Igor Kirman, a lawyer and Republican, wrote in the Christian Science Monitor this past January that, “A better GOP strategy [for waging class warfare against any prospect for servicing the working class] would be to force the parties toward the middle and seek to prevent the introduction of major entitlements that will never realistically be repealed. In other words, gridlock.”
It’s always nerve-wracking to see the use of “entitlements.” The Pentagon budget, which is used year after year to shower the private sector with cash and to prop up a bloated empire is, never considered an “entitlement” – which carries with it a negative connotation - but providing social services is. Being that opposition to “entitlements” is deeply ingrained in the ruling class the solution for keeping these from expanding – the ruling class has no interest in the welfare of their subjects – is to suggest that the GOP “gridlock” the Democrats by moving to the center. Of course we can debate whether the Democrats actually have an "ambitious agenda" or if it's just GOP fearmongering (I lean towards the latter for reasons below).
Back in June of 2008
Time magazine ran an internet article entitled “
Obama’s Supreme Move to the Center” which stated, “
And Obama's run to the center surely won't stop conservatives from using the specter of a Democratic-appointed Supreme Court to try to rally support.”
Right, the Democrats can move to the "center" but the GOP will still claim they are liberals, socialists, Marxists and that they have a "radical" or "ambitious agenda."
Ya know, the thing about the “center” is that it’s an illusion. An apparition. A ghost. A phantom. The Democrats move to the right to please the business community/ruling class in order to secure funding for their political machine. Center is not a direction. This is just a play on words to mask “moving to the right.” The Dems move to the right, allowing the GOP to move further to the right, and all along the Dems pretend they are moving to the center in order to get things done - to be practical. It's all bullshit. That there is a need for this kind of trickery says something. It says the PR firms that handle campaigns know the public is to the left of the business community and their representatives in government.
When the GOP moves to the “center” it’s class warfare to prevent servicing the general population. When the Democrats move to the “center” it’s still class warfare - to please the masters by showing they are willing to snub the working class.
This pattern will continue until we literally vote in fascism, or until the working class stops bickering over ideological differences (some of which are serious and some of which are healthy and expected) and organizes around meaningful and important commonalities (jobs, healthcare, the environment, housing, living wages, a government that is on the people's side) that will have a positive effect on us and improve the quality of our supposed democracy.
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