THE CONSERVATIVE LINE-UP

Ladies and Gentlemen, here are the

starting line-ups for today's game.

For the Conservatives:

Leading off and playing 2nd base,

No. 33, RACIST BIGOT

Batting 2nd and playing short stop,

No. 24, RELIGIOUS BIGOT

Batting 3rd and playing right field,

No. 7, NEO NAZI

Hitting in the "clean up" spot and (reluctantly)

playing left field, No. 19, BOOK BURNER

Batting 5th and playing first base,

No. 3, MILITARY HAWK

Batting 6th and playing right center field,

No. 32, MISGUIDED PATRIOT

Batting 7th and catching, No. 12,

CORPORATE CRIMMINAL

Batting 8th and playing short stop,

No. 2, INDUSTRY REGULATOR

And pitching today's game for the Conservatives,

No. 29, STATUS QUO

The Conservative line-up is, of course, a reflection of the establishment itself. Wherever money, power, or status is to be protected, there is an individual, organization, or institution on hand to see that it is. So pervasive are these guarantors of the status quo that they form a network across all of American society that defends the "haves" from the "have nots." This Conservative infrastructure reads like a "who's who" of the power elite. While the list that follows is incomplete, it serves to illustrate the scope and magnitude of the Conservative juggernaut on American life that is rigidly in place to safeguard the system from change.

Calvin Cooledge got it right when he said: "The business of America is business." It is that simple. Big Business dictates the domestic and foreign policy of this nation---with a little help from its friends in the Federal Government. The corporate agenda is America's agenda.

Congress is the great enabler. On the take at all times, Congress is bought and paid for by Corporate America. Instead of representing the American People who elected it to do the People’s business, instead Congress is in the hip pockets of the special interests who bribe them to do their business.

The Executive branch of government, whether its leader, the president, is Republican or Democrat, also leans far to the Right. The Department of Justice, including the FBI, is far more interested in prosecuting pot-smoking teen agers than going after corporate crime. The CIA will take part in all sorts of assassination plots against Left-Wing dictators while giving Right-Wing despots a free pass.

The so-called “regulators” i.e. the Security & Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Drug Administration, The Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission etc. were created to regulate their respective industries in order to protect the American people. Instead, they do the exact opposite: protecting the industries they’re supposed to be regulating at the expense of the citizenry.

The IRS and its absurdly complex Code is filled with hundreds of pages of loopholes for corporations and rich individuals.

Even the Judiciary branch of government, the Supreme Court, which for most of American history, was guided in its rulings by the Constitution, now decides cases based on each judge’s political leanings. Here again, the Conservative judges currently have the edge and seem to be running the show.

I could go on, but you get the point. We live in a Conservative country, and the private and public authoritarians aim to keep it that way.

08/28/1986