The bosses' each-way bet
What's happened to Jesse Jackson? ABOUT 450 years ago, John Heywood wrote a comedy called 'The Four P's'. The play's title referred to four liars and scoundrels, each of whom practiced a trade beginning with the letter 'P'
Now The Four P's have returned. Each one of the modern 'P's' is a liar, a scoundrel and - a Proletarian!
That's right! The Fab Four [presidential about their proletarian roots. Michael Dukakis (the unions' favourite) sings ballads to his immigrant father, teenage love, grocery shopping, and mowing the lawn on a summer's day. George Bush salivates over pork rinds and country music
Bush recollects how he packed his two kids and 'everything we had' into the family Studebaker and headed west for the Texas plains. There, he says, they 'lived the dream - Little League, you know, football on Friday night'. Very touching
Even Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen have carried their bluecollar rhetoric to wherever workers congregate - labour meetings, county fairs, and union picnics. Speaking before the United Food and Commercial Workers convention, Bentsen drawled that the theme of his campaign was 'a good job and decent wages.
UPID A TE
The Democrats charge that the Republican administration has treated the working men and women of America with disdain'. But the Republicans are not to be undone. In their party platform. they profess that 'the bosses of the Democratic Party have thrown in the towel and abandoned the American worker'.
As Jimmy Durante said: 'Everybody wants to get in on the act!' Each one of our Four P's* wants to be the friend of the worker. But, given their record, the Republicans will find it tough making friends.
Under the recent administrations of both Republicans and Democrats, poverty has increased. In 1973, eleven per cent of the population lived under the poverty line. Now poverty is officially around fifteen per cent. Over thirty million people are listed as 'Poor' - another dreaded P' word.
At this point another kind of capital P' comes to mind. Lestany X-rated words leap out at you, let me tell you what 'P' really stands for.
Each one of our 'Four P's' is a Plutocrat. Rather than describing a Mickey Mouse character, a plutocrat is defined by the dictionary as a member of a wealthy ruling class'. Most of us will probably never have the opportunity to shake the hand of a plutocrat in our lives, even if we
would wish to. We just don't move
Generally, what a plutocrat has, that we seem to lack, is money. Neusweek, in its August 29 issue, lists the assets of the presidential hopefuls. Spendthrift Dukakis seems to be the poor man of the lot. He is only 'worth' $464,365, but stands to inherit another S1 million after his mom's death.
It appears, furthermore, that
- after packing his kids into the old Studebaker-went on to earn a bundle in the Texas oilfields. He is worth $2.6 million, according to Newsweek.
When fellow Texan Lloyd Bentsen entered politics, he stepped down from the corporate boards of Lockheed, Continental Oil and several other banks and corporations. But he happily still retains his ranch, a farm, a $1 million town house, and investments for a total of at least $10 million in assets.
Meanwhile J. Danforth Quayle hangs in with $50 million to his name - though Quayle's family has assets of from $600 million to over $1 billion, according to most accounts.
Thus our 'Four •P's' rank within the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the population. This small sector, not coincidentally, owns close to thirty percent of all privately owned wealth in the USA.
Of course none of the candidates, with the possible exception of Quayle, is quite in the category of the Mellons, Morgans and Rockefellers - families that control fortunes equal to the assets of many countries. But as members of the same economic class. the candidates interests are intimately linked with those of the top leaders of American
A review of the hefty contributions that the capitalist class makes to the political campaigns of the Democratic Party may raise suspicions that the party's agenda does not exactly coincide with the theme of 'a good job and good wages' for working people.
Lloyd Bentsen's contributors, for example, include airline tycoon and union-buster Frank Lorenzo, ultra-right tabloid owner and fellow union-buster Rupert Murdoch, chicken magnate Frank Purdue (employer of thousands of underpaid black women), and corporation buyout artist Henry Kravis - who is also a member of George Bush's national finance committee!.
Who pays for such politics - as usual? As if you couldn't guess!
Now I know the word that best describes the four candidates. It's Pickpocket.
Michael Schreiber (reprinted from Socialist Action (US), September 1988)