WHERE THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE TAKEN THIS NATION

Since the Industrial Revolution, big business has dictated both domestic and foreign policies. By exporting capitalism throughout the world, multi-national corporations have exploited cheap labor in order to fatten their bank accounts. Their primary objective is to grow cash crops rather than subsistent crops which would directly benefit the indigenous peoples.

With the advent of the Cold War in 1945, the United States government began pouring in billions of dollars into the Defense Department and aerospace industry. Even the conservative Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex in his farewell address. Nevertheless, between the 1960s and 1990s, the defense budget continued to skyrocket. While one-third of the national budget was awarded to the Pentagon, billions of these dollars were funneled into the coffers of corporations. For example, during the Vietnam, the top ten American corporations netted $11.6 trillion.

The Reagan and Bush administrations initiated the largest peace-time military build-up in the nation's history. Reagan's $2 trillion spending spree included new types of ICBM missiles, conventional weapons, star wars, the space shuttle, the B-1 bomber, B-2 stealth bomber, and a 600 ship navy. For example, the $40 billion star wars program was a boondoggle, according to 80 percent of knowledgeable scientists. The $2 billion B-2 stealth bomber was proved to be "unstealthy," since it could be detected on radar scopes. The space shuttle was not designed to carry out scientific missions but in most cases has been utilized in top secret military assignments. Additionally, it has caused severe environmental problems. Each launching results in the emission of 187 tons of ozone-eating molecules into the atmosphere, and eight million tons of ozone -- 0.25 percent of all ozone -- are destroyed.

The Eastern European revolutions led to the demise of the Soviet Union. In 1991, the final nails were hammered into the coffin when the Soviet Union finally crumbled. The Cold War was over. With the elimination of the Soviets as a power broker in global affairs, the United States was left alone to roam. Nevertheless, billions of dollars is still allocated for the Pentagon. The aerospace industry continues to be a major beneficiary of the defense budget.

Even though it is assumed that conservatives favor lower government spending, in reality they frequently support increased expenditures. In 1981, the national debt was nearly $1 trillion. By the time Reagan left office eight years later, it had climbed to over $2.7 trillion. Yet, when Reagan campaigned in 1980, he promised a balanced budget within three years. Not only was Reagan the biggest spender, but his successor, George Bush, followed in his footsteps. The Reagan-Bush era brought about the tripling of the national debt to nearly $4 trillion, a deficit spending spree which was not even closely matched in the entire 190 years of American history.

Conservatives claim that recessions occur because corporations do not have the revenue to spend or to invest. Furthermore they affirm that unemployment is a result of lazy people who are unwilling to work and prefer welfare. They frequently point to the justification for American imperialism as a means to stop communism, even though in almost every case the United States has invaded non-communist but left-leaning democracies. On the other hand, the government wants to trade and lend money to communist countries.

Conservatives perceive themselves as the true patriots: the proponents of the family unit, the defenders of free enterprise, and the supporters of democracy which has been infiltrated by socialists, communists, and anarchists. Liberals and socialists are lumped together as un-American and the cause of the nation's political, economic, and social problems. The high rate of crime, the increasing number of welfare recipients, soaring inflation rates, higher unemployment, failing education, and the decline in the nation's morals are all the result of the liberal agenda.

Conservatives> believe that reforms must be resisted. They recognize that there are some inequities in society, but they believe the inequities will either take care of themselves or that we will have to live with some of them such as poverty and exploitation. They are for either a strong or a weak government, depending on how their interests are best served. They oppose government when it meddles in economic affairs. Yet they favor government which restricts individual liberties or when it regulates our lives and morals. Also they favor government which meddles militarily in other areas of the world.

- Henrik Ibsen, 1882

Today, the United States is not a nation which liberals such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would have envisioned. For America to be free, it must break the conservative shackles between government and business interests. Only then can the nation work toward the interests of its people rather than that of corporations.

"One great difference which has characterized this division has

happiness."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941

In the eighteenth century, liberals and libertarians were similar to one another. Both favored free markets, individual liberties, and a reduction in the role that the government played in society. Thus, one definition is that liberals oppose political absolutism. However, there are many opinions on how a decentralized society should be operated. Liberals believe in a large private sector which is defended and promoted by the public sector. There must be a balance between individual and group behavior.

Liberals want to cut back on excessive military expenditures instead of fueling the military-industrial complex. They support popular nationalistic revolutionary movements in foreign countries which seek democracy and liberty for all people. Liberals advocate the protection of individual rights against government suppression and surveillance. They oppose censorship and the government dictating their morals and values.

"Capital, created by the labour of the worker, oppresses the worker

- Nikolai Lenin, 1913

Socialists want to make more adjustments within the capitalist system. They want to replace the system with varying degrees of public and communal ownership. In France former Socialist President Francois Mitterand only wanted to nationalize the country's utilities, banks, and transportation systems, while keeping the remainder of the economy in the private sector. In the United States many socialists view capitalism as: striking hardest at those who are unable to protect themselves; giving America 27 depressions in 122 years; leaving millions in inadequate housing; leaving millions hungry and malnourished; surrendering the power to the elite; and organizing the land, labor, resources, and technology of society around the single goal of increasing one's wealth. Under socialism people are guaranteed employment, shelter, food, health care, and education. They have subsidized transportation systems and utilities.

As the number of poor has increased, America's affluent elite rose most noticeably in the Reagan-Bush era. In the Reagan years the maximum tax bracket was reduced from 70 to 28 percent with a tax bubble, affecting only the middle class, jumping to 33 percent.

Over a three year period, 30.3 percent of the population lived below the poverty line for at least two months, while 5.3 percent stayed poor for at least two full years. In 1994, an average 15.4 percent of Americans lived in poverty each month, and about 22 percent or 55 million Americans were poor for at least two months. These poverty-ridden Americans are those whose income is under $13,650 for a family of three and below $16,450 for a family of four. The median income of black families was 58 percent of that of whites, almost exactly what it was in 1967. By contrast, Latinos earned nearly 71 percent of the income earned by white families. In the last ten years, the number of Latinos who live in poverty has risen from 29 percent to 50 percent.

Almost 44 percent of all black children lived below the poverty level line, compared to 36 percent Latinos and 24 percent Asians. A survey showed that three-quarters of blacks believe that they miss out on jobs or promotions because of racial or religious discrimination. 72 percent of Latinos and 60 percent of Asians, who were surveyed, also agreed.

The economic explosion of the 1990s further broadened the gulf which separated the haves from the have-nots. In the 1990s, economic inequality in the United States widened sharply. Four of every five households now takes home a smaller percentage of the national wealth than 20 years ago. The income disparity between the richest and poorest fifths of the world's population was 30 to 1 in 1960; in 1999 it was 75 to 1. In 1900, the United States' per-capita income was nine times larger than that of Chad and Ethiopia. In 1999, it was 45 times larger.

SUPPORTING AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES. United States foreign policy has always been one to export capitalism rather than to improve the living standards of the people particularly in Third World countries where labor is cheap and where the military poses no threat. By propping up the right wing oligarchies, American multinational corporations have been able to increase their profits by exploiting this part of the world. When free elections have ushered in democratic governments with an emphasis on humanitarian socio-economic reforms, American response has been quick to overthrow them in order to reestablish dictatorships sympathetic to the interests of American corporations.

The United States should address the origin of Third World problems, particularly poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and malnutrition. The majority of the population, primarily comprised of peasants, should be encouraged to grow subsistence crops rather than to cash crops which only add to the profits of American corporations.

In addition, American foreign policy should be based on supporting true democratically elected governments. A country's economic preference should not be a criterion for the type of foreign relations which the United States establishes with that nation. The United States should center its policies around moral principles. Consequently, this would mean terminating the existing policy of "what's good for business is good for America." Instead it should be a policy of "what's good for people is good for America."

As the wealthiest nation on this planet, the United States should embrace a policy of helping -- not exploiting -- the Third World. Each day in undeveloped countries 40,000 children die of starvation and malnutrition. In addition, health care and education are minimal if nonexistent. As these nations continue to suffer, American multi-national corporations are reaping the benefits of cheap labor to produce food and other products primarily for export. The disparity between the haves and the have-nots have been increasing.

The billions of dollars funneled into the military-industrial complex can be diverted into programs to help the American people as well as other peoples throughout the world. Most social programs were slashed by the Reagan administration. This resulted in a rise in the number of homeless and poor, and a decline in health programs and the quality of education.

- Former Vice President Dan Quayle at a fund-raising event for the United Negro College Fund. He was attempting to quote the line" "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

EDUCATION. America's education system has gradually been deteriorating. One in six adults has no higher than a fifth grade reading ability. Among the top six world nations, the United States ranks fifth in science and mathematics, fourth in foreign language, and dead last in a country's own language. The former Soviet Union surpassed the United States in all these areas. Since the 1980s class sizes have increased appreciably, while the government funding of education has diminished.

The number of blacks in college rose 35 percent from 1970 to 1989. However, blacks earned 5.7 percent of all bachelor's degrees awarded in 1989, down 6.4 percent from 1976. During the same period, the percentage of bachelor's degrees earned by Latinos and Asians rose nearly 1 percent and 2.6 percent respectively.

HEALTH CARE. The number of uninsured Americans has increased each year since 1987, and it now exceeds 41 million, roughly one-sixth of the population. Moreover, this steady rise has occurred despite a remarkable economic boom. The nation has created more than 14 million jobs since 1993, but most of these have been in small businesses which are far less likely to provide health insurance than are large companies. Each year the number of uninsured Americans rises by approximately one million people.

Congress enacted two significant health care laws since the collapse of the Clinton plan. It created a new program to finance health care for low-income children in 1997. In 1996, it passed the Kassebaum-Kennedy law, making insurance more readily available to millions of people who change their jobs or lose them. The Kassebaum-Kennedy law guarantees that people losing group health insurance will have access to coverage in the individual insurance market regardless of pre-existing medical problems. However, it does not limit how much they may be charged. The law generally guarantees that people moving from one job to another will be promptly eligible for coverage if the new employer provides health benefits.

Without programs such as Kassebaum-Kennedy, the number of uninsured would have been much higher. Yet corporations still can circumvent these laws and are thus able to deny health benefits to many people. First, insurance companies have found ways to skirt the Kassebaum-Kennedy law by shunning people with medical problems or by charging them very high premiums. The law does not limit what insurers can charge.

Second, the 1996 welfare law inadvertently increased the number of uninsured children, offsetting some of the expected gains in coverage from the new Children's Health Insurance Program. This provides almost $24 billion over five years to finance coverage for some of the nation's 10 million uninsured children.

Third, it was assumed that states would quickly adopt the standards established by the Kassebaum-Kennedy law, but that has not happened in California and four other states. In such states, the federal government is supposed to enforce the law directly, but the Clinton administration acknowledged it was unprepared for this immense new responsibility.

Fourth, the Medicaid eligibility rules are complex, differing from state to state since family income limits vary with a child's age. For example a healthy 4-year-old boy may be protected by Medicaid, while his eight year old sister, though severely ill, is ineligible for coverage because the income limit for her age group is lower. In addition, children are often still eligible for Medicaid after they lose cash assistance, but their Medicaid coverage may be interrupted or lost. Many parents do not know that their children still qualify for Medicaid, and state officials do not always check such families to assess their eligibility.

Health care also becomes an immense problem to those employed by small businesses. Throughout the United States, approximately half of all uninsured workers are either self-employed or working in businesses that have fewer than 25 employees. When coverage is available in such companies, the employees are often required to pay a large share of the cost. The owners of small businesses claim that premiums are too high and that their profits are too uncertain for them to make a commitment to providing health insurance.

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air water that are doing it."

- Vice President Dan Quayle

"A tree's a tree. How many do you need to look at."

- Ronald Reagan, March 12, 1966

"I don't believe a tree is a tree and if you've seen one,

- Ronald Reagan, September 14, 1966

ENVIRONMENTALISM. The planet is self-destructing as a result of little concern of the government. Important issues include the greenhouse effect, acid rain, the rain forests and deforestation, the wetlands, nuclear energy, and the ozone layer. Industrial America is polluting the land, lakes, rivers, and skies.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the world's temperature has risen one per cent. The Panel on Climate Change estimates that the average temperature will rise 5.4 degrees by the end of the next century. Also oceans could rise three feet within a century. This would displace tens of thousands of people, flood productive land, and contaminate fresh water supplies. In 1980 the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 339 parts per million, 25 percent higher than the pre-Industrial Revolution era. In 1990 it was 353 parts per million, and by the year 2000 it is estimated to be 370 parts per million.

The nation's second most polluted city, Los Angeles, has increased layers of smog. Pollution has destroyed countless water wells and rendered underground basins of porous rock useless for storing water in rainy seasons. American coastlines are becoming more and more polluted. Love Canal in New York became a virtual ghost town after chemical companies indiscriminately poured waste materials into the river. In the 1980s, one billion gallons per day of 500 different chemicals was being poured into Lake Superior. Each year Americans throw away 160 million tons of garbage. This amounts to 3.5 pounds per person each day. Large cities are running out of spaces in which to dump garbage, much of which is toxic.

Greenhouse emissions are continuing to increase as fossil fuels -- especially from vehicles and utility generators. United States greenhouse emissions jumped 8 percent from 1990 to 1997, and they are expected to increase at a much higher rate in the coming decades. The European Community has pushed for a binding commitment to reduce emissions by 15 percent by 2010, and many scientists insist that there should be a 40 percent reduction. The United States has refused to embrace either of these plans.

The greenhouse effect has been responsible for a substantial rate of global warming in the past century. From the industrial revolution to 1911 -- a span of 60 years -- the earth's mean temperature rose 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit to 56.5, and atmospheric carbon dioxide increased 20 parts per million (ppm). By 1937, temperatures measured 57 degrees, 0.5 hotter than in 1911, and carbon dioxide jumped another 15 ppm. In 1968, the planet's temperature increased to 57.2 degrees, 0.2 higher than 21 years before, and carbon dioxide was measured at 15 ppm higher. By 1979, the mean temperature tacked on another 0.2 degrees, rising to an average of 57.4, while another 15 ppm of carbon dioxide was measured. In 1989 there was another 0.2 degree increase in the earth's temperature (to 57.6), and another 15 ppm of carbon dioxide. Just seven years later, in 1996, the temperature increased another 0.2 degrees to 57.9. Atmospheric carbon dioxide now reads 360 ppm, 30 percent higher than during the industrial revolution.

Most scientists believe that the earth's mean temperature will jump 2 to 6 degrees in the twenty-first century. Scientists also predict that the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide can easily double in the next 50 years. In November 1997, a group of Canadian and American scientists, including a team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are likely to increase over the next 12 years at a rate nearly 25 percent greater than previous estimates.

Michael MacCracken, director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, said: "Global average temperatures have risen about .5 degrees Celsius (about 1 degree Fahrenheit) during the past 140 years." He said that the first part of the twenty-first century will, the 6 billion tons of carbon humans pump into the lower atmosphere every year will double the level of carbon dioxide in the air from its pre-industrial levels. MacCracken predicted that the global average temperature will rise between 1.5 and 4.5 Centigrade by the year 2100, with 2.5 degrees pegged as the best estimate in a 1995 report of Global Warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international group of 2,500 scientists. If correct, 2.5 degrees would be 6 times the rate of warming over the twentieth century.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the Antarctic ice cap has shrunk, raising the level of the planet's oceans by as much as six inches. Scientists predict that the earth's oceans will rise between one and three feet in the next century. Antarctica is swelled by 7.7 million square miles of seasonal sea ice, twice the size of the United States. This may have a tremendous impact on the Earth's weather.

The EPA has reported that pollutants cause 15,000 deaths annually, as well as thousands of cases of asthma. Since the Clean Air Act of 1970 was implemented, industry has had a horrific record of overstating expected compliance costs and undercounting benefits. In 1978, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed to limit cotton dust which is responsible for brown lung disease among textile workers. Industry immediately chimed in and said that it would cost $2 billion to be in compliance. The actual cost was much less -- $245 million. In 1974, OSHA issued a regulation which drastically reduced permissible worker exposure in the area of vinyl chloride which is used in the production of plastics. Chemical plants barked back and said that this would put their companies out of business. However, they eventually complied to OSHA's regulation at only seven percent of the estimated costs.

Each year, 600,000 acres of the nation's forest lands are being logged. 329,000 acres are totally stripped of every living tree. Since 1980, 400,000 acres of tropical forest have been leveled. This amounts to one-tenth of all the tropical forest on the planet. Globally, 28 million acres of timberlands are being cleared. Trees are being cut down at a rate 30 times higher than they are being replaced. Reforestation would help to cleanse the atmosphere of carbon dioxide.

Tropical forests cover seven per cent of the earth's surface. It is estimated that by the year 2032 almost every tropical forest will be gone. Every hour 10,000 acres are being destroyed to make room for cocoa fields, smelting factories, cattle grazing lands, and for the purpose of adding to the corporate profits of the timber industry.

Since 1980, between 3,000 and 30,000 different types of species have been eliminated. The total number on the planet is between three and ten million. The rate of extinction is expected to go up by a factor of roughly ten by the year 2000. a National Marines Fisheries Service survey in 1991 indicated that 10 percent of Japan's drift net fleet killed 1,758 whales and dolphins, 253,288 tuna, 81,956 sharks, and 30,464 sea birds.

In the 1990s, the GOP used to devices to block environmental legislation in Congress. First, Republicans piggybacked anti-environmental provisions on bills which would definitely pass. For example, anti-environmental issues were tacked on to highway and budget bills. Republican Senator Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho added a provision to a bill which created a new Air Force bombing range in his state's Owyhee Canyonlands. Republican Congressman Don Young of Alaska added a rider which waived environment laws and allowed a road to be built through a widelife refuge in southwest Alaska. Republican Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia tacked on an amendment which froze fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. Republican Congressman Joe Knollenberg of Michigan added a provision which banned all federal efforts to cut global warming pollution until the Kyoto environmental summit was over.

Second, the GOP used the budget cut as an excuse to reduce or eliminate funding and thereby cripple federal agencies which enforce environmental laws. The 1998 GOP budget trimmed $5 billion from environmental programs and targeted the Superfund program.

According to Dan Fagin and Marianne Lavelle's Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law and Endangers Your Health, the World Health Organization estimated in 1989 that pesticides worldwide cause one million poisonings a year and 20,000 deaths. As it turned out, pesticide problem grew much worse. According to one 1992 study, pesticides like Monsanto's Ortho Weed-B-Gon, which contains 2, 4-D, are used at least once a year by 98 percent of all families in the United States. In 1995 the largest 100 American-based chemical companies sold over $234 billion worth of chemical products. This represented a 17 percent growth over the previous year's sales and a tidy profit of $35 billion.

Three hundred synthetic chemicals have been identified as cancer-causing agents in chemical tests. Nevertheless, 80 percent of chemicals currently on the market have never been tested. The chemical corporations have continued to maintain that their products are harmless, but they know more about the dangers of their products than they would admit. In 1991 and 1992, the EPA offered chemical companies amnesty from prosecution if they turned over their health studies to the agency. Soon thereafter, these corporations handed the EPA over 10,000 documents.

Fagin and Lavelle claimed, "At least 20 peer-reviewed studies have linked various pesticides to cancer in children. A recent study of 474 Denver children, for example, found that they were more than twice as likely to get leukemia if pest strips had been used in their homes and also were significantly more likely to get brain tumors or lymphomas if their homes had been treated by exterminators."

The United States must work to resolve the nation's socio-economic problems. Emphasis must be placed on humanizing -- not militarizing -- the country. To prevent the further demise of the United States, as well as that of the entire planet, the government will have to take on the special interest groups of corporations. Only then can the nation work toward improving the status of its people rather than increasing the profits of the corporations.