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A Profound and Jarring Disconnect
Democracy: de-moc-ra-cy, government by the people; the common people of a community, as distinguished from any privileged class
According to the latest poll conducted by CBS "60 Minutes" and the magazine Vanity Fair, 61 percent of Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthy as the primary way to cut the budget. The same poll finds that the second most popular first choice for cutting the nation's budget deficit, at 20 percent, is cutting the military budget. That is, 81 percent of us--four out of five--would cut the deficit by taxing the rich and/or slashing military spending.
Only four percent of those polled favored cutting Medicare, the government-run program that provides health care for the elderly and disabled, and only three percent favored cutting Social Security.
President Obama meanwhile, appointed a so-called National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (quickly dubbed the "Catfood Commission" by critics) to come up with proposals to cut the budget deficit. He named as co-chairs former Republican Senator from Wyoming Alan Simpson, a troglodyte sworn enemy of Social Security who publicly declared it to be "a milk cow with 310 million tits," and Erskine Bowles, a retired investment banker and former chief of staff to President Clinton who says he want to cut spending, not raise taxes, which, when it comes to Social Security, means lower benefits for retirees.
The writing on the wall appears to be that the White House, and Democrats and Republicans in Congress, are looking to raise the retirement age, currently 66, to 68 or 69, to reduce or at least limit the inflation adjustment in Social Security benefits, and perhaps also to increase the payroll tax on current workers. What they want to do is balance the budget by screwing with our retirement. What they do not want to do is raise taxes on the rich and on investment income, two steps which, if taken, could fully fund Social Security indefinitely into the future.
Already, the president and Congress have agreed to extend tax breaks for the rich, even though the vast majority of the American public wants the rich to pay higher taxes.
A second poll, this time by CNN, reports that 63 percent of Americans oppose the US War in Afghanistan and want it ended. Only 35 percent say they support the war (now in its ninth year).
Yet the president, who originally promised he would end US involvement in 2011, is now saying the US will "end combat operations" in that war-torn country in 2014--a turn of phrase that doesn't even mean the war would be ended that year (US combat operations allegedly ended in Iraq last summer, but some 50,000 American troops and many more private mercenaries are still there today and will be next year too, unless they are thrown out by the Iraqi government).
Even on the matter of cutting military spending, and with the US currently at war, a Financial Times/Harris poll found in November of last year that a third of Americans thought cutting the Pentagon budget was a good idea, and another third said it would not be a bad thing, with only just over a third saying it was a bad idea. Only 30 percent said that they were concerned that cutting military spending might pose a security risk. Instead of cutting though, the Obama administration with Congressional backing has continued to raise military spending to record levels not seen since World War II, when the US was in a state of all-out war and full national mobilization.
Last April, while Congress was considering the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform bill, a Pew poll found that 64 percent of Americans favored regulations placing a maximum limit on the permissible size of a bank. Only 27 percent opposed such a limit. Yet Congress passed, and the president signed into law, a bill that allows banks to grow even larger, without any constraint on size.
A Pew Charitable Trust poll released last March found that 52 percent of Americans favor setting limits on carbon emissions by vehicles and power plants, even if such limits meant higher energy prices. Only 35 percent opposed such limits on emissions. And yet Congress and President Obama have refused to offer up with any plan to limit CO2 emissions.
Finally, for decades, a majority of Americans have favored some kind
of national healthcare system, whether a fully socialized plan such as
that in the UK, or a so-called single-payer type plan where the
government is the insurer of all citizens, as in Canada. In May 2009, as
the battle over health care reform was heating up, a CNN poll found
Americans favored a government health plan by 69-29%.
What polls showed Americans didn't want was a system of private
insurers with a government mandate that everyone had to buy insurance
or pay a penalty. Guess what kind of "health reform" Congress and the
President gave them? Hint: It wasn't socialized medicine.
What's wrong with this picture?
On every key issue of public concern--protecting Social Security, reforming and universalizing health care, re-regulating the banking industry, ending America's endless wars, cutting the military budget, and taking serious steps to combat global climate change, the government in this supposed democracy has gone against the wishes of the majority of the public.
Clearly, whatever it is, this is no democracy we are living in today.
No wonder the American government is so busy figuring out new ways to spy on and monitor us citizens, to militarize police departments, to construct ever bigger prisons, to restrict access to information, and to control and intimidate the media! Instead of being of, by and for the public, it has become the public's enemy.
Revolution: rev-uh-loo-shun, an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.
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Show AllPalin is better than that in that she would make it clear to those paying attention in the US and in the world that the US political system is a joke, a very toxic and lethal one, but nothing more than a joke nevertheless. It is not of much value for us to have a president we can easily mock, but it would be priceless if we can elect a president that the whole world will mock. Supporting Palin against Barry might be a reasonable way to go. The best way to play the game is to do what the opponent (the plutocracy) does not expect.
The pistol packin mama grizzly from Alaska would be no worse than our current abomination in the whore house; besides, we might get some humor for a change! Yeah, you have to know that she would give us hours and hours of free entertainment. The demo rats will never leave their party of corruption en masse. Good idea Dave, but just a fairy tale.
This article, while presenting many great facts, falls under the category of "there's nothing new under the sun". You could have looked at polls twenty five years ago and found the same disconnect between public opinion and government policy regarding the most important of questions - how we, as a society, allocate resources.
"this is no democracy we are living in"
Its enough of a democracy where if we all push in the same direction, we can still get what we want.
That direction has to be for campaign finance reform: build a wall between corporate money and our 'public servants'.
Don’t forget media reform. If the airways weren’t filled with constant spin, lies and incitement of hatred towards ‘others’, people would be way more united against our true enemies, rather than the manufactured ones. That old divide and conquer strategy never fails.
media reform can only be done through regulation and enforcement, but that requires a Congress speaking on behalf of the people, not the corporations. Nope, in my opinion nothing will ever get done until the right of corporate money to buy legislation as easily as it buys raw materials is defeated. This one thing, our democracy, should never have been put up for sale.
Before you start talking media reform, y'all should consider just tossing a little cash at the various progressive media organizations that exist, like this site, Common Dreams, and my own online newspaper, ThisCantBeHappening!, which is actually doing the nuts and bolts progressive journalism you read here and on Truthout, Counterpunch, and other progressive news aggregator sites.
If every reader gave $5 a year to each of the 10 or so progressive news sites that they though were indispensable, we all could really make some waves!
Visit Dave Lindorff's online alternative newspaper ThisCantBeHappening!, at www.thiscantbehappening.net
Progressives are talking about gov't funding of media voices, as it did in the early years of our country. Without such funding, the only media funding comes from money, and that clearly has strings attached. Once upon a time, ANYONE with a newsletter he/she wanted to distribute got a free ride from the Postal Service. 200 years later, is there anything commesurate today? I'm sure our 'for sale' Supreme Court would suggest that only speech that finds a hefty private donor deserves distribution, but the founding fathers believed that every voice of opinion, in our democracy, deserved distribution, no matter how repulsive to those same founders.
The gov't should be spending money on your newsletter, linddorf. If our tax dollars can't support a variety of voices, then the only voices will be those of money. And they will say what they have always said: money rules. Pray to money and you can rule with her...
Money talks in every aspect of the society, controls everything - all of the social relations, arrangements and conventions, every action and decision we all make every day.
Why should money not dominate politics? Why should that be a surprise? How can we get the money out of politics without overthrowing it as the controlling factor in everything else? I wonder how many here are able to see this condition under which we are forced to live, and how many are able to imagine any alternative.
Corporate money has the right to buy everything, including us - our time, our decisions, our creativity, our work output.
DENNA B: Some of those Progressive media sources have evolved having been granted the awful witness of Obama's policies. While some in the CD forum have well-defined the "placeholder" status generally assumed by Democrats, few if any thought Obama would follow in the Bush Junta's footsteps to this egregious degree... and then some.
My point? Allow for evolution. Are you the same person, retaining every thought and sensibility you held 4 years ago? Or does Growth Happen? I've seen a lot of writers demonstrate a shift recently... the facts have a tendency of awakening people, even if they previously felt the only pragmatic way to proceed was through the two party duopoly.
Terrific logic there dude.
Except I don't see Counterpunch supporting the Democrats.
My own publication has called for Obama's impeachment, and is calling him a war criminal, and the Democratic Party a hopelessly corrupt corporate party.
So what you're really saying is you are not going to support anything but perhaps the Socialist Worker?
Fine. But at least support them.
You need to be a bit discerning or you just sound like a Tea Partier of the left, and trust me, that's no compliment.
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
I have to say that I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for the way you wade in and slug it out with us.
I agree that Counterpunch is not necessarily supporting the Democrats. However, there is a train of thought pervasive among progressives that while they may be critical of the Democrats today, they hold onto an illusion in their minds about what the Democratic party "should" be or once was or could be. This runs parallel to the notion that while the democracy and electoral process has jumped the rails, still there is some great thing that it should be or once was, and furthermore that "America the Beautiful" has gone off the tracks but there is some golden era that could be restored, or that the country can be transformed into what it should be or once was.
That type of thinking is the cage we are in, is the barrier to moving forward. If we cannot tell the truth about the Democratic party, about the so-called "representative democracy" and about the mythology regarding "America the Beautiful" we cannot accurately perceive reality, and if we cannot accurately perceive reality we cannot act effectively or productively.
Thanks for clarity Dave.
I think the obfuscation trolls have struck this thread and distracted attention from the message.
Simply - the big disconnect in communication of opinions with the ubermensch running us.
There is the guberment and then there is all the folks paying for the guberment.
And in the guberment there is the military that tells the rest of the guberment what to do.
The military got its own way of doing things that has to do with a minority of the folks, those who pay as little as possible for the guberment and take as much as possible from the majority of the folks paying for the guberment.
It's Democracy Amerikkkan style.
I agree Dave. The Government instead of being by the people, has become the people's enemy. Like I have stated before: if you do not fear your Government...that just means either you have not been paying attention; are an apathetic and brainwashed sheeple; or you have been been politically dumbed down by the MSM and their sycophant Bible thumping hypocrites.
A very good delineation of the lack of integrity which characterizes our corrupt nation.
I do not know how the polling questions and answers were presented, but in reading these results I had another question.
Can these polling results be interpreted as meaning that 61 (or more) percent of the respondents have little or no interest in cutting the military budget?
Greater taxing of the wealthiest, which I support, will do little to slow down our debauchery if it is not paired with drastic cuts to the pentagonal enforcers of imperialism and drastic increases in spending on programs of social welfare.
We need "Both/and" instead of "either/or".
No, the question was posed as "What would you tax or cut first to reduce the deficit." Taxing the rich was number one. Cutting defense was the next highest number one choice. Odds are that more than 50% want to do both.
Dave
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
Desert the Dems en masse with great fanfare? Go Green or some other existing third party? Create a new, independent national party? Publicly fund the election campaign process and cage the big corporate interests outside? Take to the streets in symbolic protest, with civil disobedience, or bearing arms?
Let me stir in another suggested option into the mix, as an alternative or complimentary tactic.
Dave Lindorff's poll data indicates over 80% of the American public favors raising taxes on the rich and cutting back on military spending to deal with the budget deficit, and nearly 70% want a national health care system with a real public option. There is your three-step litmus test. Focus upon those Big Three substantive issues first, and pattern the approach after the old Contract On America that Newt dreamed up for the Republicans.
Although the United States Senate historically has been the graveyard of progressive politics, there's no reason to think that's cast in stone. Each state has two Senators. Like it or not, there are only two major political parties. Red state, blue state, purple state - big, small, urban, rural - it doesn't matter.
Confront each incumbent United States Senator with an untimatum: either publicly commit to vote for a return to progressive taxation, for a drastic curtailment of Pentagon spending on endless war, and for immediate creation of Medicare Part E - Medicare for Everyone as a public option - or else you will face a primary challenge, within your own party, from a candidate who will promise to do those things. If you survive the primary challenge, in the general election that follows our votes will go to any other candidate who appears on our state's ballot who is willing to pledge to do those three simple, straight forward things, each of which has a solid, majoritarian base of popular approval.
With only one such insurgent actually pulling off an upset and taking a single Senate seat, you possess the power of the filibuster. With 40 Senators publicly taking the three-part pledge, you can block everything. And once there are 51 Senators taking the pledge to get on board before the train leaves the station, you can essentially set the whole national agenda.
Progressive taxation to shore up Social Security and restore the domestic economy, reassertion of sane civilian control over the nation's national security system, plus a genuine national health care system. Republican, Democrat, Tea Party, Green, independent, what-have-you. Take the three part pledge, or else I'm actively against you and the horse you rode in on from this day forward.
How's that for drawing a line nationwide in the nonpartisan, bi-partisan sand?
Bill from Saginaw
Sounds good in theory, except that you forget a few things.
1) a filibuster only works until 60 Senators say it's over. So one good Senator can't do it alone.
2) Good candidates don't win because they don't have the money to get their arguments and positions out to the voters. They can't even get airtime in the media or a seat at primary or election debates.
Dave Lindorff
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
This article is very similar to an earlier article that I had read on this site. As David clearly knows, pols don't listen to polls most of the time or we wouldn't be where we are currently at. That, however, is only half the story. The other half that isn't mentioned is Main Street's internal conflict. I may be a strong supporter of taxing the rich and not slashing Social Security and maybe most Americans share that too assuming that no irrational thinking got in their way. Unfortunately, when push comes to shove, there are more people who think that they will be "rich" despite the fact that they will never come close to earning the yearly salary that would qualify them for the rich level tax bracket. Even on Social Security, people may say hands off but at the same time still believe that 401ks will yield them a higher return. In effect, the systematic training and conditioning of Americans to buy into the "get rich quick" ideology is guaranteed to make them support tax cuts and loopholes for the rich and allow Social Security to slowly be stripped year after year without their realizing it. And then there is the usual trick in Washington of stealthily passing legislation that people in their proper mindsets would dare not allow their Congress critters to pass. The same pattern can be detected in polling for single payer and bringing our men and women home from overseas. This brings me to a question that everyone should think hard about:
Why are we allowing polls to distract us when Washington is DIVORCED from reality and has a puppet mind of its "own" while bringing up thought provoking questions that would shed light on people's ill-conditioned thinking is rarely done on most polling?
Good post Jennifer, but I would caution against repeating the idea that most think that they will be "rich," or even want to, and that this is why they supposedly "vote against their own interests."
Pew Research found that only about 12% of the people are primarily motivated to get rich, or rank making money as a high priority. In a culture where one must grab, or starve, we are all driven to accommodate an ethic of "get rich" as a matter of survival.
The vast majority of people are being forced into the striving competitive dog-eat-dog ethic in order to survive. Talking to people in real life, I would say that for every upwardly mobile person striving to get to the top of the heap, there are 10 (maybe even 100) who are "fed up with the rat race" or "don't care about getting ahead" and simply want top live with some security and predictability.
In this system, those motivated buy something other than money - nurses, elder care workers, teachers, farmers, artisans and so many others - are punished and impoverished, while those who cannot or will not relate to other humans as equals, and instead seek to climb to the top of the heap (amassing capital is the way to achieve that, and that is why people amass capital) are richly rewarded.
Thank you for bringing up the dog-eat-dog ethic that is also responsible for making it harder to get people to see the beauty of going socialist in general. I will admit that based on my conversation with plenty in the real world, reasons can vary. Some folks really believe that they will get "rich" and others are just desperate to hang on. As I discussed with Boyd and Mairead, capitalism can allow a little more wiggle room where socialism falls short although great overall. However, the price of a little more wiggle room can be gushing disaster which can lead to the dog-eat-dog hell we are stuck in.
My point is this: people are reacting to conditions, and adjusting their ideas and behavior to those conditions (those conditions are created and enforced by and for the wealthy) in order to survive and they have little or no choice about that. The conditions are not being created by people's ideas and behavior.
TWO A: Thanks for the sharper statistics on the numbers who plan to become rich. And your final statement is right on!
Yes. The "representative democracy" here works perfectly fairly, and functions very well. The problem is that it is not people who are being represented, but rather dollars. A person who has a million times as many dollars as you do has a vote that is precisely a million times more powerful than yours. Once one realizes that, everything the government and the politicians do makes perfect logical sense.
JENNIFER: I mean you no disrespect, but I do not buy now, nor have I ever, this notion that MOST Americans want to, and believe they will one day become rich. Apart from the Lotto(a means of pretending that option exists) most people just want a decent home for their families, food on the table, a modest vacation each year, and affordable health CARE. I find the "all Americans want to be rich = no nod on taxes" to be a right wing meme.
There are quite a few of these so embedded into mainstream media as to be taken for reality, truth, or the official wisdom of the day. Most of these popular memes are manufactured by think tanks to produce specific outcomes. Copycat behavior is also real for many. This is why a toothpaste commercial might say something like, "74% of people prefer X-brand." Most don't want to be seen as different, so they'll go along with what "most people" prefer.
If MIGHTY MITE is out there, reading this article, I hope he pays REAL attention to the statistics related. Maybe he'll finally give up repeating another right wing (perhaps for him, centrist) talking point... in this idea that Americans aren't ready for Single Payer.
Sioux, it is no disrespect as I welcome corrections and feedback. In fact, I must thank you and Two Americas for setting me straight. After reading the replies, I went back and reread my post to see where I lost my focus. I realize that it gets too easy to fall into the trap of get frustrated and then looking at conditioned thinking as if they really mean it even when they don't. It is always a challenge to get people to not be afraid and speak up for support of the basic safety net and living. I just read Visiting Professor's analysis and thought about what my frustrations with what a populace that is not well educated can sometimes lead me into thinking. It could also be my frustrations with being not as successful in convincing people in the real world. It has been a real challenge last year to keep a chin up despite getting up with 3-5 failures for every 1-2 successes in convincing people to think progressively and/or not be afraid.
I have seen mighty's posts on health care. He supports single payer but he angrily believes that what Obama and the Democrats have done on health care will put the real single payer health care out of reach. The M$M and the Republicans will try to equate mandatory-care with single payer with a negative slant while the Democrats will do the same but try to put a positive spin. If successful, the public will get the wrong idea of what single payer health care is. Based on Visiting Professor's discussion under "ACCESS TO AN AUDIENCE", this cannot be hard for them to do. It could this frustration that mightymite has that is causing him to give a rightwing view on health care without realizing it. I will have to talk to mighty the next time I see him on this.
Jennifer, if I may I would like to make some observations on the frustrations you have when you try to convince people.
There are some people who are never going to be convinced. They are, however, expert at pretending as though they could be convinced and at wasting your time and frustrating you. They are also very good at convincing us that it is imperative that we convince them, or otherwise our ideas are invalidated.
You should be having a 100% success rate, and 70-80% of the population are willing to listen. We are tempted to keep beating our heads against the wall with a relatively small number of people. For example, on the threads here about immigration and Native issues, the people arguing "the other side" - as if there is any legitimate other side - will never be convinced of anything, and are not sincerely debating or discussing anything. Their agenda is to discredit and destroy any and all voices in opposition to racism. I never try to "win" with them, but rather I am speaking to the other 80% of the readers who may not post - they are scared off and intimidated by the mess the racists make of the threads and the bitterness and acrimony they spread - but who are reading and sincerely thinking the issues through. The bigots want everyone to believe that until and unless we convince them, or defeat their "arguments" - both of which are impossible - that what we are saying is invalidated. That is an intentional deception to mislead people.
Also, I would recommend dumping the "sales and marketing" model for discussing politics. We on the Left are committed to accurately describing reality - if we can do that we have succeeded - we are not trying to convert people to "new beliefs" or change, fix or improve them. The challenge is to get the truth out there - accurate perceptions and analyses of objective reality - not to sell "the truth" as in some persuasive beliefs or some dogma or speculation.
Two Americas, I agree that there are people who cannot be convinced and I have met them everywhere. It can take time for me to figure out who cannot be convinced and who can. Even on that, I find it surprising that I can convince some people on some issues and not on others. I am no good at discussing politics. Like you, I have given up on party and even ideological labels and try to stick to discussing the issues without the politics.
In 2009, after the summer of that year, I had felt that I had to do something on my part to help build an independent third party movement. I have been and still am torn between staying as firm and passionate as before and being flexible but at the cost of losing some of that passion that made me successful. Well, I had pluses and minus going both ways. Staying firm and passionate would work but sometimes people would call me "too emotional" so I toned down. Unfortunately, my generosity would get abused and I would be in tears and then get back to being passionate. Sometimes people would wonder why I am being "nice to trolls" but would thank me for trying me best to convince them. Yes, a few had even told me that such efforts have effectively weakened me to the point of looking once bitten twice shy. I used to be quick to determine who was an Obamabot but sometimes, I had felt bad that I hurt even some good people so I slowed down. Nowadays, I exhaust all options before finally throwing in the towel. I know that it can be mistaken as being "nice to trolls" but I have grown accustomed to taking a long drawn approach to finding out for sure before throwing in the towel.
I used to get carried away by George Lakoff's need to make progressive values appealing and that just telling the truth was not enough. But what I discovered is not that I wanted to change anyone's opinions or beliefs but that I had felt that deep down in their hearts, they have more in common with us than we know. I had some success and lots of failures. I like to challenge myself at times and will take other people's points of views into consideration so that I do not come off as if I am boring. My attempts to see the beauty of progressive thinking at heart may have ended up turning into a "sales and marketing" approach without my realizing it. For example, convincing a typical conservative to support single payer health care turned out to be interesting although I would hope that I was not losing focus while at it.
I saw the discussion on the recent article on unemployment among the natives. Looking at the comments, I came out scared and confused. Issues such as natives and Israel are very sensitive to me. Don't even ask me my opinions for I feel that my knowledge is too limited to form an opinion.
I will think some more about what you had said and rethink my ways too. Thank you.
P.S.: I am on Alternet and once in a while on Truthdig too if you are interested in seeing my posts. :)
Good article, Dave. Your last paragraph sums up the situation very well and shows why we have to take radical and creative steps.
Thank you for stating it so clearly.
Not yet.
Joe
Obama "the great capitulator" strikes again.
U.S. Alters Rule on Paying for End-of-Life Planning
Published: January 4, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday.
The move is an abrupt shift, coming just days after the new policy took effect on Jan. 1.
Many doctors and providers of hospice care had praised the regulation, which listed “advance care planning” as one of the services that could be offered in the “annual wellness visit” for Medicare beneficiaries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/health/policy/05health.html?hpw
Yes, majorities big and slim keep polling in favor of or at least sort of in sympathy with progressive positions. At the same time, however, majorities of actual voters, keep sending us Tea Partiers, corporate hacks, reactionaries and MIC apparatchiks who will always oppose the very same measures.
In the 1980s, repeat Reagan voters also polled against almost all of Reagan's actual positions. The profound disconnect is not just in DC or the statehouses; it's in our living rooms.
And the disconnect is on our side too. I know Obama supporters who disagree with almost everything Obama has done and a lot of what he has said, but still support him. And not grudgingly or stoically either but enthusiastically. Out of some weird, mystical sense of his underlying righteousness, I suppose, because I can't find any other reason. We are almost all down the rabbit hole now and there is nothing there but doubletalk and a Red Queen (Sara Palin?) screaming "Off with his head!". For some reason, ignorant and informed people both seem too distracted, deluded or maybe exhausted to blink and wake up.
If I were a believer I'd invoke the Deity's help. Jefferson did and the results weren't all that bad. But I'm not. I feel mostly as if I am on the deck of a sinking ship amid towering, crashing waves and almost everybody else is sleeping off a drinking binge and can't be bothered lowering the lifeboats.
What do we do?
Do the voters keep sending us bad choices? The voting system hasn't changed a whit since Bush stole the White House in 2000 and probably in 2004. Same trashy voting machines and scanners, more corrupt SOS's, more illicit culling of voter rolls, CNN pre-empting the actual count which carried out in secret. No chain of custody.
The barrier to entry is so high now that only corporate toadies or incumbents can afford to run. Neither of which serve us.
Then there is the 24/7 state sponsored propaganda that call itself news that lies and lies and lies.
We have as one author said, 'a hollowed out democracy' where the process no longer has any meaning or power.
I wouldn't turn down a little divine intervention. At least to help people wake up to what is happening to them.
CADAWA: Thank you for pointing out the MORE THAN obvious. I don't get how some in this forum manage to place the blame on voters for the already pre-vetted selection of candidates that are placed before them. I mean the ones who actually make it through the media bombast chamber without being slimed for their hairstyles, some odd noise they make, or some position they took 20 years ago. The media will only see its chosen get to the inaugural ball, after all. THAT is the big lie. Elections are the spectacle in place to reinforce it.
Now thirty million with jobs sitting down on them all at once, that's another matter entirely.
It 's amazing that you know this without watching TV. Our so-called elections are put up jobs so The Rulers can point at them and say "There, see, the people have spoken" as John Boehner (there is an altogether too easy insulting pun that can be done to his name but that has been done and would be a cheap shot even from me, and an insult to the topic of the pun) is doing right now.
I voted for him in the hopes that he would surprise me and not validate my cynicism. His supporters seem to be trying to hint that if he can get to a second term by doing his Neville Chamberlain thing THEN he' ll burst forth and reveal his true Progessiveman identity.
If only a progressive leader would emerge who was so charismatic that even our media could not ignore her or him. Faint hope. There's a better chance of someone on your wavelength leading a spiritual reawakening.
Whatever happens we the people are NOT to blame.
Good points.
The general public knows what is happening to them, they just don't know what to do about it.
Blaming the general public for what the ruling class does is reactionary and anti-democratic. The oft-heard lament here, that "if only the people were not such sheep the problems could be solved" is based on a false perception. It is absurd to blame people for not exercising power that they in fact do not have.
The experiments of Leon Festinger, a psychologist who participated in a cult that prophesized a doomsday that never came, illustrate how people find ways to cling to and rationalize their beliefs long after the beliefs have been proven patently false. I do not quite understand those who will not modify their opinions when faced with new evidence, but it seems to be quite common.
Joe
When you consider that it's CNN that's polling and other state dominated media, the percentages are likely to be much higher; 80's or 90's.
The problem we have is that too many people believe the big lie that our government is doing the best it can. That there are forces beyond its control that are forcing them to so the wrong thing.
When in fact the forces that they are caving into are supposed to regulated and controlled by them. Their only legitimate job is to make government work for the greatest good for the greatest number. It's not that they are trying very hard. These 'representatives' and "leaders" are for sale real cheap.
"And another one down....." (Pink Floyd)
Good piece, Dave, and about time. It's remarkable how slow even our better "pundits" are to catch on to the destructive effects of the 2-party system.
Now we have a second to Ted Rall's position. But I want to present a caveat: if we can't even get people to vote for the Green Party (or publicly support it, as Dave refused to do until very lately), how can we get them to join a revolution?
And as Dave pointed out above, just getting any kind of reporting is all but impossible. Even the "professional left" sites inexorably line up behind the Democrat come campaign time (bitter memories here on CD).
Between e-mail blasts and existing websites, the alternative media infrastructure we need probably already exists, but still lacks the coherence necessary for a real movement. And it's all far too public for ANY kind of "revolution," peaceful or otherwise. Still a lot of work to be done there.
Here is a petition for U.S. federal election reform, so that Congress will obey the people not corporations: http://www.petitiononline.com/PoliTru3/petition.html.
If we act together now, we can still save our country.
I want to make what is for me an obvious comment. Beyond the corrupt money culture of Washington there is a structural problem with our governance. Our arcane system has parasitic elements in it it that assure that a determined minority can thwart the will of the majority. Need I go on. If we want to see Democracy in this country we need to throw off the venerated system of checks and balances in our constitution which assure that the popular will is almost never acted on and put something like a parliamentary system of governance which respects the popular will in its place.. Now I'm going to say something really heretical. Our founding fathers were not geniuses. They were men of property and wealth who didn't like the monarchy but didn't want a democracy which would give ordinary citizens the power to rule. They wanted that for themselves. If there was genius in their thinking it is that they created as system where an oligarchy of moneyed interests still rules. Great job founding fathers. You've completely neutralized people like me and you have gotten the average citizen to venerate you even as you have set in place a system of government that systematically oppresses him. I take it back. This truly is a work of genius.
Two groups of people moved aggressively and very quickly to consolidate their power immediately after the Revolution, to whitewash and re-write the history, and to drive workers and common people from any power and from having any voice. This is not opinion or a "slant," but rather it the clear picture told by the unassailable historical record. One group is represented by Franklin - the striving unscrupulous upwardly mobile people, the forerunners and creators of the "middle class" in the US, and the wealthy as represented by John Hancock. The only distinguishing thing about the "founding fathers," the only reason they are deified and lionized, is because they grabbed power and wealth. They created a story that made themselves the heroes, and were in a position to ruthlessly enforce that on the public and silence any dissenting voices.
The only alternative to this view requires one to imagine that the "founding fathers" had some noble ideals that somehow mysteriously and magically were transmuted into genocide and imperialism, as though the main theme of American history were lofty and noble principles of freedom and equality, with a few "mistakes" sprinkled in that "we are working on" or some nonsense. The history of the country is a consistent pattern of land and resource grabs, control of power and the government by the few, and brutal and murderous suppression of all who stood in the way of "progress" and "freedom."
The entire narrative about the founding fathers, the principles and ideals the country was allegedly founded on, and all of the myths about freedom and American democracy and the American dream is a lie.
Hell, the merchants, bankers, landed aristocracy and financiers successfully prevented the Declaration of Independence form being read in public at 4th of July celebrations starting immediately after the Revolution. That was no accident.
The working class people who fought and won the war against the Crown were left in poverty, driven from their homes and shops, locked out of any participation in government, ignored and marginalized, impoverished and disenfranchised. They were seen as a threat to the moneyed interests.
interesting...I was just in a discussion earlier today where I was trying, delicately, to make very similar points...people really don't like to consider that the entire history they've been handed is a lie...
that would make one begin to wonder what else they've been handed is a lie...
not an easy thing to reconsider, or reconstruct, an identity from scratch...
there must needs be an awakening...
Last-minuteman Buck shows up late to toss away two more coppers.
The sacred constitutional scroll is a binding legal contract that I never signed. Putting things down on paper was/is part of the scam. I can prove it in court, but can't afford to file the papers.
This gets to the root of the political paralysis we are now facing. The "work within the system" thinking is all predicated on the assumption that there exists some golden era from the past when America was noble and virtuous, and that this has somehow become tarnished or corrupted and therefore we should attempt to "restore" or "reclaim" that. Some think that the stolen election of 2000 was when we "lost" America, some think that is was the JFK assassination, other harken back to the New Deal era, or to a Supreme Court decision granting "corporate personhood." But virtually everyone agrees that those founding fathers had it right, were noble and virtuous and had "good intentions." This is the rock solid foundation, unquestioned and unexamined, that underlies the entire edifice of rationalization supporting the "working within the system" thinking - the rationale for trying to repair, or restore, or reclaim "America the Beautiful."
Yet no one denies the history that followed the founding of the country, which has been consistently at odds - to say the least - with the supposed noble and virtuous intentions of the founding fathers. In order to resolve this stunning contradiction, people dissect the history into discrete segments, toss away that which cannot be explained away, and portray the items that main as anomalies or exceptions in an otherwise grand and glorious march into the happy future of "middle class" nirvana.
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