“Polarization” is the word most associated with the positions of Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Mass media and commentators never tire of this focus, in part because such clashes create flashes conducive to daily coverage.

The quiet harmony between the two sides created by the pervasive power of big business and other powerful single-themed lobbyists is often the status quo. This is why there are so few changes in the politics of this country.

In many cases, the similarities of the two major parties are related to the fundamental concentration of power of the few over the many. In short, the two parties regularly agree on undemocratic abuses of power. Of course, there are always some exceptions among the base. Here are some areas of Republican and Democratic competition:

1. The Duopoly shares the same stage on a militaristic and imperial foreign policy and massive unaudited military budgets. Just a few weeks ago, the Pentagon budget was passed by a House committee by the Democrats and the GOP with $ 24 billion MORE than President Biden asked of Congress. Neither side is doing much to curb the enormous waste, fraud and abuse of contracted military companies, or the Pentagon’s violation of federal law since 1992 requiring annual verifiable data on government spending. DOD are provided to Congress, the President and the public.

2. Both sides allow unconstitutional wars that violate federal laws and international treaties we signed long ago, including restrictions on the use of force under the Charter of the United Nations.

3. Both sides ignore booming corporate subsidies, giveaways, giveaways and bailouts, turning oceans of inefficient, mismanaged and pampered profit-hungry companies into kings of corporate welfare.

4. Both sides refuse to quell the wave of corporate crime nationwide. They don’t even like to use the term “corporate crime” or “corporate crime wave”. They prefer to delicately allude to “white collar crime”.

Billions of dollars are at stake every year, but neither side is holding corporate tort hearings or offering an update on outdated and weak federal criminal laws on business.

In some cases, there are no criminal penalties for willful and knowing violations of regulatory safety laws (for example, motor vehicle safety laws and aviation safety). Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is trying to find a single Republican Senator to co-sponsor the “Hide No Harm Act” that would criminalize a business executive knowingly withholding information about a corporate action or product which poses the problem. danger of death or serious bodily injury to consumers or workers.

5. Both sides allow the inexhaustible CEOs of Wall Street to prey on innocent people, including small investors. They are also doing nothing to stop hundreds of billions of dollars in computer billing fraud, especially in the healthcare industry. (See, Permit to fly by Malcolm K. Sparrow and a GAO report some 30 years ago).

6. The third leading cause of death in the United States is mortality from preventable problems in hospitals and clinics. According to the study from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2015, a conservative estimate is that 250,000 people die each year from preventable diseases. Neither Congress nor the executive branch has stepped up to the scale required to reduce this staggering level of mortality and morbidity. The American Medical Association (AMA) is also not engaging in this preventable epidemic.

7. Both sides accelerated the airline industry’s more than $ 50 billion bailout during Covid-19, after companies spent around $ 45 billion on unproductive stock buybacks in recent years to increase the measures used to increase executive compensation.

8. Both sides are starving the law enforcement budgets of companies from the Ministry of Justice, regulatory bodies and ministries such as Labor, Agriculture, Interior, Transport and Health and Utilities social. The Duopoly’s point of view is that there will be no additional federal cops on the pace of corporate crime.

9. Both sides bow down to the bank-funded Federal Reserve. There are no congressional audits, no congressional scrutiny of the Fed’s covert and obscure operations and massive money printing to energize Wall Street, while keeping interest rates close to zero for billions of dollars held by more than one hundred million small and medium-sized savers in America. .

10. Both sides are committed to constant and huge bailouts of the risky, declining and uncompetitive nuclear industry (with solar and wind power). It is the worst of corporate socialism. Without taxpayers ‘and taxpayers’ money, nuclear power plants would shut down faster than they do today. Bipartite proposals for more nuclear weapons come with substantial subsidies and guarantees from Uncle Sam.

11. Both parties hate third parties and engage in the political bigotry of preventing their access to ballots (see: Richard Winger’s Ballot access form), with obstacles, harassment prosecutions and exclusions from public debates. The goal of both parties is to stop a competitive democracy.

12. Both sides overwhelmingly endorse anything the Israeli government wants in the latest US military weapons, the suppression of Palestinians and illegal occupation of remaining Palestinian lands, and the periodic slaughter of Gazans with US weapons. The Duopoly also supports the use of the US veto in the UN Security Council to isolate Israel from UN sanctions.

13. Continuing Republican President Newt Gingrich’s debilitating internal distortions of congressional infrastructure, Democrats have followed the GOP’s cut in committee and staff budgets, the abolition of the crucial Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) budget and the concentration of excessive power in the hands. of the President and Leader of the Senate. This little-noticed immolation further reduces the ability of the legislature to oversee the immense sprawling executive branch. The erosion of congressional power is aided by the three-day work week that Congress has set aside for itself.

14. Even on what may appear to be healthy partisan differences, Democrats and the GOP agree not to replace or soften Trump’s Internal Revenue Service director, a former tax lawyer specializing in corporate loopholes, or the head of the U.S. Postal Service, a former Post Profiter who will soon cut service even more than he did in 2020 (See: First Class: The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Business Threat, by Christopher W Shaw).

Right now, the two sides are ready to give more than $ 50 billion of their tax dollars to highly profitable companies in the under-taxed computer chip industry like Intel and Nvidia, so that they can create more for-profit factories in the United States. . They should invest their own money and stop the buyback craze. Isn’t that capitalism?

Both sides vote as if the middle class American taxpayer is a sleeping fool. Politicians from both parties exploit voters who fail to do their homework on the ballot books and let lawmakers use the sovereign power of the people (remember the “We the People” in the Constitution) against them on behalf of the big boys. bosses.

Sleep on America, you have nothing to lose but your dreams.