Fruit of the Poison Tree

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
41,035
201
63
RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia
Fruit of the Poison Tree
by Charles Sullivan
www.dissidentvoice.org
May 22, 2006

Send this page to a friend! (click here)






Millions of citizens are rightly calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush due to his criminal and unethical policies. Bush is a cancer not only on the presidency but upon basic human decency. Any sane person, regardless how marginal they are, can see that Bush must go, and the sooner the better. However, when Bush is gone the system that produced him will remain in place, as healthy and viable as ever. It will continue to bear a plentiful crop of poison fruit, perhaps even more sinister than Bush.



The majority of the people are toiling under the illusion that the moral abyss of American politics can be reformed and made to serve the people as well as the public interest. According to this line of reasoning, the malignancy is principally the result of a few bad apples mixed with the good. If they are correct, then removing the bad apples will affect a cure. Yet that has never been the case and it is not the case now. Otherwise, we would not be where we are today. Consider, for example, that America’s Middle East policy has remained essentially the same as it is today through eleven presidencies, consistently yielding the same results.



The fault lies in the unfounded belief that the poison tree can somehow bear edible fruit. We lobby for our candidate in the naïve belief that if only the other party can get into office things will improve. During the two plus centuries of the American experiment this has occurred many times. Yet the policy decisions have preserved a remarkable homogeneity down through the years. The policies enacted by both the Democrats and the Republicans have almost always disproportionately benefited the wealthy. They have led us into armed conflicts around the world that have resulted in the death of millions of people in war after war. That is because we are living with Plutocratic rule in which wealth, not we the people, holds sway and determines governmental policy.



Every aspect of American politics is enacted within the shell of Plutocratic corporate rule. Therefore, the Plutocratic tree will continue to bear the fruit of Plutocracy, regardless of which party is in power. During the past fifty years of the American experiment the difference between Democrat and Republican has become increasingly subtle. In essence there is only one party -- that of wealth and privilege. The people and the public good are without meaningful representation in government. There are a number of small opposition parties operating in America but the system precludes them from becoming major players.



Where does this leave us? It leaves us with the sober realization that what ails America cannot be repaired through mere political reform. The poisonous tentacles of capital have enwrapped every political organ over which it exercises complete dictatorial control. The malignancy of capital is so pervasive and systemic as to require revolution for its removal. Otherwise, things will continue to worsen and our republic will suffer a slow and agonizing death, as we are now witnessing.



The American government in its various incarnations was not created to serve the interests of the people. It was designed to serve capital and to create wealth for the upper echelon by exploiting the working class and plundering the earth. In fact, it is a voracious predatory crime syndicate devoid of conscience that creates perpetual war while simultaneously pilfering the public treasury. It remains in power only through the collusion of its obedient servant, the commercial media and a disengaged public.



This continues against a specter of an ever widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, costly foreign invasions and occupations, and extended global hegemony. These policies have resulted in millions of innocent deaths world wide, obscene defense spending and the systematic demise of programs of social and spiritual uplift. Despite numerous changing of the guards things are getting progressively worse -- perhaps exponentially.



Our continued faith in politics and political reform is unwarranted, I contend, given the judgment of more than two hundred years of historical evidence against this thinking. I realize that this is both a sobering and disturbing conclusion. The blunt truth is that social ills cannot be corrected through political reform within the framework of capitalism. Any form of government that serves capital rather than democracy cannot and does not have the interest of the people or the public good at heart.



If the core problem is capital, as I believe it is, the system cannot be reformed. Capital is by it