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Incarceration Nation

Bi-Partisan Hell

By Mumia Abu-Jamal

In much of public discourse today, one hears the call for “bi-partisanship,” as in the nation’s two corporate political parties, working together to “get things done.”

One hears this mostly from corporate media elites, or intellectuals, who decry the lack of civility in today’s politics.

What does this mean in the real world? It is a plaintive plea that politicians play nicer. In practice, however, it really means that they unite before their funders to bequeath more and more of the nation’s wealth on them.

For the poor, the impoverished, the immigrant and the oppressed, it really means more war on them!

 For the wealthy elites ever love disunion among the people; between irrelevancies—like race, ethnicity and social rank. They have ever and always tried to use race, language, age and other perceived differences, to drive workers at each other’s throats. They have ever stoked fear of the “other” to secure their class ascendancy.

That’s the lesson of Trumpism, but he is not alone in this.

Do you oppose Trump because of his racist, fear-mongering call for the Wall?

On April 23, 2006, the New York Daily News published an article quoting Hillary Clinton saying “We need a wall.”

Immigrant wars, it seems, are bi-partisan, for both corporate parties utilize fear to drive voters to the polls.

Bi-partisan politics brought us NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement,) the AEDPA (the so-called Effective Death Penalty Act,) the Chinese Exclusion Act—and so much more.

Bi-partisanship equals repression, amid the toothy smiles of political jackals.

Prison Radio, August 27, 2018