Dysfunctional Congress, Courts, Department of Justice, Cartel Parties and More
The failure of all the existing institutions in the United States is a problem which leads the U.S. ruling class to resort to governing through the police powers of the presidency itself. This is why the program of both presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, is to strengthen the presidential powers and govern with impunity on the basis of these police powers which are above the rule of law.
Nowadays,
the office of the presidency has been taken over by narrow private
interests. It has become commonplace for private interests such as
BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, the war industry and their ilk to
dictate the decisions and course of action the president takes. People
like Elon Musk and Reed Hastings of Netflix are not the only ones
likely to be given a position in an upcoming administration.
This is possible because the Congress, courts, Department of Justice, cartel parties and more have become dysfunctional. Besides voluminous amounts of evidence of massive corruption, such as with members of Congress beholden to the funding provided by narrow private interests in return for services which must be rendered, the Congress has proven itself incapable of holding serious debate on issues of concern to the people. It pays no heed to the needs of the people.
Passing of significant legislation, other than Pentagon and war funding, is limited. Congress was again unable to pass the federal budget by the start of the fiscal year October 1, a crucial issue for the people. Instead, the government was brought to the verge of a shutdown from lack of funds, meaning hundreds of thousands of federal workers would be laid off, payments for benefits like social security and Medicare threatened, and more. Then Congress only provided enough funding to keep government functioning until December -- conveniently, to avoid accountability, after the election -- meaning another shutdown looms at that time.
The divisions within the Congress, and between Congress, the president and the states, such as over immigration, abortion and voting rights, are not conducive to passing substantial legislation or ensuring a peaceful transition of power in this election. Processes designed to sort out conflicts on a peaceful basis through wheeling and dealing to reach a compromise, such as for the budget, no longer achieve the desired results.
Biden's forte before he became president in 2021 came from his years as a senator where wheeling and dealing became his specialty. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, re-elected in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002 and 2008, the hope of the ruling class was that, as president, his skills would help preserve the Union. Far from it, the contradictions between vested interests in the U.S. are such that the tendency to have matters land in the hands of the courts increased. This refers to both federal courts and state courts which are themselves deeply discredited, as is the Justice Department itself. Decisions rendered by the courts and the Department of Justice are so highly partisan and political and the level of corruption in the Supreme Court is such that people with a clear conscience know the justice system is part of the problem, not a solution.
The racist mass incarceration and police killings, the privatization of prisons owned by judges themselves, the expanding detention camps with indefinite detention, cop killings with impunity, creation of places like Cop City, the branding of protesters as terrorists and broad attacks on the people's resistance movements are a sign of weakness, not strength. Promising more law and order and suppression of freedom of speech in the name of security is an indication of the disastrous direction in which the United States is increasingly being taken.
The lack of functioning political parties is also evident. It can be seen in the low level of political discourse, in Congress and on the campaign trail and in the replacement of Party electoral machinery with the personal machinery of candidates. The parties have lost direct contact with the people at a local level and even there, the factional fighting splits the ranks of grass roots organizations.
The national apparatus of political parties is also no longer operating as before in light of the competing private interests. Their main job has been to organize the presidential conventions every four years and provide funding for campaigns but today, whichever faction dominates in a given state or federal race determines who does and does not get funds, who faces primary challenges from within their own ranks, etc.
Congresspersons like Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush, both outspoken defenders of Palestine, were defeated by fellow "Democrats" in their primary races. This was thanks in part to huge funding provided by the Zionists' American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), $14.5 million to defeat Bowman alone. Of course, such funding is not considered foreign interference in an election.
Add to this the intervention of the intelligence agencies two weeks before the election, claiming foreign interference by Russia and China "to undermine confidence in the elections." This is not only to further promote fear but an attempt to divert from the broad dissatisfaction and rejection of the existing institutions, where confidence among the people has hit rock bottom. This effort at diversion, seen as a means to favor the election of Kamala Harris, in fact serves to further discredit the executive branch of government and the intelligence agencies themselves.
Oligopolies comprised of private interests and funders accountable to no one are operating and selecting representatives. What exists today are not political parties engaged in informing and politicizing the public, but factions operating like mafia cartels, using dictate and violence. Negotiations and politics to achieve a political aim which favors the polity have long since been done away with. The results are evident today.
It is clear to most people that elections no longer serve to sort out the conflicts within the ruling class or between the ruling class and the people. Factions vying for power resort to whatever it takes to win. The narrow private interests which have usurped the powers of the state at the federal and state levels have eliminated any conception of a system which serves "the public good."
Public authorities and services are in shambles while both Harris and Trump vow that the solution for the serious problems confronting humanity is an even greater concentration of power in the hands of the president. The police powers of the presidency are no longer held in check.
The cartels operate during elections to intensify their efforts to sow fear and divisions and spread disinformation to block the people from developing their own reference point for discussing and acting in a manner that is to their advantage.
In this election, all of it has given rise to a situation in which
visibly the rulers cannot control the movements for the kind of change
the people are striving to bring into being. The broadening and
strengthening of the resistance movement in support of Palestine and
now Lebanon as well has
been seen without let-up in the month of October alone, such as on
October 5-6, as well as at the Democratic and Republican National
Conventions. Opposition to the attacks on immigrants and refugees and
against Cop City in Atlanta, Georgia, opposition to police killings and
mass incarceration, and
the protests against the abandonment of people left destitute when
facing heat, drought, wild fires and devastation from hurricanes and
tropical storms, as well as determined labor and student actions, all
testify to a people determined to speak out in their own names and defy
attempts to silence
and suppress them using onerous penalties including firings, fines and
imprisonment.
The people's agenda is to develop new institutions of peoples' empowerment.
This article was published in
Friday, November 1, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/ITN2024/Articles/TI54442.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca