WHAT ABOUT THE SUPERFLUOUS HALF?  (ISRAELI ELECTIONS)

In the US, fifty percent of the citizens do not take part in the
elections -an outcome of a long tradition of two candidates, identical
in deeds though different in style.  Both represent the same "market
forces" but the Democrats have more respect to the liberal values
of the west: the legal system, education, the right of abortion.
For those fifty percent who still make a living, these issues are
important enough to bring them to the elections.  The other fifty
percent are occupied with survival.  When we see on tv the joyous
pictures of the blooming American economy, they don't show us the
crumbling neighborhoods, the homeless, those who work 12 hours a day
with humiliating wages, or the children whose support Clinton has
cut. The poor half has no voice and no candidate, and it has been
filtered out from the political system.  What's left is democracy
of the rich.

This is precisely what is prepared for us in Israel: There is one
ruling party of generals, business people and their helpers, but with
two arms:  Likud (Netanyahu) and Labor (Barak).  Although there is
constant flow and exchange of members between the arms, they fight
loudly on the issues which concern the ruling party, e.g. whether
to transfer part of the oppression of the Palestinians to the CIA
and the Palestinian security services, as specified in the Wai
agreement, or to keep it fully at the hands of the Israeli army and
the settlers.

Both arms of the ruling party address only the same specific audience.
Each has the voters which it believes to be already in its pocket,
and their energy is invested in appealing to the wealthy top 20% of
the citizens, whom they like to call 'center'.  In addition they also
try to each still the sure voters of the other:  the secular arm from
the religious voters, and the peace preachers from the settlers.
All the rest are on their way to be filtered out of the political
system.

Till the present elections, Labor tried to keep some contact with
the poorer segments of the society, and even allocated seats in the
parliament for the "local" party activists. Not any more.  The whole
industrial region of Haifa has no representative in the party list,
and the poor south of the country disappeared as well.  What is left
is a list of elites, military personae, and dignitary politicians.
Eli Dayan -one of the candidates of the south, has already reached
in the parliament the status of head of the coalition.  He was asked
to resign, because he disobeyed party orders and voted for a long
school-day. Rabin really disliked that.  Now his social role will
be fulfilled by Prof Shlomo Ben Ami, a zealous advocate of 'social
justice' who probably believes every word he says, but Barak can trust
him that as a cultured person he will show responsibility at the moment
of truth and will vote with the ruling party.

How can we explain what looks like a suicidal behavior: Barak, whose
election is far from certain is willing to guasrantee two parliament
seats to a negligible religious group and risk the sure votes
represented by the local candidates?  The answer is that above any
power conflict, the ruling party is committed to a higher ruler -
the capital power that demands to cancel "old fashioned" notions like
the responsibility of the state to the welfare of its citizens.  And
this power is never satisfied. There are still assets of the state
that can be sold to the capital sharks of the world, factories that
can be closed, workers whose wages can be lowered, and government
budgets spent on health, education and child support of those who,
from the perspective of the capital, are superfluous.

Barak and his party have clarified well their commitment to the
business power. Even the name 'labor' is too problematic for them,
(replaced with 'United Israel'), and among their parliament members
there will be no one who can unexpectedly give trouble. As for the
superfluous part of society: poor, unemployed, Arabs, and just young
people whose future is work in a manpower company - for them the party
still provides nice words on "social justice" to help them vote for
the ruling party.  With time, the superfluous half will learn to stay
at home, as in the US.

But we are still not the US, and our voting system is much better:
There are still many parties, and the parliament can bother, and even
overthrow the government. While the prime-minister elections is a
sold game, there is still a significant struggle on the parliament.
Here there is still a choice: Vote for the parliament, weaken the
ruling party, strengthen the left parties, and thus expand the
bargaining power of the 'superfluous'.

In the left too, not everyone is virtuous.  A good way to ensure that
the left parties as well will not forget after the elections who voted
for them is to get organized in local groups - the bigger the better -
 and to form together an alliance with one of the left parties - an
alliance which enables always moving together to the party which
represents the group better.