“We have come a great distance in seventy-five years; from the New Deal to the Raw Deal, from having nothing to fear but fear itself, to being afraid of everything. We traded democracy’s warm heart containing the ideals of faith, fairness and frugality, for the greedy, cold calculations of the Dow Jones ticker,” U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich said on October 3.

Under the Raw Deal, the top 25% of American society possesses 87% of the net wealth, the middle 50% holds 13% and the bottom 25% has none. That’s right, zero.
With the coming U.S. presidential election, is there any hope of reversing the Raw Deal? I’m talking about a complete reversal of the politico-economic direction in America and not merely “the compassion of the Ultra-Rich as they take money from the middle classes and throw crumbs to the poor,” to borrow the words of former professor of political science and presidential advisor Bertram Gross (1912-1997.)
The voices of alternative candidates who do not speak on behalf of corporate America, such as independent Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party, have effectively been marginalized. The corporate stranglehold on American politics is so powerful that Mr. Nader refers to it as the “two party dictatorship”, while Professor Noam Chomsky avers that America has “a one-party system, the business party, with two factions, Republicans and Democrats.”
Under the Raw Deal, civil liberties are being eroded at an alarming rate, with racial profiling now an authorized basis for the FBI to initiate an investigation. The Patriot Act permits the FBI to obtain records on anyone, even if no criminal activity is suspected. The U.S. government has run amok with unprecedented powers of surveillance without need of search warrants.
Immigrant communities have been targeted by the Raw Deal as the Migration Policy Institute reports, “The government’s post-September 11 actions follow a repeating pattern in American history of rounding up immigrant groups during national security crises.” Muslims and Latinos have been the principle targets of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), created by the 2002 Homeland Security Act to guard against “criminal and terrorist activity” by rounding up “illegal aliens” and violating their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.
The Raw Deal has militarized American society, with increasing use of military forces in civilian emergencies. Domestic national emergencies may now be transformed into “war theaters” by the deployment of units such as the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry, 1st Brigade Combat Team, which will act as an on-call force to respond to civil unrest and natural and man-made emergencies. Dr. Henry A. Giroux argues, “A creeping militarism has materialized into a full-fledged coup, fueled by a war on terror, the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and endless cases of kidnapping, torture, abuse and murder by the U.S. government.”
In addition to increased militarization of society, the ever-expanding U.S. global empire is giving the world a Raw Deal and causing the exact opposite of the “security” that it is purported to establish. The fact is that 86% of all suicide bombings over the past 25 years have occurred since 2001. Key nuclear-armed U.S. ally Pakistan is descending into violence, with recent intelligence estimates describing the situation as “very bleak”. In Afghanistan, despite increases in NATO troop strength, violence is up 50%. In Iraq, the oft-touted success of the surge is heavily dependent on U.S. pay-offs to Sunni resistance fighters.
With 761 bases in 151 foreign countries and two departments of defense (THE Department of Defense AND the Department of Homeland Security), hopes of rapidly reversing America’s current disastrous direction seem irrational. As Professor Chalmers Johnson writes in his book Nemesis, “I am certain… that my country is launched on a dangerous path that it must abandon or else face the consequences.”
Republican Senator McCain won’t reverse the Raw Deal, as he favors “a larger and more capable military to protect our country’s vital interests and deter challenges to our security.” Democratic Senator Obama also seems to support increased military spending, stating, “We must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply,” and “ensure that our forces have the agility and lethality to succeed in both conventional wars and in stabilization and counter-insurgency operations.”
Under the simplistic and irresponsible policies of successive Raw Deal administrations, the United States has borrowed heavily to finance its bloated military budget and tax cuts for the rich. With its economy now in free fall, the U.S. is receding from superpower status and is becoming increasingly dependent on the world’s new rising powers. According to a recent report by the Mortgage Bankers Association, 45% of U.S. Treasury securities are now owned by foreign countries. The U.S. current account debt to China alone is in the neighborhood of $1 trillion.
The Raw Deal collusion between government and corporate interests has resulted in what investigative reporter Greg Palast calls “the best democracy money can buy.” Both major candidates have supported the Wall Street welfare package -- now estimated by one source at $2 trillion -- and in so doing, have openly declared their allegiance to their corporate sponsors and not the American people, populist rhetoric notwithstanding. While Wall Street investors enjoy a rescue package of over $700 billion, America’s youth get a Raw Deal with the Department of Education’s budget of less than $70 billion.
The Raw Deal is the reality faced by increasing numbers of people who simply can’t afford to make their mortgage payments. Vacant houses are appearing in every American city and homelessness is on the rise. On any given night, over 670,000 people are homeless and around 270,000 of them are forced to sleep in the streets. The overwhelming majority of homeless people who made use of transitional housing for periods longer than six months are Black Americans.
Under the Raw Deal, July 2008 foreclosure starts were up 56% and foreclosure sales were up 118% over the previous year. Among sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) the numbers are even worse, with 50% plus default rates on ARMs whose terms have been previously modified. The situation is so bad that some people have simply mailed their keys to the mortgage company and walked away from their former homes. Others, faced with foreclosure and eviction, have barricaded themselves in their homes in desperate confrontations with authorities and some have even committed suicide.
To reverse the Raw Deal, the United States needs a courageous and visionary president who would:
Support substantial cuts in the country’s outrageous defense budget, which represents half the world’s military spending;
Support immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces and bases from Iraq and payment of reparations to the Iraqi people for the illegal U.S. invasion and occupation;
Support immediate closure of the Guantanamo prison camp, and put an end to the use of torture and all legal machinations to justify it;
Support habeas corpus for anyone in custody regardless of the crime or status of the detainee;
Support establishing a national single payer health care system;
Support nuclear disarmament and the treaty banning cluster munitions;
Support a full employment policy to help those who cannot pay their mortgages;
Oppose welfare packages for Wall Street that reward the financial chicanery responsible for the current crisis in the U.S. economy;
Oppose militarizing U.S. borders and using combat troops in a civilian emergency; and
Oppose criminalizing of immigration and openly condemn the ICE raids.
Will either of the corporate-approved U.S. presidential candidates be willing and able to reverse the Raw Deal? Certainly not John McCain, whose top contributors include Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, the U.S. Army, the U.S. government, and the U.S. Department of Defense. And what about Barack Obama, whose top contributors include Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, and General Electric? I doubt it