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And they call this democracy? “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. Continued on next page 11

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Socialist Standard January 2008