks of depleted uranium use was suppressed and only
unearthed later by a researcher, revealing that the army failed to
follow regulations which obliged them to give medical tests to soldiers
exposed to or wounded by DU munitions. When forced into admission that
soldiers had been in contact with contaminated equipment they initially
owned up to a few dozen individuals and it took activists and the media
seven years before the Department of Defense acknowledged the thousands
of unnecessary exposures. Similarly in the Balkans, the US and NATO
initially denied the use of DU and then refused to reveal where it had
been used, resulting in delays in clean-up operations and ongoing
exposure for many more citizens. How many servicemen and civilians have
been exposed in the most recent conflict in Iraq is undetermined. There
is still a veil being drawn over the issue by the ‘authorities’ and
many affected servicemen are still not receiving compensation or
allowances whilst a callous indifference is being shown to the number
of children being born with horrible deformities in Iraq.
It’s interesting how many democracies give great favours to their
elected representatives. You’d think that a fat salary, an expense
account, numerous junkets around the world and revolving doors into
consultancies and directorships would be ample reward, but no, let’s
throw in immunity from prosecution for crimes whilst in office. Why?
There have been no good reasons proffered for this stance and generally
citizens – the voting public, those on the receiving end of democracy –
are outraged by such overt hypocrisy and elitism. It’s recently been
announced that Jacques Chirac, former President of France, is to be
investigated for alleged corruption while mayor of Paris. In Turkey,
whilst MPs have full judicial immunity when in office, the citizenry
mustn’t criticise the military, the flag nor the founder of the
Republic or be seen or heard to be insulting Turkishness, whatever that
is. Similar examples around the globe abound. There is an anecdote in
Howard Zinn’s A Power Governments Cannot Suppress about a question
asked of the judge by a juror in the case of a break-in to steal draft
records as a protest against the Vietnam war. Zinn had testified for
several hours about the Vietnam war not being fought for freedom and
democracy but for “tin, rubber, oil as repeatedly specified in internal
memoranda of the government” and Samuel Braithwaite, the juror, a
veteran of 11 years in the US army, asked “If, when a citizen violates
the law he is punished by the government, who does the punishing when
the government violates the law?” Good question.
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