I am writing this in response to Boo’s front page article Some Principles. And since I’ve got tomorrow off (as do most of you, I assume), I’ve got time to do it and it seems appropriate.
First a few words about Boo. I’ve been reading his stuff over at the “orange place” for about gosh, four years now? A long time. And I always admired his writing and when he set up his own website I was quite honored to get an email informing me of the fact.
And he’s certainly been a tireless campaigner for all the stuff I know I could NEVER do, all the political analysis of seats, the really in-depth articles about important issues and the activist stuff. And he’s done a great job of keeping his website viable and pretty much completely “civilized”, which is just about impossible in this day and age.
So long story short, in no way am I criticizing the PERSON nor the work he’s done. I respect him greatly and what follows is just my response to it. Got it?
Ok, let’s do it.
First to respond to this:
You can quibble about the definition of ‘democracy’ but the key is the vote. Without the vote you have guaranteed tyranny. You can expand the franchise or contract the franchise and your results may vary, but the government must absolutely be accountable to the people.
I think what’s been on my mind for a long time is that last line, that the government must be held accountable to the people. Because one of the greatest frauds of my public school education (reinforced by traditional media of all sorts) is that the United States has EVER been accountable to the people.
Kind of ironic but whether it’s Thomas Jefferson penning “all men are created equal” to Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg talking about a “government for the people, by the people”, it’s all been a bunch of baloney. In 1865, Native Americans, African Americans, women and a whole lot of white men (mostly those who couldn’t pay the poll tax) couldn’t even vote. Period.
It took about 150 years for white women to get the vote and about 200 before there were even (effective) laws on the books that people of color could vote. That’s a hell of a poor record. A lesser known fact is that Native Americans weren’t even citizens (and certainly couldn’t vote) until 1924.
But let’s fast forward to today. In my mind there are three major issues which prevent the government from being held accountable to the people.
1 – Voting “Rights”
Unlike say, our English-speaking “country” cousins in Australia, there is no law or statute saying American citizens have the right to vote. And that’s huge. Long story short, the laws on voting roughly mirror those on having a driver’s license. It’s a privilege, often widely held, which can’t be blocked (legally) due to race or religion or what not, but not a right and it can be taken away.
And there are certainly classes of people who LEGALLY cannot vote even today, primarily those people convicted of certain felonies in certain states, plus certain issues regarding the residents of Washington, DC. I don’t really see how you can call your country a representative democracy if EVERY citizen does not have the right to vote.
Further down the line are two other atrocities in mind. The first is gerrymandering, which is a tough one to handle because how WOULD you divide a state or political entity up into FAIR districts?
The problem today is that the PAST winners of political offices, principally the ruling party in that state (or area), go around re-drawing the boundaries every few years and they do it explicitly in such a way that their own party (and thus the incumbents) are given a huge advantage. So you get the winners re-drawing the lines to make it easier for the past winners to continue to win again. Sort of akin to letting the winning team of the Super Bowl fiddle with the NFL rules for the next season.
The second quite frankly only refers to the presidential elections and that is the Electoral College. Again this is perfectly lawful by the statutes and I’ve heard a whole lot of arguments about why this “sacred” institution needs to remain but frankly none of it convinces me.
In my mind it makes absolutely no sense for a state’s winning political party (protected by gerrymandering) to “elect” people to a “college” that nobody has EVER voted for directly, and then these people get to “interpret” who regular people vote for and then “represent” them when it comes time to choosing an American president.
And then there’s all the outright illegality (Diebold machines, ballot tampering) which is clearly criminal. And on top of that is a whole lot of shenanigans verging on illegality such as “purging” voter rolls, understaffing or under-supplying voting precincts in minority areas and deliberately trying to frustrate people’s ACCESS to polling stations, etc. Plus things like (most recently) Indiana’s attempt to modify the ID required to be ABLE to vote, thus denying some people access. And other shenanigans like hanging chads, absentee ballots for people being used inappropriately, etc.
So what this all sums up to is in any given district during any given election, there are a whole host of things PREVENTING or strongly dissuading people from voting or from having their vote correctly registered and entered. You can’t call it a representative democratic government accountable to the people if the most fundamental pillar of democracy (voting) is less than 100% free, fair and universal.
2 – Corporations
This is a little murky because often times people confuse all businesses with corporations and what not. And I won’t get into corporate history and what makes up a corporation here but the critically important thing is that LEGALLY all corporations are “people”. You can read some basics here.
So imagine a race of 10-meter tall super powerful aliens living in the United States, who are immortal, have no soul and yet have just about all of the same rights that you and I do (us flesh and blood people). Sadly, most of their rights as a “legal person” came about from horrific judicial rulings based on interpretations of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was actually written to support emancipation of REAL flesh and blood people (African-Americans).
And it is these immortal “people” who have a tremendous say over our government even if they can’t actually cast a ballot.
Media – I think just about everyone reading this blog is aware of the stranglehold that 7 media conglomerates (corporations aka “legal people”) have on the media, aka television, newspapers, radio and film. And the REASON they have this suffocating hold on our airwaves and print media, etc is because they have the financial resources and power to lobby the government to enact rules to allow them to do get away with this.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that it’s a heck of a lot easier for a single “legal person” aka a corporation to organize, mobilize and fund a lobby for the enactment of a piece of government legislation than a grassroots organization of flesh and blood people.
Do organizations such as Moveon and Code Pink and the ACLU and EFF and others (including the liberal “blogosphere”) composed of flesh and blood people still have a powerful effect on enacting or advocating for or against a piece of legislation? Most definitely. But their power is paltry compared to the zombie-like immortal juggernaut of “legal people”.
And so if you’ve got corporations controlling the vast majority of the “message” that gets out to the voters, they are able to shape it, mold it, tamper with it, slice it, dice it, bass-o-matic it to the point where bowling scores and who you’d like to have a beer with and haircuts and blowjobs and all of that BECOMES the discourse of the day.
All you’ve got to do is spend one second thinking about the issues that TRULY affect your daily life and compare it with the corporate media’s message on what THEY think is important to instantly see the huge disconnect. And that’s true no matter WHAT your political “leanings” are or affiliation is.
Foreign Policy – Except for a very few American families of blended nationality, most flesh and blood human citizens of the United States actually LIVE in the United States and the majority of their interests are in the United States.
Corporations however, especially the most powerful ones, are trans-national. They have gigantic interests overseas. And so they have even MORE reason to lobby the government to protect, enable, enhance and subsidize those interests.
I live in Romania and here in my own town alone we have McDonald’s (4), KFC (2), Starbucks, Nike, Adidas, Converse, Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Pizza Hut (5), Motorola, Puma, Apple, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Ford, GMC (Chevrolet), MTV, VH1 and a whole host of other American corporations, including ones like ProTV, the most popular non-governmental TV channel, owned by an American corporation out of New Jersey. And on and on. So all of those companies CARE about American foreign policy involving Romania while most Americans do not. So who has the biggest influence, the corporations or the voters?
There’s no wars currently planned for Romania but that brings me to the last plank of corporations’ influence:
Military – I guess you could file this under “foreign policy” but corporations are deeply embedded in every aspect of the military, from Hollywood films propagandizing the “glory” of the troops to actual contracts received from the Pentagon. And it’s not just Lockheed Martin or Halliburton, it’s thousands of “ordinary” corporations like Sara Lee, Oakley sunglasses, Apple computers and Procter and Gamble.
So when you’ve got these 10 foot tall alien “legal people” all with a gigantic incentive to profit FROM the military, that has a huge impact on what the military does, when it gets used, what weapon systems it buys, what countries get invaded, bombed and the rest. Not to mention “spinning” the message on the fact that the “troops must be supported”, all our wars are “patriotic”, etc.
It’s a fairly well-known statistic that the United States spends roughly HALF of all the military spending on the globe. Only a tiny, tiny, tiny, miniscule fraction of that is going as paychecks into the pockets of soldiers. The rest of it is being vacuumed up by corporations who then know the way to continue to boost profits is MORE military spending, MORE use of the military’s weapons (so new ones can be bought) and MORE glamorization of the military so it will be used more often.
And of course there’s all the well-known “baddies” such as Halliburton, Bechtel, KBR plus the mercenary corporations like Blackwater who simply get cash on the barrel head for wars. And the oil majors and gas majors directly profiting off the plunder of foreign lands.
Legislation – And besides policies on regulating and moderating the public’s airwaves (media), the military and foreign policy, corporations also have inordinate influence over every other kind of legislation passed, whether at the city, state or national level. Some of the worst plundering of the United States on domestic issues is done via agricultural giants and pharmaceutical heavyweight corporations plus their evil sidekicks the “healthcare” industry.
This leads to poisonous, sickening, depleted food (some of it being literally alien in nature – created in a lab) being grown and sold under unsanitary and dangerous conditions, forcing out of business nearly everyone who would dare to buck that trend and grow anything healthy, organic and in the space and by the methods necessary for quality food.
And then the sickened population is jabbed, injected and pushed to consume a vast variety of chemical concoctions known as pharmaceuticals at prices the corporations set and control and all of this foisted on by a healthcare “industry” whose sole motive for existence (as with all corporations) is profit motive.
Revolving Door – Literally short hand for the fact that high ranking members of corporations enter public office (whether elected or appointed) and high ranking members of the government leave office to work for corporations.
Of course this is a short summary and hardly all-inclusive in the slightest but it’s evident that so long as corporations are “legal persons” and given so many rights, they will continue to use their influence which will FAR OUTWEIGH the influence of any given flesh and blood individual, whether that individual is at the voting booth or trying to organize his/her fellow citizens into taking action for or against certain pieces of legislation or to redress grievances or to publish a newspaper or influence foreign policy.
3 – And Thus, The Perfect Storm
You almost could not imagine a more perfect system to DISENFRANCHISE the ordinary public in a democracy than the way corporations do it today. You’ve got:
Outright ballot rigging and fraud (Diebold)
Demonstrable influence over deciding who CAN and CANNOT vote, aka “purging voter rolls” (Choicepoint)
Control over message, especially that of the “mainstream media” to shape, influence and modify public discourse on important issues (propaganda)
Corporations literally staffing appointed government positions on all levels and hiring former government officials as a reward for influence (revolving door)
Undeniably lopsided advantage over the ability to lobby and influence elected government officials to pass legislation (such as the recent telecoms immunity bill)
And last but not least, with the fact that corporations have consistently funded litigation to support the idea that campaign donations are “free speech”, they are literally buying the support of politicians of all stripes. And it’s all completely legal!
4 – Conclusion
If you’ve got a few hours to spare, watch the four-part series Century of the Self.
I realize I sound a little bit “unpatriotic” or as if “hate” the United States but nothing could be further from the truth. I just vehemently disagree with Booman’s assertions that the institutions of democracy have anything to do with promoting democracy or being democratic.
The United States (or at least it’s institutions) started off as a bulwark to protect a cabal of slave-owning genocidal white men who outright stole a few VERY good ideas from the Native Americans (such as the “all men are created equal” stuff) and broke off from the motherland of slave-owning genocidal white men so that they could pursue their misogynistic, racist and genocidal profit comes before all else policies the way they best saw fit some 220 years ago (give or take).
Nearly 200 years later it was the PEOPLE who pushed, organized, got active and rallied to finally achieve a modicum of ACTUAL representative democracy. It’s like a climber with one toe hold on the side of a precarious mountain, NOT some deeply entrenched, long-established environment here. And Boo IS fighting for REAL democracy and that’s why I respect him. Absolutely.
But the “powers that be”, which is not a group of sinister men in robes in a smoke-filled room but simply the collective interest of those whose sole motivation is FINANCIAL profit, have a stranglehold on the United States and always have. THEY are the truly entrenched power and tradition and the “institutions” of the United States, not a government “for the people and by the people”.
And they are working overtime, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to keep the American people misinformed, duped, propagandized, pushed to the margin, splintered, kept away from the ballot box, having their votes not count, fooled and otherwise taken out of the equation as much as possible when it comes to any effort or attempt to hold the government accountable to their needs.
So that’s my response. Have a good and safe Fourth of July!
Pax
