In Our Dark Mirror

In the Star Trek scriptures (TOS Season 2, Chapter: 4), we learn from a transporter accident that there are other dimensions containing the same worlds and people; yet altered in some major way. You and I are there, but we are totally altered to fit the fabric of that opposite dimension. (The stories of Superman and the Justice League also illustrate similar strange opposite-like dimensions such as Bizaro World.) If we are to believe what Star Trek and DC Comics tell us, such alternate realities must exist.

So imagine for a second what these other dimensions might look like? Think about the alternate earth out there somewhere where your nature is almost the opposite of what it is here; where society is completely turned around? Imagine a dimension where the Aztecs invaded Europe followed by the Incas and other tribes from throughout the western hemisphere; practically forcing white people into extinction. Or perhaps a dimension where the janitor you knew in grade school is the president and the president we have now is a janitor.

From a socio-political perspective this is what I believe the United States looks like in one of these other dimensions:

*Big business is always complaining because their interests and their big, fat wads of money are being ignored by politicians; most of whom instead favor the interests of common working class people. Neither major party really listens to the CEO class; though the Republicans claim to represent them and for this claim alone they expect the people of the CEO class to vote for them every election cycle because they say they aren't as bad (aka- as working class) as the Democrats.

*The religious right is also ignored by both major parties partially because the media and television/radio pundits spend twenty-four hours a day painting them up as total quacks. The news media also serves to remind the voters that just like the uber-capitalist CEOs, they are way too far to the right to be taken seriously. Politicians from both parties heed this advice and avoid them like the plague. The Democrats blast them from the floor while the Republicans offer them a few kind words every now and then while making backroom deals with secular, working-class populists.

*There are a few alternative news outlets that support big business, religious intolerance, and unbridled greed by small-fry media personalities like Rupert Murdock. Murdock and others, however, cannot compete with the mainstream media conglomerates exclusively run by five international labor unions. AM Radio is completely dominated by hard-left commentators.

*The CEO class is tired of both major parties supporting fair trade agreements that force companies to treat all their workers in every country with respect. Some Republicans talk about supporting free trade agreements and the potential to exploit third world labor all over the world, but the majority of the party is controlled by the working class so no real political opposition to fair trade agreements exists. Consequently, fair trade agreements pass every other year in spite of the CEO launched protests at WFTO (World Fair Trade Organization) meetings around the world.

*A third party called the anti-People Party pops up to represent those who want unbridled greed legislation, forced religion, and unlimited wars for profit. This party struggles because of hurdles set up by both major parties (same as in our dimension). The Republicans are up in arms because this party poses a threat to their candidates who talk about unlimited war for profit, forcing kids to pray in school, and giving the rich everything they ask for, but then turn around and vote for peaceful resolutions and legislation that favors the working class. The Republicans go from state to state trying to knock the anti-People Party off the ballot so that the greedy warmongers and fundamentalist Christians will have no choice but to vote for them.

*Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, and Dennis Kucunich are the closest thing the Democrats have to the right. Right-wingers, who normally vote Republican because they have no other choice, often consider them as Democrats they might be able to support because these three congresspeople aren't as far left as some other members of congress whom the people from the right-wing absolutely despise like Senators Chuck D., Jello Biafra, and Noam Chomsky, House Rep. Howard Zinn, House Speaker Barbara Ehrenreich, and Senate Majority Leader Medea Benjamin. Mainstream political pudits routinely call anyone to the right of Joan Baez "the extreme right".

*Congress considers a bill to assist struggling coal mine operators due to the effects of another bill supported and signed into law by a former Republican president which cut the safety net out from under the executives of the coal industry. The "Help Coal Operators Eat" bill was introduced on the House floor by a congressman, who is considered to be part of the fringe right, after an airing of a PBS documentary which showed Don Blankenship eating out of dumpsters and other coal operators having to resort to poaching deer, racoons, and possums in order to feed their families. The bill could possibly pass in the House, but is widely expected to fail in the Senate.

*South Dakota passes a popular law to allow drive-thru abortion clinics and Oregon passes a controversial maximum wage law. Progressive states like Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, and West Virginia are expected to follow suit on both initiatives. Opponents of the maximum wage say they'll challenge it in court and many experts believe it will eventually get shot down. The Republican leadership remains mostly silent because they don't want people to think they're really closet conservatives. The Senate minority leader is a supporter of the maximum wage as part of an attempt by the Republican Party to shake off the conservative image that they believe has cost them elections for at least thirty years.

*The right-wing is consistently divided:

1) Rich people from different areas of the country often times can't work together because of their cultural differences. The South's right-wingers blame the backward Northern right-wingers for not rallying around their left-wing Republican presidential candidates every four years.

2) Rural black millionaires and urban white millionaires blame each other for wanting too big a slice of the pie. Fundamentalist Christians and corporate CEOs are constantly at each others' throats because they believe the people from one group are out to get people from the other. Whenever something comes up where the all the right-wing groups should obviously unite, they do so briefly only to be broken up again over differences like physical appearances, tastes in music, and the way people talk.

3) The media plays on all this. Every individual right-wing group leader wants to lead and everyone of them believes their way is right and the others' ways are wrong. All the groups on the right claim that one or more of the others are dragging their movement down and all of them are constantly consumed with the flames of infighting over whether they should support the Republicans or the anti-Peoples.

4) The larger group who votes Republican calls the much smaller group of anti-People voters traitors and spoilers. The anti-Peoples return fire by calling the Republicans sell-outs and cowards.

*Meanwhile; environmentalist organizations, labor unions, and civil and gay rights activists remain united when it matters the most and the Democrats sweep almost every election.

This is moderated version of something I posted at Appalachian Greens awhile back before the 2006 election.


Tags:
Alternate Realities, Dreaming, Republicans, Democrats, Far Left-Wing, Far Right-Wing, American Politics, Barbara Boxer, Noam Chomsky