Deep into one of capitalism’s worst crises, we confront the twin spectacles of downward economic decline for most while politicians and mass media act in and produce political theater. As unemployment rose from 7 million in December 2007 to over 15 million today and new home foreclosure proceedings rose to run now in the hundreds of thousands per month, it became increasingly obligatory for most politicians to express concern, outrage and compassion. They orchestrate which of these they publicize when and how according to what polls reveal about their constituents’ preferences.

The Democrats tend to offer grandiose affirmations of dire social needs coupled with even more dramatic gestures toward generous government programs to address such needs. The Republicans pander to the fears of businesses and the upper income groups that the government might target their wealth and incomes as sources to pay those programs’ costs. Civic minded organizations host local replicas of national media talk shows in which photogenic representatives of both sides square off in theatrics that repeat the same opposing clichés.

In the end, of course, Democrats and Republicans “compromise” on passing bills that sound like much is to be done while making sure nothing much happens. Each such piece of political play acting drives another wedge of the public to walk away in disgust and stop participating in or even bothering to learn about “politics” any more. The more gullible get caught up in the make-believe and engage in excited conversations about the merits and demerits of this or that law or politician or party’s position.

Both the disgusted who turned away from politics and those who think the public debates actually matter share one thing in common. By their reactions to the political theater around the economic crisis, they are effectively distracted from getting interested or active in political movements critical of the economic system. They do not join with others to study and propose, as a solution to the current crisis, a change to another economic system. They do not become critics of capitalism.

And therein lies the genius of the political theatrics that accompany economic crises in capitalism. What matters are not the inane, repeated dogmas that Democrats and Republicans heave against one another. What those politicians do (or don’t do) only plays around the edges of the economic crisis; at best they sometimes soften the economic blows for some. Basically, the business cycle keeps going down until reduced wages for workers and reduced prices for other business “inputs” fall enough to induce businesses to resume hiring. Democrats and Republicans do nothing about the basic cycles that are inherent in the capitalist system.

Their political theatrics just buy time for the cycle to do its damage, to destroy workers, businesses, and communities, so money can be made again in rebuilding them. The political theatrics work to keep all those who are suffering in this economic crisis – and all those fearful of soon joining those sufferers – from thinking critically about and acting to change a system that endlessly imposes economic crises on its people. Yet meanwhile, the frustrations build.