- "So if the Democrats wrest control of the government
from the hands of the Republicans, it will be because conservative Democrats
won some important races, precluding any progressive mandate from coming
into play. On the whole the nation will remain well to the right of center,
and certainly will not progress toward the left. The bulk of the corporate
money will reverse direction and flow from the Republicans into the coffers
of the Democrats. The corporations will retain control."
-
-
- Too many Americans harbor the illusion that we live
in a democracy simply because we have the right to vote. But let us be
clear about something: voting matters only where real choices are allowed.
It is universally understood that special interest money runs the American
political system and thus defines what the choices will be. So we are left
to choose between candidates who are financed by special interest money,
which any fool can see, is no choice at all.
-
- The system is purposely designed to require enormous
expense from its participants. According to the very mainstream USA Today,
the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics predicts that $2.6 billion
will be spent on Congressional races this year alone, which thus precludes
any third party candidate, as well as ordinary people, from all but token
participation. It requires big money to win political office and big money
comes from the deep pockets of corporate America. In effect, special interest
money has rendered the political process as we know it null and void by
restricting our choices to candidates that have been pre-chosen for us
by corporate America.
-
- The choice is more illusory than real. Plutocrats and
workers have nothing in common. People of ordinary means can no longer
ascend to the presidency or even Congress. The composition of both the
state and federal governments are very different from the socio-economic
demographics of the populations they are supposed to represent, and it
is no accident. Regardless where you look the rich are represented and
the great majority is excluded.
-
- So if the Democrats wrest control of the government
from the hands of the Republicans, it will be because conservative Democrats
won some important races, precluding any progressive mandate from coming
into play. On the whole the nation will remain well to the right of center,
and certainly will not progress toward the left. The bulk of the corporate
money will reverse direction and flow from the Republicans into the coffers
of the Democrats. The corporations will retain control.
-
- One can cast protest votes, as I often do, for candidates
who do not accept special interest money, but they are rarely, if ever,
contenders. It requires huge sums of money to get media exposure, and to
get on state ballots, yet alone contend for the prize. The system is designed
to preclude challenges to the status quo, which leaves us to choose between
Republicrats fielded by corporate backers.
-
- Corporate money so owns the political process that voters
are left to choose only between the finer nuances of the capital system,
and between degrees of corruption. Ultimately the choice is between lesser
evils, which speak volumes about the state of decay of American politics.
Good never springs from evil, so we witness the steady moral decline of
a nation mired in corruption and confusion.
-
- There is nothing benign about corporate financiers who
hedge their bets by supporting candidates of the major parties. Corporate
CEOs are not philanthropists interested in the well being of America. They
are motivated by greed and profits, and when they finance political campaigns,
make no mistake about it; they are renting or buying politicians who will
help them achieve their objectives.
-
- Special interest money is a malignancy that grows in
the bowels of government, and it must be removed lest it kill the host.
-
- A system in which the high rollers and fat cats feed
upon the bloated corpses of the tax payers and is accountable to no one
should be an affront to all decent people of every political stripe. Let
us see the political system in America for what it is, and for the cruel
hoax that it has always been.
-
- The corporate financing of political campaigns is, in
fact, a capital investment in the status quo that benefits the wealthy
and marginalizes those with neither wealth nor property. That explains
why substantive change is rarely accomplished through the vote in America.
It also explains the remarkable consistency and homogeneity of governmental
policy through the decades; domestic and foreign, regardless of which party
is in power.
-
- Those policies have consistently accrued wealth and
influence to the rich by exploiting the working class, and with disastrous
results for the world. It has resulted in war after war, occupation after
occupation; and the systematic overthrow of democracies everywhere.
-
- The corporations and their puppets in government are
realizing enormous profits from the system, and they will not allow significant
or radical change from within the existing order. The system cannot and
will not be reformed; the money changers will not allow it.
-
- Now the great majority of the population is disenfranchised
and left out of the equation. Only those with wealth are allowed to play.
Money talks and those who do not have an abundance of wealth are without
voice in a political system awash in cash and corruption.
-
- If working class people were running the government,
rather than wealthy Plutocrats, we would not be in the current predicament
that threatens to engulf us, and we would have avoided many of the pitfalls
that have trapped us in the past. We would never have experienced a Viet
Nam War, there would have been no invasion and occupation of Iraq; and
we would have socialized health care and decent schools like other industrialized
nations, rather than tax cuts for the rich and massive corporate welfare.
-
- There is a huge difference between a government of the
people and corporate 'for profit' governance. America would be a much better
place without corporate rule, and unquestionably the world would be better
off and much safer.
-
- I am not sure what the solution is to the dilemma we
have created for ourselves through detachment, indifference and apathy.
I do know, however, that doing the same thing over and over will assure
a similar result to what we have gotten in the past. At some point we must
acknowledge the illegitimacy of the political process, and see it for the
prostitution and the sham that it is. It is incapable of producing just
results or the change we need in order to become a Democracy.
-
- There are no easy ways out of the morass we have created.
It may be that another tea party similar to the one enacted at Boston Harbor
over two hundred years ago is the only cure for what ails us. I survive
on the hope that eventually enough good people will arrive at a similar
conclusion, and that we will effect change directly in the streets of America.
That is what I would call participatory Democracy, and it would be a thing
of beauty to behold.
-
- Charles Sullivan is a photographer, free lance writer
and social activist living in West Virginia. He welcomes your comments
at csullivan@phreego.com.
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- http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m28105&hd=0&size=1&l=t
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