Moscow News: Karl Marx prediction/ U.S.present power monopoly would crash

After a long battle to secure democracy in the United States, it somehow became fashionable among the Founding Fathers in the early days of the republic to exclude all "dangerous factions" from the narrow field of political players.

John Madison warned in "Federalist Papers No. 10" against the prospects of "a number of citizens... who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." In other words, democratic institutions must be professionally tailored to fit the body politic in order to protect the lavish lifestyles and inordinate interests of the governing classes.

The greatest fear of America's Founding Fathers was "the mob," or rather those men who might be tempted, over time, to take exception with the rigid stratification of the social hierarchy. Many ingenious political technologies were thus forced on the people, such as the Electoral College, an anachronistic institution originally designed to prevent the undesirables from winning at the ballot box; the system is still in use today, together with a faulty voting apparatus that even "authoritarian" Venezuela has managed to fix.

Over time, the "problem" with factions was resolved: Since 1789, the United States - a land of 500 different cereal brands, 200 kooky colas, and 1,500 car models - is far less generous when it comes to providing choice in the political marketplace: Year after dismal year, U.S. voters get exactly two political choices: Democratic or Republican, take your pick. Not even the richest men in America (Ross Perot, for example) can smash through this Plexiglas ceiling. Yes, the spectacle of conventions, campaigns and champagne, not to mention the occasional articulate black man or fearless first female, are all quite fun to watch, but then what would a sham be without a whole lot of colorful distractions?

A curious thing about this two-party grip on power is that the theory of a ‘lame duck' president has lost all force; the U.S. president enjoys all the powers of a Mussolini, and then some. In fact, King George II has never enjoyed greater presidential powers than he does right now, in the twilight of his 8-year-old ham-fisted rule.
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So how did the Democrats respond to Bush's request to socialize American capitalism through a taxpayer infusion of $700 billion? Hold on to your chair, dear reader, this is harsh.

And I quote DEMOCRATIC House Squeaker Nancy Pelosi: "We sent a message to Wall Street - the party is over... People have to know that this isn't a bailout of Wall Street. It's a buy-in so we can turn our economy around."

Um, Nancy, where I come from, when one group of people hands another group of people $700 billion dollars due to the latter's lack of common sense, this does not signal the "end of the party." Indeed, it portends the beginning of yet another bout of stupid behavior.

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This sums up the unacceptable thing about American politics, which is the asinine belief that the two parties must always play nice, and not display too much "bipartisan politics," especially before dinner. Says who?

Even the word "bipartisan" is an affront, suggesting that we should be content with no more than two choices.

It is my humble prediction that without a third or fourth voice in the dense field of U.S. politics, the present power monopoly will crash, dragging capitalism to the historical depths with it. Exactly as Karl Marx predicted it would.