CONNECT
This Can't Be Happening / Op-Ed
Published: Saturday 4 August 2012
“Forget that the government is increasingly trampling on the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, with a burgeoning surveillance program and a growing militarization of the police.”
America is a Democracy? Really?
We Americans are taught it in school. The propaganda put out by Voice of America repeats the idea ad nauseum around the globe. Politicians refer to it in every campaign speech with the same fervor that they claim to be running for office in response to God’s call: America is a model of democracy for the whole world.
But what kind of democracy is it really that we have here?
Forget that only half of eligible voters typically vote in quadrennial presidential elections (less than 30% in so-called “off-year” elections for members of the House and a third of the Senate, and less than 25% in municipal and state elections). Forget that the government is increasingly trampling on the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, with a burgeoning surveillance program and a growing militarization of the police.
The US government doesn’t even do what the majority of the citizens want. In fact, these days it flat out ignores what we the people want.
Consider the polls, and what they show public sentiment to be on key issues, and then look at what the government, composed of supposedly elected representatives and an elected president, actually does:
1. Military spending
Most polls show that Americans, tired of the endless wars that have been raging almost without pause since the end of World War II, and the huge amount of taxes devoted to the military (currently over $1 trillion per year!), favor cutting the military. Just recently, the Center for Public Integrity conducted a poll and found that when asked whether they wanted to cut funding for education, veterans’ benefits, homeland security and other areas, or military spending, 65% of people said they wanted military spending to get the axe. Overall, people favored an 18% cut in the military budget. Democrats wanted a 22% cut, while even Republicans, usually perceived as pro-military, wanted a 12% cut. Of those wanting military spending cut, the largest group, 27%, favored cutting nuclear weapons funding, followed by 23% who wanted ground forces spending cut. Yet both President Barack Obama and his likely opponent in November’s election, Republican Mitt Romney, are both calling for increased military spending next year, and Congress can’t even bring itself to cut spending on a new fighter program that is both way over budget at half a billion dollars per plane, and a failure (the F-22 cannot fly safely).
2. Healthcare
Even with the passage of a sort of healthcare reform, the ludicrously and optimistically named Affordable Care Act, most Americans still tell pollsters that they would prefer a Canadian-style plan in which the government provides health insurance coverage for all, paid for by taxation. For decades this has been true. In 1988, a Harvard University/Harris poll found 61% favoring a Canadian-style so-called “single-payer” healthcare system. By 1990, the LA Times found support for such a system had risen to 66%, while in 1991, the Wall Street Journal found public support had reached an astonishing 69%. In 2003, the Washington Post and ABC-TV found 62% in favor of extending Medicare, the government health program for those over 65, to cover everyone. In 2007, despite decades of anti-government ideological rhetoric, CNN found that 64% favored government health insurance for all. In 2009, as the Obama administration was flat-out refusing to even discuss the idea of Medicare-for-all, or a Canadian-style health program, the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is associated with a private health insurance organization, found 58% of Americans nonetheless were in favor of a Canadian-style health program. So far, however, neither the President nor Congress or either of the country’s two political parties will even consider a national health program.
3. Social security and Medicare programs for the elderly
Last year, President Obama, who campaigned for election in 2008 vowing never to cut Social Security benefits or Medicare programs, appointed an advisory commission heavily weighted towards people who favored such cuts, and told them to come up with recommendations for “reforming” both programs. He pointedly added that “nothing” was “off the table” in terms of ideas, including benefit cuts. Right wing politicians and business lobbies have long been calling for cuts in both programs, claiming that they will “run out of money,” in a decade in the case of Medicare and in 45-50 years in the case of Social Security. What they fail to mention is that if people were taxed on income of over $106,000 a year with the Social Security tax, and if the Medicare tax, currently less than 2% of income, were raised, there would be no shortfall at all.
The public, despite all the propaganda thrown at them, and all the calls in Congress for cuts in the programs to reduce the nation’s ballooning budget deficit, are clear though. They don’t want either program cut. The most recent poll, released last week by the respected Pew Research Center, found that 60% want Social Security and Medicare benefits left alone. Only 32% said they wanted the budget deficit cut, and would be willing to see Social Security and Medicare take a hit to do it.
Never mind the public though. Nearly all Republicans, and even many Democrats, in Congress, all recipients of large amounts of corporate campaign cash, continue to call for cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits.
4. Higher taxes on the wealthy
Back in the early 1960s, the marginal tax rate on very wealthy people was 95%, meaning that if they earned over a certain amount, the extra income was taxed at a rate of 95%. It was a period of high, sustained economic growth in the US, and also an era when the gap in wealth between the poor and the rich, and between the rich and the so-called middle-class, shrank dramatically. Since then, the tax on upper incomes has fallen steadily, and is now down at 33%, scarcely double the 15% paid by the lowest income taxpayers on their meager incomes. Meanwhile the gap between rich and poor has become a chasm.
With the US budget deficit soaring, with infrastructure crumbling, and with pressures mounting to cut important social programs like health care, education and welfare for the poor, there are increasing calls from the public for higher taxes on the wealthy again. President Obama has responded by calling for a slight increase in taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, back to a 35% rate that was in effect in 2000, but nobody in government is talking about seriously taxing the rich. As for the public? Poll after poll shows strong support for socking it to the wealthy. A Pew Research poll in July found that 44% favored higher taxes for those above $250,000 a year in income. Only 22% said they though such higher taxes were a bad idea. 44% also said higher taxes on the rich would be “more fair,” while 21% disagreed.
5. Action to combat climate change
Since taking office in 2008, President Obama, who had campaigned calling for action on climate change, has done almost nothing to reduce or even slow the pace of US carbon emissions. Neither has Congress done anything. The US, internationally, has actually worked openly and behind-the-scenes to prevent any global treaty on climate issues. Yet the American people want action.
A Gallup Poll last April, for example, found that 65% of Americans support having the government impose mandatory controls on CO2 emissions, even if that meant higher prices for energy and other things. Despite massive propaganda against government involvement in industry, 66% say they favor government spending on alternative energy, including for cars. At a time when Democratic and Republican elected officials are all talking about cutting regulation of the environment, 64% also say they favor stricter enforcement of environmental regulations.
6. The war in Afghanistan
President Obama and his advisors say that even after 2014, the US will continue to have troops fighting in Afghanistan. Candidate Mitt Romney isn’t talking about pulling out of Afghanistan at all. And there is no move in Congress to stop this war that began 11 years ago, and that has become a costly quagmire for US forces. Yet only 27% of Americans in a recent poll by AP-GfK said they support that war. A whopping 66% said they oppose it and want it ended.
7. Invading Iran
The propaganda from the US government about Iran’s alleged goal of building a nuclear bomb has been relentless, with most US news organizations helping it along by publishing uncontested “leaks” by officials sources, often of outright lies. Despite all this warmongering, though, most Americans still say they oppose any military “solution” to this trumped-up problem (Iran insists it is not seeking to build a nuclear weapon). According to a poll in March by the University of Maryland, published in the Christian Science Monitor, 70% of Americans said they wanted a diplomatic solution to dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. If the question was phrased to assume Iran was shown to be constructing a bomb, the result was different, with 56% supporting a US attack on Iran, but given that even US intelligence officials say there is no bomb program underway, this is not the issue.
And yet the US continues to send ever more offensive weapons to the borders of Iran, and to support covert terrorist actions inside the country, in the name of combating the country’s alleged nuclear program.
Looking at this huge disconnect between what the public wants on issue after issue and what the government actually does, one has to wonder how much different the US system is from one like China’s or Saudi Arabia’s, where there is no pretense of democracy.
Certainly Americans have the right and the ability to vote for candidates, but that alone appears not to produce what President Abraham Lincoln, back in 1865, called a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
41 comments on "America is a Democracy? Really?"
August 08, 2012 12:35am
My friends we have all the laws we need and the Constitution and Bill of Rights are fine. What we need is a few people with the intestinal fortitude to stand up and enforce the laws we already have for instance if the Wall Street crowd and the Bankers along with the realtors were all facing Rico charges for conspiracy to defraud and bankrupt this country and the plants economies and they were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, like they would be if they were of middle eastern decent for example, as their behavior is not only terrorist but also sedition and the blatant acts of traitors. If that one percent of the population were held accountable and if execution were on the table for their disastrous behaviors, instead of rewarded and bailed out for their disregard for everything this country at one time stood for, I believe there would be a change. You wanna talk about white supremacy? Wasn't it the WASP's White Angelo Saxon Protestants, who armed with Manifest Destiny, blessed by god, proceeded to eradicate the true Citizens of North America, the Natives? The Original White Supremacists. The folks who eradicated the savage Indian, enslaved the Africans, had the Chinese build the railroads, sent thousands of Japanese Americans to concentration camps, Manzanar anyone? And dropped nuclear bombs on Japan taking hundreds of thousands of lives. After all we displayed the bullet riddled bodies of Saddam's sons, for something they had nothing to do with, holding Wall Street accountable should be an easy exercise in JUSTICE...
I do not know exactly when we ran off the rails but a good point in my mind was the Supreme courts utter failing their responsibilities when they selected bush by stopping the vote count, btw Gore won Florida by a half a million votes by some accounts.
Allegedly Jefferson shot a man on the white house lawn for treason, no less an act is required now if we are to survive this experiment Lincoln referred to. When those responsible are swinging from the lamp posts on Wall Street the rest will get the message. Or have you all forgot what happened when The Kennedy brothers, Malcom X, Chi Guvera, Dr King and a few others were gunned down to stop the momentum of humanity in the sixties. And look what we got to replace those who were assassinated for their political positions. Where are the assassins now? In power where else and why else would they resort to such tactics? What do you think is going to move them? When they have so poisoned the planet that the human race ends? Well that's fine if WE all want to keep quibbling over the particular chair we would like to occupy on the Titanic...I know you all just want a front seat for the end of the world...It's not really the end of the world as it will go on, there just will not be any sentient beings left to enjoy it, the consequence for not taking the responsibilities of a citizen of this country as defined by the Constitution...The founders left us a damn good road map, we are just too stupid to follow it....and we will get what is coming to us...Enjoy what time you have left
America is the premier white supremacist on the planet, or history shows us that, unless of course you bought the White Wash version of how the settlers came here to this new land and built a country...At the expense of perhaps millions of Natives and millions of others in other lands. What is impossible to fathom is that people are aghast at the violence exhibited around the country, when that same violence is a few generations ago or on some foreign land we care not, and we just can not seem to come to grips with the terror we employed to build this great nation....do you know how stupid that sounds, at least take responsibility for our history and then perhaps we can make a change...
All those who have resorted to this violence are just following the example America has set...and continues to exhibit, almost everywhere and now it comes home...Who says the kids can't learn, we taught them well by our example...You reap what you sow...
August 06, 2012 3:44pm
This short video captures much of the conversation about America as a democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw
August 06, 2012 1:19pm
Who can deal with the Repubs? They screeched against Clinton’s Employer Mandate for health and were for Individual Mandate instead. Now, they shriek against Obama’s Individual Mandate. GOP jerks on the issues like a windshield wiper. Flip-flop Romney invented Obamacare in Mass. Now he rages against it. Don’t let ‘em sell you a used car!
August 05, 2012 3:51pm
Let's just FIX DEMOCRACY!
Here's how: If we just hold 2 quick, back-to-back elections each time (the first, as usual, to hire the worker's pool of our Public SERVANTS from our districts, and the second where WE ALL appoint them DIRECTLY to their cabinet portfolio positions) then we eliminate their self-interested conflicts of loyalty-dividing political "parties," (which always only "party" at our direct expense,) forever!
;-)
August 05, 2012 8:45am
It's called "Inverted Totalitarianism" Check it out on wiki. It's where the cost-effective over rules people rights and humanity - hence the shredding of the Constitution and the ignorance of the government about what the people really want as opposed to what the politicians actually do. We had a democratic republic and free market but no longer. The reason for inverted totalitarianism is the goal of the banksters for global economic integration and a 1 world order with them at the top controlling all government officials. Look at our choices for President ! Electing either is electing Wall St to the highest office. It's totalitarian and the plan is to have the change complete before we even know it and can do anything about it. Why do you think Obama insisted that American citizens be included in the NDAA?
"Democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible. It's possible to have any 2 but not all 3. It's the inescapable trilemma of a world economy" - Dani Rodrik (He is the among the 100 most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc).
So you see the banks and their owned politicians are pushing for global economic integration and the cost of that is our national sovereignty and democracy. You can have any 2 but not all 3.
The value of the dollar has fallen in the last 100 years to about 3 cents - thanks to the policies of the Federal Reserve. By all appearaces their goal is to destroy the value of the dollar and thereby destroy our national sovereignty and democracy. The private Federal Reserve stockholders are the too big to fails. Where do you think their loyalties lie? Read the Bank Manifesto of 1892 and you will know what has happened to our country. It's war and the WMD's are being built unabated by the unprosecutable Too Big To Fails and their financial terrorist cells that have already once brought the worlds finance system down.
August 05, 2012 4:21am
Every empire in history has collapsed under the weight of it's hubris. What we are seeing now is the collapse of the American empire. The problem as I see it is not to argue over the reality of the collapse but to decide what to do with the pieces. I have a suggestion: regional governments to take over the management of several states and reporting to a loose federation of the other regions. NO standing army, no Federal taxes, no central money supply and no commander in chief chosen by a flawed election process. "Balkanization" made workable by advanced preparation. WE can devise a re-written Constitution incorporating a Bill of Rights, all of which should be based on what we have learned in the last 200 years about government. For instance: money kills any democratic content because money is so unevenly distributed. So money must be eliminated from the selection process for legislators and presidents. A Supreme Court must be based on representatives from all states and a range of philosophies, not biased appointment by professional politicians bent on increasing the influence of their Party. Even Justices must have term limits. Presidents might be selected by lottery, given limited powers, excluding wartime powers, and serve one term. Wars must be prohibited, assassinations, drone attacks, nuclear weapons...all must be prohibited. War is itself a war crime. A Federation-wide agency to manage crimes and public safety must have oversight by civilians and must recognize that the safety of the public is a primary concern. For instance, dropping firebombs onto old wooden structures in the middle of a city to "take out" criminals is a no-go...creating more chaos and damage than the criminals themselves are capable of.
We could take this time prior to the ocean's rising over Wall Street to decide how and where we are to relocate coastal metropolises with minimum collateral damage. These cities include New York, Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New Orleans, etc. Millions will be unable to remain in large, flooded cities with no utilities, clean water or transportation. The chaos which will result can be mitigated by advanced planning. The planning must include measures to ensure that individuals do not profit from this change.
The very concept of "money" should be examined to see if this is the most advanced and reasonable way to allow an economy to operate. For instance, it should be considered whether an economy is the flow of goods and services or merely the exchange of tokens such as dollars. In the former case with modern technology there is no need of "money" and in the latter case are the seeds of crime and criminal behavior. You cannot steal what does not exist. The most important ingredient in a society is not money for commerce but oversight of authority. Without this oversight money cannot be maintained safely as a item of commerce. It is possible to have an exchange of goods and services without tokens, without profit, even on a regional basis. It just requires forethought and planning. There must not be stratified rights and rules with the top having more rights than the masses, more money than the masses and control over the masses. Equality of citizenship is a primary concern.
If we agree that democracy is "the rule of the unwashed masses over the educated elite" then the ideal solution is not to deny rights to the masses but to supply soap and education to all. If we prefer by general agreement that a republic need not be democratic we must define those means by which we guarantee the rights and responsibilities and restrictions on those chosen to run the show. Leaving things unsaid got us here, we should be clear and concise. Archaic language looks good on parchment but the entire legal profession makes it's living by making laws too vague and difficult to understand. What we need is clarity, no impressive language.
Nothing like this will happen, of course, because the powers that be are ignorant, stupid and set in their ways like pigs in slop. Invariably, the People will be forced to commit to violence to pry the nation from the fingers of the people who enrich themselves at the public trough. The trick is to make damn sure what follows is not a version of what was just removed by revolution, so that the documentation and agreements should be worked out before the fascists are lined up against the wall.
August 04, 2012 4:17pm
Are you SERIOUS a DEMOCRACY??? This nation was founded as a Republic, gets your facts straight or shut your pie hole, or just stuff it full of the bs your spouting. It was never meant to be a Democratic state otherwise why would we have an electoral college? Because the founding fathers knew it was way too important a decision to be made by the common man, as women could not even vote. Does that sound remotely Democratic? This Nation is such a fledgling ignorant bunch, that it, as a country has not even deciphered the first word of the preamble to the constitution, let alone bill of rights.
Yes I agree with all your facts about all the minutiae those in power want you focused on while they continue their rape, pillage and plunder. That concept was gift wrapped in the concept of Manifest Destiny, where some god gave them the right to do as they pleased with what they found here, you with me so far?
The idea of Democracy is as fallacious as the idea of a two party system and three branches of government. All great in principle but not a shred of evidence it has ever been put into practice. These ideals are for stumping idiots, who want to be elected so they can get on the Manifest Destiny train, got it?
These same morons who are on the train also believe they will be raptured off the planet when it all comes crashing down, and there is no question that it is crashing, is there? I am sure we can all agree that this system is no where near sustainable and all the facts you quote and all the incidents of the dichotomy between what we believe it should resemble and what it is only supports the inevitable crash that we all know is coming. It already has for what about 99 percent of the people in this country, if you care to call what is happening in North America anywhere near a functioning country. I will wager that those in power have no idea about the Constitution, bill of rights or even the most basic idea of human value.
Here's the situation in a nut, and I mean psycho, shell. The US is a couple a hundred years old and we have the audacity to tell the rest of the world how to live, when we do not even consider our own tenants of what this nation was founded upon. Greece has been around for thousands of years as have the Chinese and the middle east, well the Sumerians gave us higher math what a couple of Thousand years ago? We sold them all on our form of capitalism and they are all failing as we are, major cities are going under, states will be close behind and well Washington DC, incidentally has the highest rates of HIV/aids infection in the world, ironic isn't it? That one virus is destroying another virus? When it is a possibility that virus was a military weapon, sorta like the smallpox infested blankets the US gave to the Natives, but we all never want to go to the root of the system and how it was conceived and executed.
This country never got to the first word in the preamble, WE, it is meant to encompass every human being, yet in practice it did not mean, Natives, the original Americans, nor did it mean slaves, of any color, nor did it mean women of any sort. And it's interpretation is still so nebulous that it fractures our solidarity as a nation, society and even our humanity. It keeps us ultimately and definitely divided and that enables those on the train to shoot all the buffalo they like as they pass through toward their ultimate destination, the Rapture, or the twilight zone.
Elections are a farce, politicians are a farce, Democracy is the cruelest farce of all and all of it designed to keep us focused on anything except that which really in the end is the only thing that will matter and will ultimately be humanities epitaph...
"WE"
Two letters
One Word
That we never got....
The rest of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and any form of Democracy, will never materialize, will never be realized, it's the greatest sham we have ever pulled on ourselves and soon the planet will be rid of us, by our own hand.
This Nations history is despicable and deplorable, what we have visited on the peoples of this world and on the world itself our founding fathers could have never imagined. That we would run so far off the rails and if you think that is not true, just look at what we have done and our doing today to ourselves.
The concept of "WE" is just too much to fathom, so much so that the rest of the doctrines are irrelevant...
August 05, 2012 3:14am
Pretty much everything you said is right on the money.
August 04, 2012 3:37pm
The article could not be more clear. Our government is saying to hell with what Americans want and continues its reckless course, public be damned. Looks like movements like OWS need to grow and we need to march in the streets and make clear what we want. If that does not work, revolution is unavoidable and called for. How low do Americans have to get before doing something?
August 04, 2012 3:32pm
You can have a nation that sanctions the bribery of public officials, or you can have a representative democracy. The one will always preclude the other.
August 04, 2012 3:30pm
America is not a democracy. It is a whorehouse in which Congress is nothing but hookers and corporate lobbyists are the johns. I have completely lost faith in the stated principles and values of this country. If America is truly "exceptional," it is exceptional in its arrogance, its corruption, its slavish, 16th century religiosity, its intolerance, its frightening jingoism and its genuflection before all things military. It is not the country it was a scant 40 years earlier, but then neither was Germany in 1933. Do not call it a democracy, it is a theocorporate oligarchy that worships false gods like Ayn Rand and her prophet Paul Ryan. It disgusts me...
August 04, 2012 3:45pm
To be accurate, it is a republic. Though Lincoln didn't regard such a corrupted regime as a republic:
"I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war."
- Abraham Lincoln
Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)
August 04, 2012 3:09pm
NOTHING NEW...THEY ALREADY CUT SOCIAL SECURITY....ALL MY LIFE I WAS TOLD I COULD RETIRE WITH FULL BENEFITS AT AGE 65
LAST YEAR THEY ANNOUNCED IT WOULD NOW BE 66 (maybe)
MEDICARE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE 62 - NOW ITS 65 (maybe)
A VOTE FOR DR. JACK KORVORKIAN IS A VOTE FOR CLEAN GOVERNMENT - HE KILLED YOU OUTRIGHT....BY ....AND WITH... YOUR OWN BLESSINGS
August 04, 2012 2:29pm
Some thoughtful stuff here, but what baffles menus the endless pursuit of government run and mandatory health care (which would institutionalize the medical industrial complex). So see the error of this with the war machine burns the corporate food machine but seems horribly inconsistent on the subject of health. Big medicine (and gov med would still be BIG med) is about the same money first dominate the market mentality. If GMOs and empire are bad for our health, then so is a great deal of big medicine. We don't need it institutionalized at the highest levels. We need richer alternatives for healthcare, better food, better lifestyles, and leaving all of that in the hands of a bloated government-corp alliance (which is truely what we have now) which deliver none of it.
August 04, 2012 1:57pm
My grandfather used to mention (post Nixon) that American elections were no different than the Soviet elections. You had the two Party "approved" candidates (who opposed each other but still would tow the Party line) and a few oddities, who could never win, thrown in to add flavor and make it appear to be a real election. It was/is all about the show. The Party gets their people elected regardless of how we vote. This Nov. when we vote for Dumb or Dumber, the Party will again win. If by some chance the National Socialist Party or the Greens win, the Party will declare the election null and void, unless these alternative parties are running Party approved candidates.
So what is a voter to do? Go to the polls and write in the name of the person you feel is best to do the job and hope that is what all the other people are doing. It would be interesting to see what the Party would do if Elmer J. Fudd or Wile E. Coyote won. Of course this could be a tight race with E. None Ofthe Above.
August 04, 2012 1:26pm
I don't think America is now a democracy. Maybe it's never been, but I don't have the anti-democratic bias that asserts that in a democracy the minority will be ridden over. In an ideal democracy, the will of the majority will prevail on vital issues. I think we can all agree on that, but it doesn't mean that the minority will have its rights negated. I think, considering everything, the democratic will of the majority is simply the fairest way to govern, though not at all the easiest. But the rights of any minority will have to be upheld. If a particular viewpoint of the majority is seen by the minority to be wrong, the minority should have the freedom - perhaps the obligation - to try to change the majority view by argument and presentation of facts.
I have always thought it was wrong to have older people, who won't be fighting, to demand that the youngsters, just starting their lives, have to put themselves at risk in a military venture they may even oppose. Why can't Americans vote on such vital issues as War and Peace, after a suitable campaign by proponents and opponents to gain the vote?
Unfortunately, in modern America, Big Money can buy media time to smear opponents, and all of this is done simply to sway the votes of the undecided among the small percentage that even goes to the polls. And in no way can this be considered an ideal expression of the democratic ideal. Limited democracy may have started with the Greeks, but it was also practiced by Scandinavian groups long ago who had never heard of the Greeks.
Everyone loves the word "democracy," it seems. I can't forget that Communist East Germany always called itself the "German Democratic Republic." Whoopee! And perhaps modern politicians calling America "democratic" is just as empty and pretentious.
August 04, 2012 1:14pm
Yes, Richard T.........I agree that as long as we are only allowed to choose between 'Tweedle-Dum' and 'Tweedle-Dee', there isn't much point to voting; but the fact is, we can vote for WHOMEVER we want. Rather than accepting 'Lesser Evil-ism' as a limitation on actual voting, thereby affirming this ridiculous--and anti-democratic--political arrangement called the "two" party system; We The People need to challenge it.
I don't consider "Not Voting" as an effective tactic. As has been pointed out, 50% of us are already doing THAT....either deliberately or through negligence or through just plain disgust. I suggest that the best strategy is to take the time to register and to go to the voting booth, and conscientiously vote for a 3rd-party candidate....even if one has to write his/her name in.
The powers-that-be in our current political landscape simply don't give a d*mn about the huge number of us who don't vote. They don't necessarily know WHY we are not voting, but they are happy enough with the virtual "silencing" of the 'Vox Populi'.
On the other hand, if citizens take the trouble to actually show up and cast their ballots for ANYBODY other than the Rep and Dem candidates (even when we are continually assured that we are 'wasting' our votes or 'spoiling' the chances of a victory for a marginally "Lesser" Evil candidate), we are empowering ourselves. Sure, we might end up with a Bush or a Romney or a Cheney (ugh!); but sooner or later we have to 'bite the bullet' and take the LONG View...for the sake of future generations of Americans.
Meanwhile, of course, we need to be taking to the streets....as the OCCUPY Movement is now doing....to make DEMANDS on whichever Evil Party controls the levers of the current political machinery.
August 04, 2012 2:14pm
We have too much democracy. Under the original plan, only the Electoral College would choose the Presidential candidate and senators were elected by the State's General Assemblies. The 12th and 17th Amendments destroyed all of that. We will never have good candidates with the current system. If we would repeal those two amendments and return to the original system; we would actually have state representation, thereby protecting the 10th amendment, and an executive in the Executive Office. "If your presidential election process resembles a circus, you are bound to get clowns in the White House" -Gary Adler....... The 12th and 17th Amendments were very destructive to the republic.
August 04, 2012 1:57pm
JOSEPHH:
I am sympathetic to your point of view; however, I can't agree with it. I would love to see a viable third party in this country, and I have voted for the Green Party a few times, but they were state or local candidates. In voting for members of Congress or the president, we have these things to consider:
Whoever wins may be in office for 2, 4, or 6 years (House, Chief Executive, Senate). Look at how much damage the Tea Party nay-sayers have done in only 2 years. Look at how much damage Jr. Bush did in his first 4 years. These federal office-holders can do a LOT of DAMAGE in their terms, and if we voted for someone who had no chance of winning, well, we can pat ourselves on the back and say that we voted our conscience, but the BAD PRACTICAL EFFECT is still there.
I hate voting for the lesser of two evils, but I still prefer that to not voting, or simply throwing away my vote. Now, if multiple millions showed up at the polls and voted for third-party or write-in candidates, then that would certainly wake up both major parties, but if a few thousand or even a few hundred thousand voters did that, do you really think either party would care? (I'm talking about a national election, of course.)
So, if you feel you empower yourself, the practical effect might be the appointment of plutocrats to the Supreme Court, where they might serve for years, even decades. You might see unnecessary wars initiated, unpaid for, because you feel empowered. You might see the economy flushed down the toilet, but hey, you feel empowered, so everything's supposed to be all right?
Like I say, I am sympathetic to your viewpoint, and I often feel the same disgust you do. But I have to weigh the practical effects of voting for a particular candidate.
And by the way, I am not one of those who say that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the election. No way, Jose. Not by any means. Gore should have had the election in his pocket, but ultimately it was the Supreme Court that did him in, not Nader. His personality wasn't up to the challenge, and he made a TERRIBLE choice in his running mate.
August 04, 2012 12:02pm
To the above list, I would add: public demands for vigorously pursuing criminal charges against corporations behind the economic crash; public demands for keeping undisclosed corporate funding out of elections; public demands for a constitutional amendment defining person as human being and asserting that corporations are decidedly not people . . . and on and on it goes
August 04, 2012 1:28pm
I agree. I want a rope around their GD necks.
Their actions caused untold suffering by millions of people. This is one of the reasons why I cannot vote for that skunk Obama. His MAIN function since taking office has been protecting the Fraudsters. I understand Romney is probably even worse.
August 04, 2012 2:22pm
I disagree, I think Romney will be better but not much. He has much executive experience but he's still a politician. The original plan as mandated by the framers was to allow presidents to be chosen by the Electoral college only and they had it right. As long as we allow the elections of presidents by the popular vote; we will always have these sleazy politicians in the White House. REPEAL THE 12th AND THE 17th AMENDMENTS AND RETURN STATE'S RIGHTS AND EXECUTIVES IN THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE. "If your presidential election process resembles a circus, you are bound to get clowns in the White House". Gary Adler
August 06, 2012 12:25am
He will undermine the medical access the Mililtary has, reduce access to birth control, allow wars overseas to continue until.....? Limit birth control, send the EPA down the river... force the construction of the most dangerous progress of the Fossil Fuel corporations... via the most ugly developent called the Alberta Tar Sands project.....PLEASE look into this so you understand how DANGEROUS this is for the entire planet...
August 06, 2012 12:24am
He will undermine the medical access the Mililtary has, reduce access to birth control, allow wars overseas to continue until.....? Limit birth control, send the EPA down the river... force the construction of the most dangerous progress of the Fossil Fuel corporations... via the most ugly developent called the Alberta Tar Sands project.....PLEASE look into this so you understand how DANGEROUS this is for the entire planet...
August 05, 2012 3:28am
Executive experience? That's a dirty word in this nation - now. There is nothing there to be respected or admired, at all. In the minds of the American people executives represent a danger to the nation, and rightly so.
Romney is the very face of greed and corruption that has ruined the nation.
Millions of us had our good paying manufacturing jobs outsourced due to Romney style greed. As bad as Obama is, and I grant you, he sucks, Romney is orders of magnitude worse, worse in every conceivable way.
August 04, 2012 11:40am
Health care should NOIT be a for profit business where Big Insurance has a financial incentive to deny sick people the health care they desperately need to live.
Single Payer Medicare for All!
Tax the Rich to finance it.
End the $106,800.00 Social Security taxable income cap, and make billionaire and millionaires pay FICA taxes on every penny they earn.
August 04, 2012 2:37pm
In addition, I see no reason that capital gains should be taxed at a lower rate, than earnings by someone who actually sweated & wore his/her body out---actually working for it.
August 05, 2012 3:22am
I'm with you, Roger!
Now we have evidence that low capital gains taxes do nothing for investment in the real economy where people actually make or produce things.
August 04, 2012 1:25pm
A huge plus one to you, Jeffrey!
August 04, 2012 11:32am
What the stats suggest here is that the average working American's basically want to take care of each other in times of adversity and that they do not wish to continue making war with all that it represents; death, destruction, and depravity, and financial servitude to the elites by the government.
The dichotomy of America is between what the general population wants and what America's elites want. The population could out vote the elites easily if they had a party empathetic to their concerns, but instead have only the servants to the elites to vote for. Seems a simple solution, a new grass roots party must take form and be voted into power while the other two can wither away to nothing. This would amount to a revolution by the ballot box so one would expect a push back from the elites to thwart this course of action.
To name the oligarch that has taken all the power of America for their own agenda, and that uses the name of the U.S.ofA. as their calling card in their quest for their ownership and control of the entire world is , the international banker's fraternity that has gained control over almost every nation on the planet through their system of controlling all credit and money in a debt based system for each country. The international corporations with their vast horizontal and vertical ownerships of the global market place and their practice of neo classical economics amounting to little more than total class warfare, much of this accomplished by corporate rights embodied in dictated so called "trade deals.". The third group of the oligarch triumvirate is the military industrial complex that wages physical war at the other two's behest in their drive for world hegemony, all the while piling on the debt to the host nation (as in hosting a parasite) so that it's government remains firmly under the control and in servitude to the bankers, and corporations that have grown up around the banks. These three groups seek to dominate and own the world as their own special play toy, while the rest of humanity,if not superfluous, is to toil for the sole pleasure of the elite, guarded by the apparatus of the police state paid for by the bankers.
Or we could form a people's party and vote them out while we still have the vote.
August 04, 2012 1:29pm
There have been groups of people trying to get a government that is OF the People, For the People. What happens is that extremists have corrupted them and/or turned them into jokes.
I also am afraid we have already "lost" the power of our votes. With the GOP working overtime to restrict who can vote and the number of exremely uneducated people that are coveted by our two political parties, a sane educated person really does not have a voice.
August 04, 2012 11:15am
The United States is not and never should be a democracy. A democracy is where the majority runs roughshod over the minority. The United States was designed as a republic which gives rights to all, not just the majority. Unfortunately, it is more a democracy now than when it was conceived. It really doesn't matter that most peopl don't vote. They don't have the brains to understand the issues anyway.
August 04, 2012 11:03am
In the first place, we are not a Democracy! We are a Republic, which are two separate animals! Not one of our elected officials is addressing that fact and the fact the GOP/Tea Party are treating this country and the way it is being run as a Democracy. A Republic... (Remember to the Republic for which it stands) is a system of rules and laws and yes regulations, a very fair system for all. A Democracy is a free for all, winner take all type of system, with no care for any one else except ones own self interests. Does this sound familiar?? We need to get back to what our founders designed for us, a Republic! They knew a Democracy had no way of surviving for long. We would eat each other alive. Imagine that!
August 04, 2012 1:41pm
What you talk about is the theory of a Republic, the reality is vastly different. Republics are really just empires with ruling classes and those who serve the ruling class. The poorest half of a Republic's population have no voice in government. No republic on earth has ever been fair to anyone but those in the ruling class. How many slaves were voting members in the Roman Senate or from the merchant/warrior class? None, only rich land owners. Sure you could work your way in to the ruling class, but few were actually able to do it. Sound familiar?
The goal of forming a new government was to give a voice to all the people (who were white-European, land owners), have them participate in the government, have the government serve the citizens, hence public servant. The majority was to rule, but there were restrictions on removing rights of the minority. The intent was to take the best from Greek Democracy and the best of the Roman Republic. We have a republic and it is failing, just like they all eventually do.
August 04, 2012 5:07pm
There were many big differences in the Roman type Republic and the U.S. designed Republic, so to compare them is sort of a moot point. A Republic is not just a theory it is a system, a type of government structure. Rome did not have a constitution but a complex set of unwritten laws and traditions that defined the political structure. There were many restrictions on the poorer people oppose to the wealthy, on and on...
Nevertheless, the fact remains that our founders designed our system of government as a form of Republic. A system that permits its people to improve upon it because of our Constitution. Big difference. John Admas defined a republic as "a government of laws, and not of men." Constitutional republics attempt to weaken the threat of majoritarianism and protect dissenting individuals and minority groups from the tyranny of majority by placing checks on the power of the majority of the population. Our founders did well in this respect. At least we hoped it would prevail...
The reason this system is failing, as Thomas Jefferson warned us of, is in part wealthy/corporate/banks take over. The failures of our government and elected officials to stand behind the people of this country first and foremost..... and of course the failure of the people to recognize what is happening and exercize their vote intelligently. With supreme court rulings, corporate is running rampant with wealth and power, mowing down the people of this country and running government.
Sadly these powers have convinced the very people they are destroying that this is the way it's suppose to be. Government has become a bad word by them, and the unmitigated greed that is taking place has been proudly tagged Capitalism. They are drinking sand, told it's water and don't know it! Gullible people do not see or hear anything beyond the right to make money/greed. Somehow Capitalism now has been morfed into a Democracy/winner take all type belief...take it all, and anything counts as long as it gets called Capitalism. Will we fail, who knows. Did Rome fail or just decline into something else??
August 04, 2012 11:06am
Thank you Dave L and N of C for an article condemning the myth that we live in a democracy. Ours is a representative form of government strangle-held by Repub-Dem elites serving themselves and the wealthy corporate elite, aka an oligarchy. But thank you more for making it clear that while Romney would be worse, Obama/Dem acts of omission and commission have been further to the right than Nixon's. Obama squandered support for change by championing the nineties-Repub healthcare plan that is a boon to health-insurance companies and will tax-penalize (by CBO estimate) 2 million low-income families annually who still will not be able to afford health insurance. We are now hostage to Obama in the 2012 presidential. After that we will get nowhere until we break the Repub-Dem stranglehold and undertake an independent revolt against the oligarchs. We must borrow a page from the Tea-Party crucifixion of "moderate" Repubs. No more "centrist" Dems who are in fact to the right of the majority on the key issues of our time. And speaking of time, if you think the oligarchs have been impoverishing ever more of the majority since Regan, wait till you see 2013. We are on a Repub-Dem superhighway to hell and the slaughter of our children.
August 04, 2012 10:06am
I would love to see someone, anyone tell the country that we need to get back to the good old days when a political party wasn't owned by the rich. In 1938 we had 33 Tax Brackets in order to tax all ranges of income. These 33 brackets ranged from 4% for more than 1/2 of the country. Thats 4% for income up to $64,000. all the way up to a top marginal rate of 79% for income over $79Million. Now that is "Fair and Balanced".
August 04, 2012 10:06am
Yet we continue to waddle into the voting booth to post our desired preferences that will continue to be ignored. As has been said many times, repeatedly doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is a sure sign of insanity. A simple solution would be for no one to vote, a mass protest that could never be ignored by the current power structure or their complicit propaganda agents in the Main Stream Media. The political players like to play these minimal and maximum voting percentage games in Congress that affect the outcome of voting on crucial legislation, let's see how they respond to a minimal to no outcome situation at the voting booth. I bet that an outcome like this would cause a lot of Washington power players to start sweating profusely. However, the herd mentality continuously programmed into this society will never allow the sheep to vary from their pre-programmed course even when it repeatedly accomplishes nothing.
August 04, 2012 10:02am
As Bill M said: There's something missing from the "health care" debate - a discussion of health. Misleading titles are so common lately that one must carefully question all of them. What's being called "health care" is really about medical insurance. They are not at all the same. In fact, they may be contra productive.
Pills often do more harm than good. Makes me sick.
August 04, 2012 10:28am
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, assistant treasury secretary in the Reagan Administration, has just posted an excellent piece on his website written by a medical doctor who, after 30 years of private practice, has thrown in the towel due to the current state of the healthcare system in this country. This is a long piece as the good doctor unloads on all the special interests lobbying and liberal government legislation that has jammed the system over the past thirty years. A well written and timely rebuttal to a long corrupted system that places profit before the health of average Americans. The citizens of this country continue to pay ever increasing amounts of money for healthcare services and drugs as the systems ability to produce acceptable healthcare outcomes continues to fall below that of many third world countries.
August 04, 2012 11:41am
After 30 years the good Dr. has made his money so it's all a little too late...