As the administration of one of the most unpopular presidents in United States history concludes its lame duck status, it seems appropriate to look back at two previous administrations in the contemporary era that made the United States electorate look a tad bit smarter. Two of the most popular presidents in history, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, each ran for a second term and won. One hindered stagflation but put the country in the largest deficit in history (until the current president), the second turned that deficit into a surplus but not before catering to multinational corporations via his tenacious demands for the passage of NAFTA and refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Every Republican aspires to be like the first, the latter is the John F. Kennedy of today’s Democratic Party. It seems safe to say that approximately every two decades, our presidents find a new theme to run on, one that they can manipulate and take advantage of, all the while manipulating and taking advantage of the American people. Currently, our focus is on the “War on Terrorism,” from the Reagan Era to the end of the 20th Century it was something else: “it’s the economy, stupid.”
President Reagan is notorious for having changed the economic perspective in late 20th Century America. We went from an era dedicated to welfare and a “Great Society” under President Johnson to the infamous Trickle Down Theory and Reaganomics. Technology expanded at an exponential rate—as did globalization—and as a result big business became, well, big, at a previously unimaginable pace. Suddenly all of the businesses were here to end poverty as we knew it—those great, altruistic businesses—by trickling down their economic benefits to the lower class. The 7-7-7 Rule, which mandates that any given corporation can own up to 7 of each radio frequency and 7 television stations, became the 20-20-20 Rule. A “War on Drugs” was now in full force and mandatory minimum sentencing for drug use and possession was instituted. Poverty rates rose rapidly, but only because single black mothers are “welfare queens” and Saint Reagan was just too intelligent for their impractical waste of government spending.
A desperate desolate population was met with harsh prison sentences with Reagan’s tough-on-crime legislation. At the start of his administration, 500,000 United States citizens were under incarceration. Within a decade, that number had doubled to one million. A minor contribution was desperate times calling for desperate measures. Harsher prison sentences for a lower class that could not afford adequate defense served as another contribution. Classist legislation, most notably the famous crack versus cocaine disparity, was of course an important factor. Finally and most importantly, the introduction of the prison-industrial complex. Pre-Reagan United States prisons were almost universally government owned and operated. Ever a fan of deregulation, Reagan decided to turn over prisons to private entities, both in owning and operating the facilities. The issue of incarceration was no longer dialogue regarding reformative versus retributive measures, now it became an ethical dilemma regarding expanding the prison population for the purpose of profit. When the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition established a certain electoral victory for Ronald Reagan he promised them rewards in exchange as an emblem of gratitude. The prison-industrial complex was one such reward; oftentimes religious rural communities were rewarded with an influx of employment opportunities at the expense of the urban poor.
During this time, President Reagan’s War on Equality was also engaged on the international front. His devotion to eradicating communism was evident more in his commitment to bring an end to the Soviet Union than anything else. The result was the introduction of the military-industrial complex which linked corporations with the government and the defense industry. Much like the prison-industrial complex (which was formulated with the idea of the military-industrial complex in mind) the military-industrial complex redefined the contention over war. No longer was the matter regarding whether or not war can ever be justified and/or in which cases it is, rather the concern became the notion of international conflict for commerce. Indeed, the motives were clear: Reagan had set the framework for an era of bipartisan classism, a war on the poor rather than poverty.
Not to be outdone by a political adversary, President Clinton dedicated much of his efforts to promoting and expanding the growth of large commercial enterprises. Using many of the same tactics as he did while serving as governor of Arkansas, President Clinton’s contribution to the prison-industrial complex made Reagan’s look shameful. For everytime John McCain has said “my friends” in the 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton ensured the increase in profit for a number of industries whose commodities would normally be manufactured overseas. If the Reagan Era is responsible for having introduced private business to the prison system, the Clinton Era is responsible for letting those businesses derive further profit from the exploitation of labor within the prison industry. It was during the Clinton times that prisons turned more into factories than warehouses for the poor and left those visiting prisons wondering if they were actually perhaps visiting a Malaysian sweatshop. This created new jobs for which Clinton took the credit as corporations moved further into prisons and states began to run out of crimes to throw people in prison for. All the while this resulted in the prison population doubling for the second decade in a row, this time to a startling two million.
As a Democrat, President Clinton had a natural passion for social welfare and thus cared about the jobs that were being lost on an international scale since all of the factory jobs went to United States prisons. In turn, he ensured the implementation of NAFTA—the North America Free Trade Agreement—which created a plethora of jobs in Mexico with relatively no labor or environmental standards. The fat environmentalist who served as his vice president for eight years may have made a movie about global warming, but Clinton had little concern for the environment. Not only did he initiate NAFTA, he also failed to sign onto the Kyoto Protocol, something that all other developed nations have now done, which simply regulates minimal environmental standards for corporations, especially with regards to pollution.
Clinton’s job growth statistic that he still won’t shut up about while he runs a despicable campaign for his third term of President of the United States is a little deceptive. For while he did create a multitude of jobs he also sent many overseas. Furthermore, he didn’t help the people who needed help most. During the Clinton Era, the black unemployment rate remained the same as it had been in years prior. Furthermore, when incorporating black prisoners that number neared a disturbing forty percent. To his credit, he did Reagan one better by eliminating the 20-20-20 Rule altogether, leaving a permanent smile on the face of a man named Rupert Murdoch.
Although many of their core ideological values directly contrasted one another, these two overwhelmingly popular presidents both kissed the asses of big business at the expense of the poor. For every drug law that Reagan introduced to hurt the poor, Clinton made two more, including the Higher Education Act which banned federal loans to any college applicants who had been convicted of any drug offense. In a classist criminal justice system, this inevitably yielded a decrease in federal loans to the people who needed them most.
It’s interesting that right around the catalytic point of the Civil Rights Era we began to rapidly move away from the industrial sector and increasingly towards the service sector. At almost the snap of a finger, one had to go to college in order to attain the so-called American Dream. For years people of color had received incomparably poor education and now they suddenly had to go through one more educational institution before landing a career position. The end of direct racism simultaneously introduced classism and this was by no happenstance occurrence. The United States prides itself on equality of opportunity but in order for that to occur, we must all start on an equal playing field. You can’t pick yourself up by the bootstraps if you don’t have boots in the first place. The black man has therefore always been forced by society to be one step behind so that his inequality no longer stems from government-based racism but rather by his apparent own misfortune and control. In reality, he is simply oftentimes unable to succeed as a direct result of classist legislation and requirements to break into the service sector.
The prison-industrial complex allows the government to misallocate this concept of fault. No longer are the poor running rampant in the streets of large cities due to the government slashing welfare funding, now they are warehoused in overcrowded prisons in quiet rural regions of the nation. In turn it appears as though their criminal actions have resulted in these drastic consequences when reality holds that there is a clear correlation between legislative and judicial attacks on the urban poor and the prison population boom.
One would be naïve to state that the aforementioned concept of fault is the only thing that the federal government misallocates. The grossest misallocation comes in terms of resources and spending. The depiction is unsurprisingly class-related and remarkably unjust. One must also be sure not to mistaken this as solely a Reagan/Clinton problem; this is the doing of all of our politicians. The United States spends roughly five-hundred billion dollars on annual defense, largely contributed to through our tax dollars. Right now that money is going to occupying a territory that the majority of our country is opposed to, occupied under the orders of a president with which most of our country is unsatisfied. The money is also going to blowing up sheep and canines near Puerto Rican neighborhoods as well as training future fascist Latin American rebels. The money is also used to fund the second most powerful military in the world: the Israeli Defense Forces that have recently generated a great deal of controversy in Gaza with their “shoot anything that moves” policy, albeit the possibility of a dove—the international symbol of peace.
In the meantime, both federal and state government entities are more committed to the prison-industrial complex than education. Ask any politician which is more important and this will undoubtedly not be the answer but ask him or her behind closed doors and the answer might coincide with this agenda. Nearly 20% of the states in the union spend more on prisons than education, including state-funded universities and college. This is reflected on a federal level where prison spending sextuples that of higher education. One need not wonder why it is that we fall so far behind so many countries in our educational ranking.
Think about the intentional adverse effect of this classist and disturbing misallocation of resources. Think about the No Child Left Behind Act and its requirement that public schools adhere to minimum standardized test scores or lose federal funding. Would it be so ludicrous to assume that schools that don’t meet minimum educational standards actually get more federal funding? With an attack on education and a lust for incarceration, the poor become more disenfranchised than might be expected, much to the excitement of our government. Poor educational institutions directly leads to higher likelihood of crime, thus increasing the likelihood of the lower-class citizen becoming a sweatshop worker in a United States prison. Ever increasing college rates means the poor cannot afford to get the necessary higher education, which ensures the classist structure that one is most likely to remain in the class that he or she is born into. With little hope or help, one falsely promising option is the military, thus completing the industry-government-military triangle. In fact, this is so structured that it is actually included in the No Child Left Behind Act; no public school may receive federal funding unless they relinquish all student names and information over to military recruiters.
The purposeful cyclical reaction continues, as it extends to the political realm as well as the economic and military sectors of society. In a capitalist society, a politically disenfranchised urban lower class is most desired. In Ohio this problem is resolved by making people wait on line for hours to get to a voting booth before telling them the polls closed in the 2004 presidential election. In many cities around the country this is conducted via the means of the prison and military industrial complexes. With few exceptions, states do not allow those who have served prison sentences to exercise their voting rights. With approximately two-and-a-half million people in prison, the vast majority of them poor, this is significant to elections. This is especially the case in Congressional elections, most evident in cities. Cities are unique; they serve as home to both the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor. Congressional elections are conducted by district, and cities often comprise a large percentage of their given district. The Constitutional objective of members of the House of Representatives is to represent their district. In order to ensure that there is no voice for the urban poor in Congress, districts with large cities conveniently see a number of their lower class citizens go to prison for minor drug offenses while their wealthy residents snort cocaine in bathroom stalls of skyscrapers and go to easily accessible voting booths on Election Day.
While not facing anywhere near as exigent a plight as the urban poor, especially with the assistance of the prison-industrial complex, the rural poor still lose to large corporate conglomerates through farming subsidies. Subsidies, which are supposed to help struggling United States farmers actually drive an estimate of 300 hundred out of business per week. Large agribusiness receive approximately seventy-five percent of agricultural subsidies, a threefold increase from about a decade ago while independent farmers have seen their subsidy levels decrease in the same amount of time. In turn, the hardworking independent families in the United States are suffering, thanks to government aid for corporations that should be taxed rather than subsidized.
To increase the disturbance regarding government agricultural subsidies, ethical farmers suffer in order to benefit those who engage in quite the converse of ethical business practices. Recently, the largest United States beef recall in history took effect after horrifying footage of a highly subsidized meatpacking plant was revealed to the public following an undercover investigation from the Humane Society of the United States. Factory farming in fact never has any regard for the lives of the animals they slaughter in a compassionless manner in mass numbers in order to ensure maximum production at minimal costs. Still, they receive the government subsidies. Monsanto literally crossbreeds natural produce and injects it with unheard of chemicals at the sacrifice of consumer safety for maximum corporate profit. Still, they receive the government subsidies.
Independent farmers couldn’t kill a chicken in such disturbing ways as factory farms if they wanted to; they simply do not have the capability to do so. Similarly, they could never put the toxins into our strawberries to make them ten times too big because they don’t have the subsidized scientists to do so. Quality of life has continuously diminished since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, as profit became the primary concern not just for businesses but also for the government that they will perhaps forever unfortunately control and tirelessly lobby.
George Orwell could not even conceive these atrocities in his famous book 1984, written shortly after the unsettling second World War. A world engaged in global combat, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini were not enough for Orwell to imagine how business-orientated government could destroy the basic morals in our society. For at least during his time wars were fought for national pride and genocide was conducted based on the wrongful belief of superiority. Then again, when the Nazis brought people to the gas chambers, much like factory farm employees march animals to their mass slaughter in our day in age, they were stamped with emblems of Mercedes-Benz, Tiffany and IBM. And furthermore, the Nazis actually based the structure of their concentration camps on early factory farms.
It’s the stupid economy. The economy that embraces elitism and classism over morals and equality. The economy that tells us that we can all exploit, because we are all born with the same ability to exploit. It is the interrelationship between economics and politics that has created such tumultuous effects in our society. It has led us to unthinkable disparity, blatant disregard for others and a desire to oppress like never before. It is what has eliminated morals, it is what has overcrowded our prison cells, it is what has made millions of our children think that Bill Clinton’s famous slogan is spelled “Its the ekanomee stoopyd.” Who said government spending would inherently lead to demise? Who said laissez-faire is a bad idea? Government intervention sure hasn’t done much except lead to regression but then again the Progressive Era is long gone. As we once again face the crisis of a recession, remember that on a microeconomic scale, millions of United States citizens face a recession every single day: the forgotten poor. This is not the doing of a Republican nor a Democrat. This is the bipartisan war on the poor that we as capitalists embrace. Who are we to call communism evil?
