Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Arena Magazine

Letter from America: prelude to a miss: everything you've been wondering but were too scared to ask. Mark Wagner explains the mystery of US elections.

Article Excerpt
Dear Explainer, Last week, the main news item shuttled around from computer to computer and mouth to mouth was the statistic that, in America, more than half of women are now living without men. In that same week, Hillary 'quietly' announced she was 'in to win'. Do you think there is a connection?

Signed, Punk at Heart

Dear Punk at Heart,

It would be hard to describe the bigotry, racism, bias, small mindedness and false hopes the Bush years have prefaced for America, but I think your letter does grasp at it. Yes, gender politics and sex rule the American imagination. But let's not mistake sex for politics. The real issue here is: The Hillary juggernaut about to dismantle the public financing system, a post-Watergate initiative hailed for decades as the best way to rid politics of the corrupting influence of corporate money. She is the first candidate since the public financing program began in 1976 to forgo public money for both the primary and the general election. There are no limits now. She has refused public money, meaning she will raise far more than the $150 million the system would provide for the 2008 presidential primaries and general election; in so doing, Hillary makes it difficult for anyone else to participate in the system without having to raise huge dollars. Forget gender, this campaign is about money, i.e. corporate financing and special interests. Hillary has become what she despises: a corporate figurehead whose personal rhetoric and photo opps about motherhood and children will mean nothing once the heads of Exxon and Raytheon sit down across the table from her and explain to her where the money came from and why she needs more military hardware.

Dear Explainer,

How can you be so cold? Don't you see the hope in Hillary's message? Can't you see that behind the avalanche of money there's a real person, a mommy, a woman, who recently noted, 'There's something wrong when you have more bankruptcies in America last year than college...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!