Author: statusquobuster

To: Presidential Candidate John Edwards

Subject: Winning the presidency by defending OUR Constitution

I am intrigued by your clear populist and progressive orientation, particularly your focus on addressing economic inequality that is harming working- and middle-class Americans.  There is another issue that is ideal for you to champion.  I beg you to open you heart and mind to something that likely has escaped your attention.  In a nutshell: Congress has steadfastly ignored a clear provision in Article V of our Constitution that empowers the states to have Congress call for a convention of state delegates to consider proposals for constitutional amendments.

Article V is crystal clear.  The only requirement is that two-thirds of state legislatures submit applications to Congress for a convention.  This is the alternative route for the first step of the amendment process.  Up until now, only Congress has formed proposals for amendments.  Let me assure you that vastly more than two-thirds of state legislatures have at various times sought a convention.  In fact, there have been 567 such applications from 50 states.

Judge Thomas Brennan, former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and Dean Emeritus and President of Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, has spoken out boldly in favor of Congress calling an Article V convention: “The right to demand an amendatory convention under Article V of the federal Constitution is the last prerogative of the several sovereign states of the American union. If dual sovereignty means anything in the United States any more, if there is any irreducible minimum beyond which the lawful authority and inherent power of the states cannot be diminished, it must lie in the clear mandate of Article V. By the plain words of Article V, the people of three-fourths of the states can amend the Constitution of the nation. Speaking either through their state legislatures or through state ratification conventions, the people of the fifty states, counted state by state, are the ultimate sovereign authority by which the federal Constitution is amended. But the right and the reserved power of the people of the states to pass upon constitutional amendments is hollow indeed without the prerogative of demanding an amendatory convention to discuss, refine, draft and propose amendments.  … There is no danger of a runaway convention. That phrase, `runaway convention’, and all the accompanying horror stories about repealing the Bill of Rights are utterly without substance. They are myths, harmful to democracy, invented by those who are afraid to let the people exercise their historic and God-given right to self government.”

There is a widespread misperception that only applications seeking the same amendment can be counted.  This is dead wrong.  No such thing is said or implied in Article V.  A little thought and it becomes clear that our Founders knew that requiring states to specify what they wanted to amend could cause Congress to oppose the change and ignore the states’ request.  And doing do would stifle debate on possible amendments among state delegates – the same kind of debate that Congress now enjoys.

Of course, Congress has done just that – totally ignored the constitutional requirement to call a convention.  So many people find this incredulous that they fall prey to incorrect justifications for this congressional inaction.  Clearly, Congress has wanted to keep all the power when it comes to defining possible amendments to our Constitution.  This only proves the wisdom of our Founders, who created the alternative convention path because of their concern that the federal government could grow too powerful and ignore the true interests of we the people. Just what has happened.

An Article V convention is a constitutionally mandated form of direct democracy that now is more sorely needed than ever.  The presidency of George W. Bush has revealed how the constitution can be twisted.  The corruption of Congress by corporate and other special interests has created the “two Americas” you have so boldly talked about.

Many may wonder how Congress could have gotten away o long with violating a clear constitutional provision.  One reason is that federal courts have not acted.  A petition to the Supreme Court failed.  In other words, the judicial branch decided that it would not force Congress to comply with OUR Constitution.  What’s left?

The Executive Branch must come to the rescue.  Now is the time for you sir to boldly say that if elected President of the United States of America and having sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution that you would use the full force of the presidency to demand Congress call a convention.  There is little to fear from an Article V convention, while there is much that it might do to put America on a better track with a stronger democracy.

Now is the time for all good Americans to come to the aid of their constitutional republic.  Let you, presidential candidate John Edwards, take the initiative by becoming the first presidential candidate to take a stand on this issue.  Please defend OUR Constitution.  Do we really have a country where the rule of law is sacred?

If as you say “tomorrow begins today,” then please begin the national movement for an Article V convention to make a better tomorrow for we the people.  Your courageous stand could compel the new Congress to hold hearings on this issue.  Let those who believe in totally ignoring Article V and the states’ and the public’s right to a convention testify publicly and try to defend their position.  I await your reply.  The country awaits your leadership.

[Many sources of information on the Article V issue are on www.article5.org.  Known as Democracy’s Mr. Fix It, Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy – Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government; www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

A New Year’s Resolution for ALL Presidential Candidates

Joel S. Hirschhorn

No matter how awful you think our government and political system have become, odds are you do not know about this travesty of justice, an incredible failure to honor our fabled Constitution.  This failure has removed the sovereignty of we the people, and made Congress much more powerful than it should be.  Let me acknowledge that even though I have been pegged as “Democracy’s Mr. Fix It,” until recently I too was ignorant about this blatant disregard for a key part of our Constitution.

Our Founders were acutely aware of the need to create a mechanism for we the people to, when necessary, circumvent the political power of the federal government.  They built in a critically important form of direct democracy that, however, our elected MISrepresentatives have refused to implement.  Here it is: Article V of our Constitution specifies two distinct routes to amending our Constitution: “The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress…”

Conventions to consider constitutional amendments should be seen as peaceful revolutions – a remedy specified in our Constitution for addressing a national government and political system that no longer serves public interests.  Congress has been so corrupted for so long that it has blatantly ignored the constitutional provision for conventions.  It wants exclusive power over amending our Constitution in violation of the Constitution itself.

The key point is that our Founders gave states this route to address excess federal power.  All of the twenty-seven amendments thus far incorporated into the Constitution were proposed by Congress. Granted, Article V has sparse language.  But clearly Congress “shall” call a convention to order when the only stated requirement is met, namely that two-thirds of state legislatures request a convention.  There are NO other stated requirements.  So, have state legislatures requested a convention and has Congress fulfilled its constitutional, legal responsibility and called for one?

Yes, a sufficient number of state legislatures have requested a convention.  With 50 states presently in the Union, there must be applications made by lawmakers in at least 34 states in order to trigger the constitutionally specified convention option.  In fact, there have been over five hundred state applications requesting a convention and Congress has never called for one.  All the state applications are there in the Congressional Record and Congress is ignoring them.  Legally known as laches, things that are ignored on purpose.

As noted in Wikipedia: “The framers of the Constitution wanted a means of sometimes bypassing a potentially unwilling Congress in the amendment-proposing process. They thought that there could be circumstances in which Congress, for self-serving reasons, would ignore valid pleas to amend the Constitution and so the framers established an alternate means of proposing change in the Constitution.”  Just as an example, consider that a convention might decide to alter or abandon the Electoral College system for choosing a president.

What has Congress done?  Congress has never obeyed Article V and certified that a national Constitutional convention must be held – remember, NOT by itself to amend the Constitution, but solely at its discretion to propose amendments – just as Congress has done in the past.  Then, it would be up to state legislatures or state conventions to actually pass or not pass any proposed amendments.  Congress has never even established a procedure for tracking state requests for a convention.  Congress’ power-grabbing behavior is by itself sufficient reason why Americans should want a convention – one possible amendment would be to amplify the language on conventions to make Congress more responsible.

This point is especially important.  As noted in Wikipedia, Congress has never responded to many requests from states by calling a convention, supposedly because those applications requested amendments on different subjects.  However, Article V does not explicitly require that state requests must specify what amendment(s) they are interested in pursuing.  Congressional inaction has contributed to the impression that states must petition for the same amendment(s).  However, federal courts have never ruled on this “precedent,” nor should they.  We do not need any judicial decision, because  Article V does not require that states specify anything other than their desire for a convention.  Logically, to require states to signal in advance what they were interested in doing would create the potential for congressional refusal to call a convention.  Thus, the Founders knew what they were doing when they did not require such notification.

As if the illegal inactions by Congress is not enough to make your patrotic blood boil, the Supreme Court rejected hearing a case that claimed it was illegal for Congress to avoid calling a convention.  In August 2006 Bill Walker filed a petition of close to 1,000 pages; he noted that 50 states had requested a convention.  He correctly emphasized that “On its face, that fact alone compels Congress to call a convention, which it has not, and compels the judicial system, under its oath to support the Constitution, to enforce that document’s provision and declare such inaction by Congress, unconstitutional.”

On October 30, 2006 the Supreme Court denied certiorari to this question in Walker v. Members of Congress (06-244).  By refusing to hear the case it allowed the direct text of the United States Constitution to be vetoed with impunity by Congress.  What is so disturbing is that the Supreme Court did not think it worthy or that it had a Constitutional duty to address the power of Congress by itself to veto an explicit clause and provision in our Constitution.  Thus two branches of the federal government violated their sacred, sworn oath to obey the Constitution.  Simply put, the refusal of Congress to issue the call for a convention even when a sufficient number of applying states exists is unconstitutional, and the refusal of the Supreme Court to rule that Congress has acted unconstitutionally was itself unconstitutional.

Imagine this: Congress upholds its oath and issues a call for a Constitutional convention.  The states would hold special elections for delegates; the delegates would convene and make their own rules for reaching decisions.  Once all the delegates had proposed their ideas and agreed on what amendments should be ratified by the states, the convention would end.  The proposed amendments would then be sent out to the states by Congress; the ratification process would begin.  Once any single amendment garnered the approval of 38 states – a high hurdle – it would be amended to the Constitution.  A host of electoral reforms could be enacted to rejuvenate our American democracy.

If you truly believe in our constitutional republic and representative democracy with safeguards, then you must demand that every presidential candidate take a clear, unequivocal position on this Article V constitutional convention requirement.  It is time for the Executive Branch to stand up for constitutional integrity.  Every single one of us should demand from whoever becomes our new president in 2008 a commitment to pressure Congress for a convention.  He or she should do that soon after taking office – after swearing to defend and uphold our Constitution.  Should we accept anything less?

How could candidates for the presidency say that a clear constitutional clause is not valid?  Nor must they be allowed to do what Congress has done – simply ignore the whole Article V convention issue.  Take a stand!  Inaction means our Constitution will suffer three strikes and have even less credibility with the many U.S. citizens and people worldwide who already see American democracy riddled with hypocrisy.

And where the hell is our mainstream news media?  Is not obeying our Constitution worthy of their attention?

[The subject of Constitutional conventions and many other forms of direct democracy are examined in the author’s new book Delusional Democracy; check it out at www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Class War Weapon of Choice – For the Holidays and All Days

Joel S. Hirschhorn

The motto of the United States of Consumption is “In More We Trust.”  The contribution of American culture to humanity is consumption obsession.   Our epidemic of obesity, our land gluttonous suburban sprawl, our monster-size environmental footprint, our ravenous automobile addiction, and our heartless greed are symptoms of a deep-seated, sick mental state that keeps the economy humming.  And it keeps increasing economic inequality and apartheid.  

Mass consumption is also a distraction from the self-inflicted defeat facing working- and middle-class Americans in the class war they are losing.  Americans are enslaving themselves with their spending and delusional prosperity.  The rich and super-rich in their McMansions, luxury cars, yachts, swank spas and private jets surely are laughing at how easy it is to manipulate the 80 percent of the population that keeps enriching them.  

Many common folks are deluding themselves that they have a fair shot at joining America’s super-rich — those households worth at least $10 million.  According to an Elite Traveler poll, they will be spending 25 percent more this year than last on holiday parties, travel, and shopping.  Among the top holiday spending categories: spirits for entertaining (up 57 percent to $22,300) and yacht charters (up 12 percent to $410,600). The awesomely affluent will also be averaging $91,100 on holiday jewelry, $36,400 on designer fashions, $52,000 on luxury watches, and $25,700 on flat screen TVs and other electronics.  Nearly 25 percent of them will travel by private jet just to shop for holiday gifts.  Of course, there are many Americans who do have a good chance of joining the super-rich.  They are the rich Americans.

Any regular person who does not understand that Americans are in a class war is out of touch with our economic reality.  Rich and powerful elites that are running and ruining our country have the upper hand.  Wiping out the middle class to create a two-class society nationally and globally suits them.  The Upper Class can steer most wealth to themselves and spread a small amount around to keep the Lower Class content enough not to revolt.  Ordinary people have a powerful weapon to fight their oppressors, yet have not yet used it.  It is their money, more specifically their discretionary consumer spending.  The reasons for not controlling and politicizing their spending merit examination.  Time is running out to understand why millions of supposedly rational people spend themselves into economic slavery.  

The paradox is that though the rich and powerful rig many aspects of the economy, financial markets, and international trade, they remain dependent on consumer spending to create national wealth and keep the economy healthy, because it accounts for some 70 percent of the GDP.  In one sense, they are not able to physically force people to spend money.  But in another sense they have done something nearly as effective.  

They use the mass media, marketing, advertising and technological change to stimulate consumer demand for a host of products and services that people could easily live without.  Compulsive consumer spending results from training, conditioning and brain washing that starts in childhood.  In a highly stressful society it becomes a form of self-medication.  To conform, fit in and deem oneself successful, Americans unquestioningly and reflexively shop until they drop, borrow until they hurt, and spend until they go bankrupt.  They have lost control.  Personal and household progress is not measured in terms of real increases in income, savings or net worth (wealth), but rather as the consumption of more stuff.  People may not have good health insurance or economic security or the money for their kid’s college education, but they have a large plasma TV, a new cell phone and other electronic gizmos.  They are networked and connected, and downloading themselves into economic oblivion.

While the Upper Class spends obscene sums on luxury products and services, the economic system creates relatively low prices for mass consumer goods.  The key to this strategy has been globalization that uses low cost foreign labor to satisfy the consumption addiction of the Lower Class.  Americans have lost and will continue to lose good-paying jobs, but are kept in check with low-priced products appropriate for lower-wage jobs.  National wealth is created, but not shared equitably with working- and middle-class Americans.  Those who own Wal-Mart became billionaires while providing what is necessary to stabilize the Lower Class.  

Easy borrowing is the other way to keep the Lower Class spending and in stressful debt.  Borrowing is spending.  Credit cards, debit cards, ATMs, education loans and seductive mortgages keep borrowed prosperity alive.  Money spent on interest and all sorts of fees pumps up the enormous financial services sector that has replaced domestic manufacturing as the core of the American economy.  Debt is better than chains to keep economic slaves docile.  Borrowing for home, car and consumer goods purchases creates massive wealth for the Upper Class, while indebtedness keeps the Lower Class compelled to take whatever jobs the system makes available.

Who paid the $40 million bonus for 2006 given to Morgan Stanley CEO (just part of the $16 billion paid in company bonuses)?  Where did the company profits come from?  Ultimately, it was many millions of working stiffs that paid higher prices for goods and services so that fees could be paid to the banking companies producing the enormous profits that enabled those obscene salaries and bonuses in the financial services sector.  Capitalism and the profit motive are fine.  But things have gotten completely out of control.  Insane corporate compensation saps an inordinate amount of wealth from society.  The greed-masters do NOT create wealth – they legally steal it from the system.  This is reflected in this awful statistical reality: The share of the nation’s income going to wages and salaries, according to the Commerce Department, has shrunk to 51.8 percent, the lowest share since 1929.

Illegal immigration was another stroke of genius to increase corporate profits.  There have always been hordes of very poor people in Mexico and other third world nations.  What changed was the decision among the power elites to make jobs readily available to all illegal immigrants that could get into the country.  And political influence was used to ensure that the government would not effectively protect our borders.  After gutting labor unions, corporate bigwigs realized that illegal immigrants offered the easiest way to depress all wages for ordinary workers.  The icing on the cake was that illegal workers would increase demand for imported, low priced goods.

Another sector creating enormous wealth for the Upper Class is gambling, both legal and illegal.  It is at remarkable levels among Lower Class people.  This is just another form of spending that is critical to another core economic sector – entertainment and leisure.  Gambling is the opiate of the masses, and local and state governments eagerly sanction gambling to expand tax revenues, necessary to offset the losses due to lower wages and the high costs of providing government services to illegals and the poor.  Speaking of taxes, the more people spend, the more regressive sales taxes they pay.  Compulsive consumer spending is important to minimize the tax burden on the Upper Class.  

What is the holiday season all about?  Wake up!  It is not about whatever religious beliefs you have.  It is all about spending.  The only way to win the class war is to withhold discretionary consumer spending to obtain what is necessary from our MISrepresentative elected officials.  Stop spending until our delusional president ends the loss of American lives and treasure in Iraq or the congress withholds funding for it, for example.  The best gift of all to give to your loved ones is a drastic slowdown in your spending!

A tiny fraction of Americans have tried to shake consumption cravings, but obviously nothing has caught on sufficiently to reform our culture.  A group in San Francisco, known as “the Compact,” swore off buying new things, with very few exceptions.  They have bought secondhand, bartered, borrowed, recycled and reused.  As one member said, “And people hate us for it?  Like it drives them nuts?”  They are accused of being un-American.  Another campaign is Buy Nothing Day.  People are urged to take a 24-hour break from the consumption compulsion on the day after Thanksgiving.  The book “Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping” was a success.  Yet these and other efforts have not put a dent in the nation’s voracious consumption.  In More We Trust remains strong.  

All these marginal efforts only offer psychological or spiritual benefits for committed individuals.  Like any addiction, ending compulsive consumption is difficult.  By politicizing reduced consumption through buycotts, political gains offset any “suffering” from reduced consumption.   So consider tradeoffs between less consumption and political actions that you feel are strongly needed.  Your dollars are much more powerful than your votes.

[To learn more about consumer power check out the author’s new book at www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Economic Apartheid Kills

Joel S. Hirschhorn

To be successful in overturning our elitist plutocratic system we should add economic apartheid to our semantic arsenal.  Better than economic inequality, economic injustice and class warfare, because apartheid is loaded with richly deserved negative emotions.  Sadly, in South Africa, economic apartheid has taken over from racial apartheid.

How ironic that the Bush administration successfully talked up the global threat from terrorism while it pursued domestic and foreign policies promoting economic apartheid, a far greater and more pervasive threat to national and global stability.  
The human race on planet Earth, taken as an aggregate mass abstraction, may be getting richer.  But a new report from the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University shows that wealth creation is remarkably – one might say criminally – unequal.  Follow this hierarchy at the top of the wealth pyramid: The richest 1 percent of adults alone owned 40 percent of global assets in the year 2000; the richest 2 percent owned more than half of global household wealth; and the richest 10 percent of adults accounted for 85% of the world total.  That leaves very little for the remaining 90 percent of the global population.  Could it be any worse?  Yes, the rich are still getting richer, more millionaires are becoming billionaires.

As to the world’s lower class: the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1 percent of global wealth, defined as net worth: the value of physical and financial assets less debts. Over a billion poor people subsist on less than one dollar a day.  Every day, according to UNICEF, 30,000 children die due to poverty – that’s over 10 million children killed by poverty every year!  Global economic apartheid is killing people.

Here are data showing some of the variations among nations.  Average wealth amounted to $144,000 per person in the U.S. in 2000, not as good as the $181,000 in Japan, but better than most others: $127,000 for the U.K., $70,000 for Denmark, $37,000 for New Zealand, $1,400 in Indonesia and $1,100and in India.  Averages, of course, are very deceiving.

As to wealth inequality, the richest 10 percent of people in the U.S. have 70 percent of the wealth, compared to 40 percent in China.  In other words, China has much more economic equality, though that is changing quickly.

To be among the richest 10 percent of adults in the world required $61,000 in net wealth, and more than $500,000 was needed to belong to the richest 1 percent, a group with 37 million members worldwide according to the study.  Recall, all these data are for 2000, and would be much higher now, because of the steady trend of the rich becoming richer.

The statistical measure of inequality is the Gini value, which measures inequality on a scale from zero (total equality) to one (complete inequality).   For income, it ranges from .35 to .45 in most countries.  Wealth inequality is usually much greater, typically between .65 and .75.  This reflects the greater difficulty in accumulating wealth (capital) than increasing income.  Two high wealth economies, Japan and the United States, show very different patterns of wealth inequality, with Japan having a low wealth Gini of .55 and the U.S. having around .80.  The incomes of the top fifth of the Japanese population are only about three times that of the bottom fifth, compared to more than nine times in the U.S.  Japan has little economic apartheid compared to the U.S.  Yet both countries have a huge number of wealthy people.  Of the wealthiest 10 percent in the world, 25 percent are Americans and 20 percent are Japanese.  These two countries are even stronger among the richest 1 percent of individuals in the world, with 37 percent residing in the U.S. and 27 percent in Japan.  The point is that despite high numbers of very wealthy people, economic apartheid is absent in Japan and abysmal in the U.S.

We can explain the difference between Japan and the U.S.  People can save and accumulate wealth for future economic security, or can borrow and spend like mad to accumulate possessions.  According to a 2006 report, only 41 percent of American families save regularly, making wealth creation difficult.  America’s national savings rate — which includes corporate savings and government budget deficits — is only about 13.6% of gross domestic product, compared to 25 percent in Japan.  

Global wealth inequality is higher still. The study estimates that the global wealth Gini for adults is .89. The same degree of inequality would be obtained if one person in a group of ten takes 99 percent of the total pie and the other nine share the remaining 1 percent.  To a limited degree, elitist powers can engineer modest improvements in income among the global poor, but stark wealth inequality will probably worsen, considering the political power of the rich.  As worldwide communications increasingly make the obnoxious wealth of the upper class more visible, even modest increases in income are unlikely to satisfy the vast majority of the global population without wealth.

U.S. economic apartheid shows that a self-proclaimed great democracy with considerable personal freedoms can risk deep social instability from class warfare as it approaches a two-class system.  We need to see economic apartheid as lethal and repulsive as racial apartheid.

How much proof do you need?  Here are some recent examples of economic obscenities:

The Tucson-based Miraval Life in Balance Resort is now completing a 41-story wellness tower community on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Three-bedrooms in the new luxury development will run from $1.4 million to $3.65 million, with monthly maintenance charges almost twice the Manhattan high-rise average.

If Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street financial giant, distributed all its compensation dollars equally among the company’s 25,647 workers, every employee in the firm would have received just about $500,000 so far this year. But compensation at Wall Street’s biggest firms gets divided anything but equally.  A new federal report says the top-heavy income distribution is squeezing out the middle class.  Wall Street’s top 1,000 investment bankers will average somewhere between $2 million and $3 million in bonuses this year, more than 10 times their $100,000 to $250,000 salaries.

Is overpaying CEOs a crime? A five-judge panel in Germany punted on that question by accepting a settlement in the first case ever to bring criminal charges against corporate directors for lavishing excessive pay on company executives.  Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann, Germany’s most powerful banker, will pay out of his own pocket a $4.2 million fine, without having to plead guilty to charges that he helped engineer a $31 million bonus six years ago for Klaus Esser, the top executive at Mannesmann, a German mobile phone company. Ackermann and other directors at Mannesmann, prosecutors charged, had violated their fiduciary duty to watch out for shareholders. If convicted, Ackermann could have faced 10 years in jail.

An impressive new study by IRS and Ernst and Young researchers has produced reliable new data on how things have changed for the worse in recent years.  Back in 1979, a mere $233,539 placed an American taxpayer in the rarified air of the top 0.1 percent.  By 2004, things had changed considerably – it took a whopping $1,639,047 to rate in the top 0.1 percent, an over 600 percent increase above the 1979 threshold.  Wealth shifted.  The share of nation’s income going to the top 0.1 percent more than tripled, from 3.28 percent in 1979 to 10.49 percent in 2004.  Disgraceful!

In 2004, another analysis of IRS data found the 130,500 U.S. taxpaying households that made up the top 0.1 percent averaged about $4.9 million each in income.  The 300,000 Americans in these top 0.1 percent households took home significantly more pretax income combined than the poorest 120 million Americans.  In 1979, by contrast, the 120 million Americans at the bottom took home three times more than the 300,000 at the top.  Economic apartheid is really all about economic slavery, even if the slaves don’t quite comprehend their terrible situation.  After all, that’s why the elites gave them Wal-Mart to pacify them.

Though the United States economy has seen GDP growth averaging 3.1 percent annually from 1980 to 2005, the benefits of this growth have gone overwhelmingly to the richest 10 percent of families, and among this group, disproportionately to the richest 1 percent.

And let’ set the record straight about upward economic mobility.  The United States has the lowest share of low-income workers that exit their low-income status from one year to the next (29.5 percent).  This perpetuates economic apartheid.  The corresponding rates in several European countries are greater than 50 percent: Ireland (54.6), the Netherlands (55.7), the United Kingdom (58.8), and Denmark (60.4).

We should be asking: Why are Americans at the top of America’s income distribution raking in so much more income today than they did a generation ago?  The American Bar Association reports that “fewer law school graduates are going into public-interest law or government jobs.” In medicine, where doctors can now make millions evaluating drugs for bio-tech start-ups, the Medical Group Management Association “says the nation lacks enough doctors in family practice, where the median income last year was $161,000.”  “The bigger the prize, the greater the effort that people are making to get it,” sums up New York University economist Edward Wolff. “That effort is draining people away from more useful work.”

The December 1, 2006 New York Times editorial, When the Joneses Can’t Keep Up noted:
“…the very richest earners are increasing their earnings at twice the rate of their onetime peers, and the average-rich are taking resentful note.  Investment bankers are jealous of hedge-fund wunderkinds and, from the sound of it, almost every last person in Silicon Valley is envious of the founders of YouTube (with the likely exception of the Google billionaires who bought their company).  …Neither policymakers nor society at large need sympathize with the longing of millionaires to become billionaires. But we do need to worry about the effects on society as a whole when members of the educated elite think they are grossly underpaid. The more they feel as if they are losing ground against their peers, the more likely they are to ditch professions in which the pay is only good — like delivering babies — in favor of less useful careers in which the compensation is off the charts — like eliminating lines from wealthy people’s foreheads.”

The Education Trust charges in a new study that the nation’s top public universities are rapidly becoming “enclaves for the most privileged of their state’s young people.”  These flagship universities’ spending on financial aid for students from families that make over $100,000 a year jumped 400 percent between 1995 and 2003. Over that same period, spending for students from families making less than $40,000 increased just 20 percent.  The financial aid grants that major state universities are now handing students from $100,00-and-up families — $3,823 on average — larger than the grants given to students from low- or middle-income families.  How’s that for economic apartheid?

Families with over $1 million in nonresidential assets — make up a tiny fraction of the world’s population, less than a hundredth of 1 percent, but hold 28.6 percent of global wealth.  Thank you globalization.

How long will the vast majority of people stay submissive and peaceful as American and global economic apartheid keep worsening?  Here in affluent America there are 37 million people living in poverty, 35 million could not put food on their table at least part of the year, and over 45 million lack health insurance.  Dr. Gar Alperovitz says that top 1 percent of our population now own 98 percent of the nation’s wealth.  There is a war on the middle class, and it is going well.

Dr. John David wisely observed recently: “Without an internal economic restructuring, the nation now at war in Iraq will evolve into a nation at war within itself.  Economic apartheid will not create a sustainable society.  Violence will increase and democracy will fail unless this issue of increased wealth inequality is addressed.”  What is wrong has been known for a long time.  Plutarch wrote almost 2000 years ago, “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

Is anyone listening?  Can we learn from the Japanese?  Or is the Second American Revolution being nucleated now?

As compulsive consumers, Americans are spending their way deeper into economic apartheid.  The more that Americans spend, rather than save, they make the rich richer and themselves poorer.  How smart is that?  Freedom to spend is not the same as political freedom; not with two-party control of our elitist, non-populist political system and democracy.

If Americans take back their government and economy and end their economic apartheid, then they can work on erasing global economic apartheid.  That’s a big IF.

[The linkages between economic inequality and politics are examined in the author’s new book Delusional Democracy: www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Honest Centrism for Populist Democracy

Joel S. Hirschhorn

The United States has lost its center through destructive centrifugal politics.  America seems spinning out of control.  It has become a non-populist, dollar-driven, elitist democracy.  Centrism can be a powerful metaphor and tool for national renewal, if it is also populist.

In the world of politics, language is used to deceive, distract and divide.  Some words become so abused that they lose meaning.  In recent years, enormous numbers of liberals and Democrats decided to hide under the label of “progressive.”  Many politicians want to be seen as “moderates.”  A newer subterfuge is “centrist.”
Manipulative Centrism

Someone wrote this on a blog discussion: “Centrism is an empty, contentless label that by its very nature is without substance or ideology. What is the centrist position on heathcare reform, half way between the left and right? What is its position on defense spending, ditto?  Someone, please, tell me what centrism is?”  It was a good point and question.

Centrism sounds reasonable.  But it has been abused.  Many people see centrism as some middle ground between the liberal-Democratic and conservative-Republican ends of the political spectrum, some way to achieve balance and avoid extremes.  By shunning these polarizing positions it is hoped that a moderate, middle of the road or “third way” stance is created.  But centrism may be nothing more than empty compromises of positions from each of the two major parties.  It too easily becomes a diffuse, ambiguous mishmash of positions that say little about where someone stands in terms of absolute principles.  Indeed, many find centrism attractive because it is malleable and flexible, allowing whatever seems pragmatic at the time.  This makes centrism vulnerable to abuse by those seeking a popular political brand that is not burdened by adherence to clear principles.  For the most part, centrism has been empty political rhetoric, but it can be re-powered.  

After the 2004 election Kevin Cassell made noted: “Centrism is not a clear-cut ideology (or belief system); many encyclopedias don’t even include it as a category unto itself.”  And David Sirota wrote the hard-hitting article “Debunking Centrism.”  He said the Democratic Leadership Council “is funded by huge contributions from multinationals like Philip Morris, Texaco, Enron and Merck, which have all, at one point or another, slathered the DLC with cash. Those resources have been used to push a nakedly corporate agenda under the guise of `centrism’ while allowing the DLC to parrot GOP criticism of populist Democrats as far-left extremists.  …centrist groups argue that the party must court moderates and find a way to compete in the Midwest and South.'”  Later, in Hostile Takeover he pointed out how ultra-conservative right-wingers hijacked the terms “centrist” and “mainstream,” misleading the public.  

Like other terms, centrist has become another linguistic weapon of mass deception when used by mainstream politicians.  Is Joe Lieberman a genuine centrist or just a conservative Democrat?  Is Arnold Schwarzenegger a centrist, or just clever enough to abandon some of his principles?  Does calling Hillary Clinton a centrist make her more appealing?

Commenting on what appeared to be the winning Democratic strategy before this year’s midterm elections, Sally Kohn said: “Centrism not only alienates the Democratic base but also plays into the Right wing’s ultimate agenda.  … Centrism is not a `third way’, it’s their way — taking Right wing ideas and trying to pass them off as enlightened Democratic compromise.”  

There is a lot of expedient and faux centrism.  Vermont’s Senator-elect Bernie Sanders, officially an Independent, said: “There is one point I want to make clear because all too often I see this discussion of progressivism vs centrism as merely one of gaining tactical advantage in an election.  I am a progressive because that is what I believe at my core.  It is not some position of convenience to be shed the next time some Washington wonk decides it’s more advantageous to be a centrist.”

Unlike Sanders, Bill Clinton used centrism as a campaign tactic.  In Dead Center James MacGregor Burns and Georgia Sorenson made the point: “Clinton’s major failure was his inability… to frame a coordinated policy program that would make of his centrism not just an electoral strategy but a vital center of change…”  Other authors embrace centrism, mostly on the basis that it is an alternative to divisive and extreme political positions.  Yet the nagging question remains: What exactly and uniquely defines real, trustworthy centrism?

In sum, “partisan centrism,” viewed as the center region along an axis of left-right, blue-red partisan issues, supports the two-party status quo.  It is defeatist.  It protects the elitist political, economic and bipartisan ruling class.  The center should not be a statistical mean, but an ideological imperative.  Phony partisan centrism does not merit public support.  

Listen to Sirota: “Centrism” as defined in the political dialogue today means “being in the middle of elite opinion in Washington, D.C.” But if you plot this “center” on the continuum that is American public opinion, you will find that it is nowhere near the actual center of the country at large. The center of elite Washington opinion is ardently free trade, against national health care, opposed to market regulation, for continuing the Iraq War, and supportive of the flattest tax structure we’ve had in contemporary American history. That center is on the extreme fringe of the center of American public opinion, which is ardently skeptical of free trade, for universal health care, supportive of strong market regulations, insistent that the war end soon, and in favor of making the tax system more progressive.

Centrism At Its Best

Unity through centripetal politics is a necessary alternative to destructive and divisive centrifugal politics.  Centrism can pull Americans together to fill the currently empty national spiritual and political center.

In searching for real centrism worthy of broad public support it helps to distinguish between divisive political “issues” versus structural or systemic problems and their solutions.  

From a marketing perspective, to differentiate themselves, at least during campaigns, Democrats and Republicans use social, economic and government issues for which they can stake out seemingly different positions.  Abortion, illegal immigration, the Iraq war, globalization, taxes, health care costs, and same sex marriage are divisive issues.  Issues are usually framed so that people can say they are for or against something.  Issues are meant to elicit quick, emotional responses that get people lined up with one party or candidate and antagonistic toward the other.  Issues produce polarizing partisan politics.  They divide by design.

Alternatively, we can start with the evidence that our political-government-economic system is broken.  A key symptom is an epidemic of existential emptiness.  There is little holding America and Americans together other than materialistic consumption.

Root problems have cascading impacts throughout society.  A majority of Americans believe our national system has been seriously degraded over time and is stuck on the wrong track.  Besides consistent results from polls and surveys, there is the unsettling fact that, even in this year of heightened political events and talk, 60 percent of eligible voters chose not to vote.  This negative reality defines a remarkable opportunity to build widespread public agreement about solutions to core problems – to create an incentive to vote by giving people more political choice.  We need a political party to help Americans fill our empty national center with meaning.

For convenience, let’s call real, trustworthy centrism “populist centrism.”  It is defined by what is central to and in the center of public consciousness – our broken system.  It offers a true, sorely needed paradigm change.  Consider that when asked whether life for the next generation would be better, worse or about the same as life today, 40 percent of Americans said “worse,” while just 30 percent answered “better.”  The fraction of Americans that believe the country is heading in the wrong direction is a disturbing 60 percent!  A nation that has lost its center creates widespread despair, pessimism and ennui that even compulsive consumption cannot remedy, though it certainly distracts from distasteful realities.  And that’s what plutocrats prefer – a voracious consumer economy, people hooked on borrowing and spending rather than being politically engaged.

Authentic, populist centrism has the capacity to unite Americans, despite differences on issues, in a battle to make politics, government and the economy serve working- and middle-class people.  All but the upper class can see the prime root problem: Politics, government and the economy now primarily serve the greed, demands, and selfishness of a class of rich and powerful elites, often acting through corporate powers, PACs and sanctimonious think tanks.  Elitist interests have turned American democracy into a plutocracy.  Private and corporate wealth has been turned into political power, government control and economic inequality.  We have an aristocratic ruling class.  

Ordinary people retain many personal freedoms, but our representative government no longer represents them.  The minority that own most of America control it, while the majority drive the economy through their spending.  Millions of wealthy Americans vote.  But much less than a majority of working- and middle-class people take placebo voting seriously.  The USA has become a non-populist democracy.

The Political Solution

How do we politicize the public’s negative feelings?  How do we get more Americans engaged politically, enough to take voting for third parties seriously and reject lesser-evil voting for major party candidates – to take back the sovereign power that is theirs?

To fix our nation we must remove control of OUR political system by the two major parties.  Many rightfully see the Republican and Democratic parties as just two sides of the same coin or two heads of the same beast.  Howard Dean was correct when he wrote in 2004: “After nearly a decade of widening income inequalities, campaign-finance scandals, noxious inside-the-Beltway compromises, and political catfights … the American people felt equally disenfranchised by Democrats and Republicans.”  A 2006 national poll found that 53 percent of Americans supported a third major party.  A remarkable 73 percent agree that “it would be a good idea for this country to have more choices in the 2008 election than just Republican and Democratic candidates.”  

A majority of people want more political competition.  Yet history’s lesson is that third parties have done very poorly in challenging the two-party duopoly.  That is not their fault.  The two-party mafia has rigged the political system to bury opposition.  Despite historic levels of public dissatisfaction with both major parties, in the 2006 midterm elections there was no mass embrace of third party candidates, which largely remained unknown to the public.  Considering the staying power of the two-party duopoly, would deceptive-partisan or honest-populist centrism best challenge it?  

Clearly, populist centrism is a truer, bolder alternative.  It can bring us back to a populist democracy.  Fixing the republic is a nobler, more necessary and better unifying goal than reaching compromises on a host of issues framed by the major parties.  With populist centrism, the public can rally behind a patriotic movement to fix our democracy, political system and economy.  Just as individuals think in terms of centering themselves to become healthier psychologically, with honest centrism so too can our country center itself, connect to its roots, unite itself, and harness people power to repair and renovate itself.  United, Americans can challenge the power of political, economic and corporate elites.

With honesty we can reach consensus on how to fix the broken system, return power to the people, make representative democracy work, and remove the corrupting influence of big money on the whole political-government-economic system.  The goal is systemic change and national renewal through revolutionary reform that includes overturning the two-party status quo.

The two major parties cannot admit that the whole political-government-economic system is seriously broken.  Why?  Over decades they each contributed to breaking the system.  In their own ways, each major party has been permanently corrupted by big money from corporate and other special interests.  Each has contributed to a culture of corruption and dishonesty.  They enable each other.  The only competition they want is from each other.  They have sold out Americans.

After the 2004 election Sirota warned about “bankrolled politicians who have hijacked `centrism’ to sell out America’s middle class.”  Caution is needed about this year’s big Democratic win.  As to Democratic candidates, pragmatism ruled the day; they said whatever was necessary to win.  As to voters, hatred of President Bush, his policies and the Iraq war prevailed.  The Democrats won a majority of just 40 percent of the voting electorate, perhaps 25 percent of the total.  That is not much of a public mandate.  

A third political party can emerge to steer public debate on the exact reforms and solutions needed to fix our broken country.  It can define itself in a principled way to attract the majority of Americans – not stuck on extreme positions – that want profound national improvement.  It can set out a strategy to get the nation on a new track to a better future, using a new dimension, not the tired and corrupt left and right parallel tracks of Democrats and Republicans.  It can make centrism a trusted political philosophy as well as the defining character of a competitive political party.

With honesty, a third party can overcome the damage done to worthy concepts of centrism, progressivism, and populism by many groups and people practicing semantic chicanery.  We desperately need candidates that are not shills for elites, but who will unflinchingly serve the interests of working- and middle-class Americans.  We must imagine success: A third party that leads a rebooting of American democracy.  Strong public thirst for historic change is real.  A majority of Americans agree that our system is broken.  They await a competitive third party with a fix-our-democracy message.  Democrats and Republicans should NOT be allowed to keep their stranglehold on OUR political system when they no longer have the consent of most of the governed.

The majority of Americans have decided.  A democracy with too little political competition provides too little incentive to vote.  It is a delusional, centerless, non-populist democracy.  Let’s fix it by joining together at the center.

[Many details on populist centrist reforms are in the author’s new book; check it out at www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Third Parties Fight for American Democracy

Joel S. Hirschhorn  

A great democracy offers citizens sharp political choices. That’s what gives political freedom meaning. With two-party control of America’s political system, political options and discourse are stifled. We badly need more visible third-parties that can fully participate and reach the public with information about their platforms and candidates. In a nation that so worships competition it is hypocritical that there is so little political competition.

In truth, the Democratic-Republican partnership opposes competition. They have convinced Americans that votes for third party candidates are “wasted.” Yet the biggest wasted vote is for a Democrat or Republican that is almost certain to win or lose, and takes your vote for granted. This year, even in the face of enormous public dissatisfaction with the two major parties, and a widespread belief that both are hopelessly corrupted by big money from corporate and other special interests, too many voters sheepishly picked from column D or R, even for sure winners or losers.

In this remarkable year of attention to many hot issues, especially political corruption and the Iraq war, voter turnout was just over 40 percent, no better than the previous midterm election. One valid view of why 60 percent of eligible voters did not vote is that they saw little difference between the two major parties and, therefore, that their votes do not matter. It’s “they’re all a bunch of crooks and liars” belief, bolstered this year with so much evidence of crooks in congress and liars in the Bush administration. Where supporters of Republicans or Democrats see different positions on issues, cynical citizens see nothing but campaign propaganda and civic distraction through divisive issues. So they do not vote their conscience or for lesser-evil candidates. Most have too little information about third party candidates to vote for them.

The untold statistical story is that a minor party could achieve political victory if half of the huge block of nonvoters chose its candidates, because major party winners typically have just a little more than half of the smaller voting block.

The Democratic and Republican Parties take no chances. They have used their muscle to keep third party candidates out of public campaign venues, notably televised debates, and to create rules that make it difficult fort them to get on ballots. As Tom Knapp correctly observed: “Major party candidates are cowards. They don’t want to take stands that might cost them votes, but they don’t want to be publicly outed as the walking blobs of Silly Putty� they are, either. So, they erect difficult ballot access barriers to keep third party candidates out altogether, and when that fails they collude with their fellow Silly Puttians to, as best possible, exclude their third party opponents from the public discussion.”

The two-party duopoly prefers lesser-evil voters, people considered as independents, moderates or swing voters that can be influenced by aggressive and generally misleading advertising to choose the least worse Republican or Democratic candidates. Nor do the two majors really want a large voter turnout across the entire spectrum of political views. They prefer to have well defined niche categories of voters that they can target.

Here is a wonderful perspective about third parties by Rick Gaber: “They give the otherwise ignored, used, abused, betrayed, disgusted, disappointed, frustrated, victimized, insulted, and/or outraged voter a chance to cast a vote without feeling dirty afterwards, a reason to go to the polls AT ALL in the first place, and maybe even to come out of the voting booth feeling GREAT!”

In contrast to lesser-evil voters � third party voters proudly vote their conscience. They know that the odds are totally against their choices winning. Yet they do not stay home. They are true believers in American democracy. Their votes are strong messages. They are more strategic voters with long term hopefulness about political reform, as compared to tactical lesser-evil voters hoping against reality that when the two-party pendulum swings to the other side something really good happens.

The 2006 Elections

The 2006 midterm elections showed the importance of votes for third party candidates who keep fighting for a place in the American political system, despite being intentionally disadvantaged by very little money and media coverage.

Consider the Democratic majority in the Senate. Votes for third party candidates in three states were critical. Much media attention went to Democrat Jim Webb’s win in Virginia by a relatively small number of votes, less than 9,000. As always, the media drummed up business by creating visions of a tight race between the two major party candidates, and ignored the third party candidate Gail Parker of the Independent Grassroots Party. As an independent fiscal conservative she received over three times the number of votes that gave Webb the victory over Republican George Allen. If just over one-third of those conservative voters had voted for Allen, the Democrats would not have a Senate majority. As elsewhere, some conservative voters rebelled against the Republican Party.

The Montana senate race was also featured. Democrat Jim Tester won over Republican Conrad Burns with less than a 3,000 vote margin. The Libertarian Party candidate, Stan Jones, received over three times that margin. So, if about one-third of those voters had gone Republican, the Democrats would not have a Senate Majority. Generally, Libertarian candidates take votes away from Republicans, and certainly that was justified this year.

In Missouri, Democrat Claire McCaskill beat Republican Jim Talent with a margin of about 46,000 votes. Frank Gilmour from the Libertarian Party received more than that. He and Lydia Lewis from the Progressive Party of Missouri received some 66,000 votes. So, if two-thirds of those voters had gone Republican, the Democrats would not have a Senate majority.

Frank Gilmour said this about his candidacy: “For far too long, our votes have been taken for granted; we either vote for the lesser of the two evils or we do not vote at all. My candidacy offers you a choice other than the two main parties. I’m not on the extreme left or the extreme right. I live in the middle, and I believe that most of you feel the same way. Our politicians give us partisan bickering instead of legitimate debate. If you vote for me it will send a message to the two main parties that enough is enough!”

Democrats owe a lot to those third party candidates and voters in those three states. Republicans deserved what they got.

These three cases, as many other races in previous years, demonstrate that votes for third party candidates are not “wasted.” Nor should such candidates be falsely labeled as “spoilers.” The implication is that they intentionally want to toss the race to one of the major party candidates. In truth, third party candidates believe in their mission to raise things neglected by the major parties. They can attract people that would not otherwise vote. They add integrity to our democracy. If anything, their current underdog status provides a constant reminder of just how unfair the political playing field is. They are not the problem. Our status quo political system is the problem, because two-party rule has “spoiled” our democracy.

Libertarian candidate Garrett Michael Hayes smartly put down the spoiler accusation this way; “I’m in this to win. Whether or not that’s a realistic goal, I don’t care. This country was founded by people whose goals sounded unrealistic at first.”

Though Democratic control of the House was a clearer victory, it should be noted that there were six races where votes for third party candidates exceeded the margin of victory. In five of the six, the Republican candidate won.

Looking at a larger scale, how many Americans voted for third party and independent candidates in the Senate and House races? In the House races almost 1.6 million Americans went outside the two-party choices, and in the Senate races the total was almost 1.3 million conscience voters. These numbers are typical of past elections. Even though a majority of Americans expressed dissatisfaction with both major parties in many opinion surveys this year, they did not vote at all, were very motivated to get rid of Republican control by voting for Democrats, or did not know enough about minor party candidates.

Of the 33 Senate races, 26 had third party and independent candidates, or nearly 79 percent, with Libertarian Party (the nation’s largest minor party) candidates in 16 states and Green Party candidates in 9 cases. In the 435 House races there were third party and independent candidates in 193 of them, or just over 44 percent. Libertarian Party candidates were in 112 races and Green Party candidates were in 37 races. Unsurprisingly, there was no winner.

Obscene Money Defeats Heartfelt Money

Shamefully, obscene amounts of money go to the two major parties, maintaining their grip on the system. Paltry amounts go to third party candidates, mostly small contributions from individuals and financing from candidates themselves. This makes it incredibly difficult for them to inform citizens about their positions and qualifications. Usually, for senate races, major party candidates spend millions, while third party candidates spend in the low thousands. In Montana, Jones spent less than $2,000 on his campaign, compared to $3.8 million spent by the winner Tester. In Virginia, Parker raised just $1,200 in donations and financed much of her campaign through an $18,472 personal loan, compared to over $12 million raised by the loser Allen. In California, Todd Chretien, a losing Green Party Senate candidate, raised $58,000.

Recall that nearly $3 billion were spent by the two major parties on the congressional races this year. In contrast, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found that the 74 federal third party candidates still in the running this election cycle raised a total of just $3.1 million, according to campaign finance data available Oct. 19. (This includes only those candidates who would be new to Congress and who have reported raising at least some money to the Federal Election Commission. It excludes pseudo-third party candidate Joe Lieberman who raised about $15 million.) That $3.1 million amounts to just one-tenth of one percent of what the major parties spent.

Those 74 candidates received 39 percent of their contributions from individuals, compared to less than 1 percent from PACs and 58percent from their own pockets. Note that Federal rules require candidates to file detailed reports of their contributions and expenditures if their campaign raises or spends $5,000 or more, which many third party candidates do not exceed.

Michael Badnarik, a Libertarian House candidate in Texas noted: “In order to win an election, not only do I have to convince voters I’m the best candidate, I have to let them know I’m a candidate at all.” He raised more than $393,000, the second-largest third party fundraiser remaining in the midterm elections. In first place was Bruce Guthrie, a candidate for the Washington Senate seat, with $1.2 million, mostly his own money. That leaves about $1.5 million for the other 72 candidates nationwide.

Into the Future

Despite the enormous challenges facing third-parties, there are two newer energetic efforts that merit attention. One is the Populist Party of America (www.populistamerica.com). Here is its general statement of purpose:

The Populist Party promotes, and strives for, Common Sense solutions; Democracy as a tool to reign in the power of the federal government and ensure a greater responsibility of all public servants to the People. Populism, as espoused by the Populist Party, is a federal system of government where the final check and balance on the power of the politicians is directly in the hands of the people; with the Constitution and Bill of Rights serving as legal boundaries to protect the rights and liberties of all citizens.
The other effort is the Centrist Party (www.uscentrist.org). Here is its mission statement:

To achieve common sense solutions that have at their heart, a tone of balance and fairness. To create a strong foundation for mainstream America that is not prone to undue influence from left/right arguments. To move away from character assassinations and toward solution oriented campaigns. To empower people, and the vote, with a strong position not confused by one-sided agendas, or special interests. To formulate policies and solutions that regard short, medium and long term considerations at all levels.

If more established third-parties have not attracted you, for whatever reason, you may want to look into these newer efforts.

What is really needed by third parties is a shift away from all the usual issues that the majors talk about. Instead, what would resonate with the public is an emphasis on structural or systemic political and policy reforms to revitalize our democracy. This requires acknowledgement that our system is broken, has become a plutocracy, and no longer serves ordinary people. Something the majors can’t admit, because they broke it. Why fix a system that they control?

Also, some collaboration among third-parties would be useful, such as working together at times to back a candidate to create a better chance of success. This year, for example, Kevin Zeese was listed in many places as a Green Party candidate for the Senate from Maryland. In fact, he also was backed by the Libertarian and Populist Parties and ran a “unity for change” campaign. He reportedly had only about $60,000 to compete against the intense multi-million dollar campaigns of his Democratic and Republican opponents, so his message never reached many people.

This is how Zeese summarized the merits of having the backing of three parties and showed how they were not mutually exclusive but complemented each other:

The Populist Party stands for economic fairness for working families and recognizes how the U.S. has rigged our tax laws, finance system and corporate welfare to help the wealthiest while shrinking the middle class and undermining those whose work makes our country great.

The Libertarian Party emphasizes the central value of liberty � freedom � which is under attack in the United States with laws like the Patriot Act, eminent domain and a government that intrudes into private life. We need to consider the question of liberty in every action the government takes because it is our basic freedoms that unleash the creativity, entrepreneurship and greatness of Americans.

The Green Party’s ten key values are a common sense outline of where our country needs to go. These values include: grassroots democracy, social justice, ecological wisdom, non-violence, decentralization, community-based economics, feminism, diversity, responsibility and future focus.

What should the American public demand from the federal government? Besides a number of electoral reforms, the issue of money is critical. We need a federal Clean Money/Clean Elections program. It would provide competitive government financing of campaigns for candidates that voluntarily agree to take no other funds, except small contributions from individuals. This approach has been successfully used in several states. It not only opens up races to third party candidates. It helps remove the corrupting influence of big money from corporate and other special interests, because honest major party candidates can also participate.

Now, third-parties are fighting a losing battle to improve the quality of our democracy and government. For the good of our nation, they need our support. A little publicized nationwide poll this past April by Princeton Survey/Pew Research Center reported that 53 percent agreed that we should have a third major political party. What a worthy goal!

If the Democrats now in control of the Congress want to demonstrate their commitment to fighting political corruption and providing more incentives for Americans to vote, then Clean Money/Clean Elections should be aggressively pursued. Will they voluntarily loosen their grip on our political system? Or do they fear stronger competition?

The time is long overdue for Americans to stop voting for candidates that can win, and start voting for those that should win. What lesser-evil voting has produced is entrenched two-party evil. We can do better. If we open our political marketplace to more competition.

[A full range of actions to promote competitive third parties are in the author’s new book; check it out at www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Forget political correctness.  The revolution has NOT arrived!  Bush is still president.  The corporate state is safe.  The Upper Class has little to fear.  Lobbyists will be writing different names on checks.  Winning Democrats will entertain more than they will produce historic restorative reforms.  Did Republicans deserve to lose?  Of course!

However, Americans who thought their votes would bring much needed change to our political system also lost.  They just don’t know or admit it yet.  As usual, the third-party movement lost, because the two-party duopoly maintained its stranglehold on our political system.  Populists and true progressives lost.  Who or what was the biggest winner?  The short-term and delusional tactic of lesser-evil voting won big.  

On the liberal left, millions of anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war voters held their noses, repressed the truth about cowardly and compromised Democrats.  They rationalized why beating Republicans was the most important goal.  Fake, neo-progressives, little more than embarrassed Democrats, finally showed their true blue commitment.  On the right, millions of fiscal conservative, pro-life, and evangelical voters blocked out many facts, disappointments and scandals, and rationalized why keeping Republicans in power was the most important goal.  They wanted to stay the course.  Many spiritual libertarians given no Libertarian Party candidates went red.  Spiritual greens went blue.  Many independents, centrists and moderates unable to vote for None of the Above, went lesser-evil.  Self-delusion ran rampant as placebo voting ruled the day.  

Mainstream media and Internet sites whipped up sports-like-beat-the-other-team enthusiasm masquerading as civic responsibility and patriotism.  Political pundits, negative ads, and bloggers kept us entertained.  The recipients of some $2 billion spent on campaigning made out like bandits.  The postal system benefited.  Landfills filled up faster from all the political junk mail.  Despite all the hoopla, however, the majority of eligible voters were not motivated to vote.  Do not ignore this sobering fact: It is estimated that national voter turnout was slightly over 40 percent, compared to 39.7 percent in the 2002 midterm.  Two-party dominance does not bring out voters, and many Americans reject lesser-evil voting.  Low voter turnout defines the opportunity for renewed new third-party efforts.

This much is clear: Voting has become more of a distraction from dealing with real problems confronting ordinary Americans, than a means to solving them.  Voting should mean more than helping your side win.  When it only comes down to defeating one party so that the other one wins, lesser-evil voting produces a different color of evil.

Two-party partisan change is not about attacking the status quo; it is about preserving the worst status quo of all: two-party control.  Transferring power between the two major parties creates the dangerous illusion that our democracy works.  The winner gets more money from corporate interests and their turn at pork spending, easier corrupt behavior and self-serving legislation.

Visualize this: Over decades our democracy has been sliding down a cheese grater.  Stopping the slide and putting the pieces back together will require a mighty effort.  Our wicked, unjust economy now uses consumer spending to destroy working- and middle-class Americans, increase economic inequality, and turn us into a two-class society with Upper and Lower Classes.  Our government is an embarrassment, justifying global hatred of the USA.  With so many voters unsure that their votes on electronic devices would be accurately counted, our electoral process is a joke.  Hypocrisy trumps democracy.

This year, lesser-evil voting vented considerable anger, frustration and despair over the worst presidency in our history.  In their hearts, however, the majority of Americans, no matter who they voted for, know that our nation will most likely remain on the wrong track.  If political dissent becomes muted, then this election has cost us dearly.  If anything, we still have dissent deficit.

In a Jeffersonian sense, we the people lost this election.  Our delusional democracy with its delusional prosperity has survived.  Our culture of lying and corruption has prevailed.  Campaign promises will now be either forgotten or converted into deception and lies.  We just heard a disgraced evangelical leader admit he was a “deceiver and a liar.”  Our winning and losing politicians, especially President Bush, will not make that same confession, though they should.  

We should not be surprised that we have a delusional president; he suits a delusional democracy.  Some do get the government they deserve, but most of us do not.

Power to the people remains a distant political goal.  We now move on to the next cycle of lies and lesser-evil voting – the 2008 presidential campaign, that the Republicans are now more motivated than ever to win.  Worse than not admitting the emperor has no clothes is not seeing a whole democracy without trustworthiness, accountability and credibility.

You are thinking “What a cynic he is.”  But I see it as reality based, anti-delusional thinking.  I take small comfort in knowing that I am not alone.  Despite being anti-Bush, I could not become an enthusiastic supporter of Democrats.  After decades of lesser-evil voting I found my inner conscience and commitment to political dissent, to what I call progressive civil disobedience.  

Decades of empirical evidence had shown me that neither Democrats nor Republicans would ever deliver quality to our democracy and justice to our economy.  Yes, I went and voted, for third-party candidates that were uniformly more qualified than the major party candidates, and on ballot measures.  I asked for a paper ballot, but was told it was not an option.

Long live delusion.  May it protect the millions of Americans without good paying jobs or job security, without health insurance, without confidence that they will be able to keep paying their mortgages and credit card debt, without hope that global warming will be effectively addressed, without confidence that social security will be there when they need it; and without hope that their children will have a better, higher quality of life than theirs.  And surely few believe that political corruption and scandals are now gone.  If all politics are local, so is all corruption.

Lesser-evil voting has brought us here, to a lesser-quality democracy with a lesser-quality government, lesser-quality economy, lesser-quality health care system, and lesser-quality education system.  

Under two-party rule, we have arrived at the sorry state where nearly 75 percent of Americans believe the nation faces a leadership crisis, according to a new survey.  It also found evidence of an epidemic of self-delusion.  People think that among the top 32 industrialized nations the U.S. ranks 10th for citizens’ life expectancy, when it really ranks 24th; that is ranks 15th for economic equality and mathematics literacy, when it actually ranks 30th and 25th, respectively.  Being the only superpower is one thing.  Being the best democracy is something else entirely.

Despite widespread delusion pain seeps through.  So the pharmaceutical industry will make bigger profits from even greater demand for anti-depressants, sleeping pills, and new anti-obesity drugs.  Shopping, eating, Internet surfing, pornography and gambling will keep feeding distraction.  The rich and super-rich will keep finding ways to spend their super-sized wealth, and avoid taxes.  American soldiers will keep dying in senseless wars.  Globalization, pushed by sycophants like Tom Friedman (who lives in a $9 million house), will keep sucking the lifeblood out of our nation, as will hoards of illegal immigrants.  Americans have no nearby richer country to flee to, so we must numb our pain.

Long live delusion.  Our new congress will surely keep us entertained.  Behind the scenes lobbyists will create new, less visible ways to corrupt our elected MISrepresentatives.  There will be much talk about our lame duck president, but not about our lame duck democracy.

Tell me, to begin a Second American Revolution, when will millions of clear-minded dissenters unite behind a new centrist or populist party and take back our nation?  

You will decide, through attention or distraction, through truth or delusion, through action or passivity.  

Let us not forget that a MAJORITY of Americans did NOT speak with their votes.  They rejected both Democrats and Republicans.  That only 40 percent bothered to vote, especially this year, shames our nation and confirms that we have a delusional democracy.

And remember this wisdom: The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Our behind-the-scenes Ruling Class remains; they will now speed dial more Democrats.

[Check out the author’s new book at www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]