THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 61, VOLUME 91
TOP DOG, UNDER DOG
by Malik Isasis






















Back during the Red Scare between 1917-1920 and again between 1947-1957, at the height of United States hysteria about communism, the government initiated a co-intel program where FBI agents or informants went deep cover as communists organizers or members to subvert groups that were thought to be communists, or supporting communists activities. By the mid fifties, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI had been so effective at infiltrating so-called communist groups that there were more FBI agents posing as communists than actual communists.

The hysteria about communism parallels the Republican Party’s hysteria over unions. The Republican Party has been so effective at destroying unions over the past 30 years that they still parade the carcass of the movement around, scaring working people out of unionizing and voting against their own interest. Today, the percentage of the workforce that is unionized is 12.4%. In 1983 that figure was 20.1%. If working people haven’t figured it out yet, the Republican Party does not like working people.

The Democratic Party has introduced a pro-union bill that will make it easier for working people to unionize, and the Republicans of course pulled out their pickled carcass to frighten folks again with false choices, and false arguments about unionization.

"Not only will this legislation invite harassment and intimidation into the workplace, it could also cost America even more jobs," Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said.

This tired act has played itself out.

PETER PRINCIPLE

In spite of their virtues being compromised by hubristic corruption, Republicans deflect fault and refuse to take responsibility for their wrongdoing, instead they play six degrees of Bill Clinton; the Republicans can connect Bill Clinton to any scandal. However, they can’t think of one when it comes to Bush. Since the Republicans’ leadership paradigm is top-down, it is very interesting to see them implode. They lash out like cornered cats, wanting to take everyone down with them; and because the Republican Party works from the top-down, that is, they lead from the top-down, lock-step, when one falls, many more of them will fall, like dominoes.

The Republican implosion is not new. Throughout the 20th century, there are examples of Republicans reaching the pinnacle of power and then collapsing from the weight of their incompetence and lack of compassion. It’s the Peter Principle, which theorizes that a person will be promoted to the highest level of his/or her competence and eventually advance to a level of incompetence. The modern Republican Party implodes every other generation under its own ineptitude and rises like the Phoenix, only to repeat the same mistakes. They run campaigns well, but are failures at governance.

The 1920s was an era of Republican dominance. During the 1920s there were three consecutive Republican Presidencies: Warren Harding (1920-1923), Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) and Herbert Hoover (1929-1933). Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, like President Bush, favored tax cuts and a hands-off approach toward corporate power. “Taxes and regulation [sic] were slashed dramatically, monopolies were allowed to form, and inequality of wealth and income reached record levels. The country was on the conservative's preferred gold standard, and the Federal Reserve was not allowed to significantly change the money supply (Kangas). The Laissez faire doctrine of unfettered capitalism “was most strictly applied during the Republican presidencies of Warren Harding (1920-1923) and Calvin Coolidge (1923-1928) (Kangas). President Bush's Administration and policies most resembled that of President Warren Harding’s Administration and polices.

"Once in office, Harding admitted to his close friends that the job was beyond him. The capable men that Harding appointed to his cabinet included Charles Evans Hughes as Secretary of State, Andrew Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury, and Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce. But he also surrounded himself with dishonest cheats, who came to be known as "the Ohio gang." Many of them were later charged with defrauding the government, and some of them went to jail. Though Harding knew of the limitations of men like Harry Dougherty, the slick friend he appointed attorney general, he liked to play poker with them, drink whiskey, smoke, tell jokes, play golf, and keep late hours."…
…Most historians regard Harding as the worst President in the nation's history. In the end, it was not his corrupt friends, but rather, Harding's own lack of vision that was most responsible for the tarnished legacy"
( Americanpresident.org).

President Warren Harding'’s hands-off approach of the investment class helped exacerbate and deepen the class divide. The richer were richer, and the poor were poorer and the small middle-class was on life support. Workers could not afford the products that they were manufacturing. In effect, America was an oligarchy. Eventually, this corporate governance caused the Great Depression.

Eight years of Republican governance has caused the economic meltdown under George W. Bush, but the Republicans will blame their malfeasance on Obama, and the media will collude in scripting a Lazarus rise of the Republicans to save the country from their 12 years of governance that collapsed the economy in the first place.

Republicans really don’t have to do much governing; all they need to do is keep throwing shit at passerbyers like monkeys at the zoo and the corporate media will put them back in power.

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