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By Kevin Zeese
It is a shame to have to ask whether democracy is a mirage in the United States, no doubt most Americans would rather be celebrating U.S. democracy than questioning it. But the reality of the disconnect between government and the people has become so stark it is impossible to ignore.
Gallup reports that Americans belief in our form of government and how well it works is now at only 42% (in 2002 it was at 76%). Less than a quarter of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, yet because of manipulation of the political process, the drawing of voting districts, the impact of campaign money and the power of incumbency, more than 90% will be re-elected.
A major problem is the two party duopoly acts much like a two party dictatorship. Despite nearly 60% of Americans wanting a third party and only 35% believing the two parties do an adequate job, the two parties work together to prevent more choices on the ballot. They have put up road blocks to independent challengers through ballot access laws, campaign finance rules, exclusion from debates and the winner take all electoral system. The corporate media plays an important role of keeping independent candidates off the air so people do not hear about their existence or positions. As a result only the two parties, both funded by the corporate oligarchy, and their corporate-approved candidates appear on most ballots. Most Americans end up voting against their interests for what has commonly become known as voting for ‘the lesser evil.’
The courts, which play an essential role in applying constitutional limits on government in the U.S. Republic, have become a tool of the financial elite, actually weakening elections further. They have issued rulings that further empower the money-class in their control of democracy. The court has allowed unlimited spending by corporations and individuals in the Citizens United decision; and recently found the Arizona Clean Elections Act unconstitutional. Thus striking two blows for the wealthy – they can spend as much as they like, but government cannot provide matching public funds for elections.
President Obama, rather than pushing for clean elections, is going from big donor event to big donor event to become the first candidate to run a billion dollar campaign. More and more Americans recognize that his health care policy, which re-enforced and expanded the power of the insurance industry, likely resulted from their $20 million in donations to his first campaign. Obama kept single payer out of the debate despite years of polls showing large majorities of Americans want single payer and vast evidence showing it is the best model to control costs and the only model to provide health care to all. The insurance company’s profits came before the necessities and preferences of the people. We see people from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and other big financial institutions not only being bailed out but being put in the Obama administration rather than prosecuted for crashing the economy despite strong evidence of criminal wrongdoing. These are two examples of many. Obama has advocated corporatism on every issue and is now going to those special interests to fund the most expensive campaign in history.
In the United States more and more recognize the disconnect between government and the needs of most Americans. They see how crony capitalist policies lead to the largest wealth divide we have known with increasing poverty, joblessness, underemployment and insecurity. At the same time the Congress, Treasury and Federal Reserve funnel trillions of dollars to the big banks, but demand cuts for programs that would create jobs, fund state and local government, build the infrastructure, provide basic necessities and protect the environment. This is the first generation of Americans who see that their children are likely to be worse off than they are.
What can Americans do to create a representative democracy and shift the power to the people from major corporations? In fact, the U.S. is not the only country facing the problem of oligarchy. One example that has not gotten a lot of attention in the U.S. media is Spain. The people have been in revolt since March 15th. Hundreds of thousands have taken control of public spaces across the country. Their protests continue and more major protests are being planned. The Spanish movement has been only minimally reported in the U.S. commercial media, perhaps because some of the complaints are so similar to what we hear in living rooms, schools and restaurants when Americans talk among themselves.
Here’s a sampling of what they are saying in Spain:
- Politicians and economic powers have perverted the democratic ideal.
- A professor from Barcelona explains – the political structures, instead of protecting our welfare and living standards the government is doing the opposite. It is the institutional machine that is creating mass unemployment, precarious employment and unprecedented limitations on future hopes and expectations.
- Another says the political parties have lost touch with the people. They have limited the exercise of democracy to every four years and have stripped democracy of its true meaning.
- “They have reduced us to nothing. They tell us go vote, go vote, go vote – you go vote, pal.”
The Spanish call themselves Real Democracy Already (Democracia Real Ya (DRY)). Like Americans they live under a two party system. There are other small parties, but they are shut out of real participation. The statement of DRY speaks mostly about creating a true democracy. They say: “Democracy belongs to the people (demos = people, krátos = government) which means that government is made of every one of us. However, in Spain most of the political class does not even listen to us. . . Lust for power and its accumulation in only a few; create inequality, tension and injustice. The obsolete and unnatural economic model fuels the social machinery in a growing spiral that consumes itself by enriching a few and sends into poverty the rest. . . The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society. Wasting resources, destroying the planet, creating unemployment and unhappy consumers. Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs. We are anonymous, but without us none of this would exist, because we move the world.”
Sounds familiar, like echoes of conversations many Americans are having. As a result thousands of Americans have joined www.October2011.org. This is a movement to demand an end to corporatism and militarism. Like the Spanish, the Greeks, Tunisians and Egyptians, among others, October2011, will be taking over a public space, Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC beginning on October 6. This day is the beginning of the 11th year of the Afghanistan War and that week is the beginning of a new federal fiscal year with an austerity budget for everything except the military. October2011.org has written the activists around the world seeking a common agenda of economic justice and real democracy letting them know that their revolution is our revolution. It seems much of the world is waking up to the need to topple the oligarchy at the same time.
Like Spain, October2011.org is led by individuals, not organizations. People from a wide range of issues see the common problem of corporate control of government preventing the change America needs. This includes ending the ongoing wars, reducing the military budget, better pay and jobs for workers, Medicare for all, reversal of the degradation of the environment, ending the wealth divide and putting in place a clean, sustainable energy economy, among others.
The solutions to the critical issues facing the country are evident to many but the corporate interests who profit from the status quo prevent real change. The electoral system is closed to all but the corporate parties. To transform the government into one that puts the peoples interests before those of the economic elite, will require a showing of power. It will require an ongoing, independent movement that demands real change and has the power to insist on it. On October 6th a major step to showing the development of such a movement and demanding real change begins. Join us.
In Spain, the protesters sing to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”:
They call it democracy but it isn’t
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes
They call it democracy but it isn’t
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes
Are the people of the United States ready to face the reality of the corruption of U.S. elections and the lack of representation and do something about it? History is knocking. The time is now to answer.
Kevin Zeese is on the steering committee of October2011.org and a peace and economic justice advocate.
108 Comments
Happy to rec this. October 6 marks the beginning of a peoples’ revolution in the US. We will join people around the world who oppose the global oligarchy.
Kevin, how about the issue that there are the same number of ‘representatives’ now as just after WWII despite the population being almost 3 times larger? Or that the SCOTUS has said the President has the power to tell the House to increase it’s numbers of Representatives?
Or that the SCOTUS has ruled that the Congress has no requirement to act upon citizen’s ‘petition(s) for redress of grievances’ and that the House ‘Rules’ also indicate they don’t have to do shit upon being presented such a petition?
Minnesota is a good example of what kind of democracy we have in the United States.
With one of the larger Native American Indian populations in the country, not one single Native American Indian sits among the more than 200 state legislators nor among our congressional delegation yet Native American Indian reservations in northern Minnesota are suffering unemployment rates from 65% to 85%.
Unemployment is intentionally maintained at this high level to maintain a pool of cheap labor for the Indian Gaming Industry where workers have no voice in an industry that forces them to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights in the workplace.
Workers with no rights at work obviously have no right to participate in the political process.
Very few people are willing to talk about democracy in the workplace when speaking of democracy.
The very fact that two-million workers have no rights in the workplace in the Indian Gaming Industry by design and intent because politicians wanted to create, through a complex web and maze of confusion called “Compacts,” a situation where those who own the slot machines would profit directly from enforced cheap labor.
There is an intent in this country to make people believe that as long as one has the right to vote, even if only for candidates selected by the employers, that this is democracy.
How often when listening or reading about discussions on democracy do we hear or read about the state of democracy in the workplace where workers have little if any voice when it comes to anything relating to production, pay and working conditions, or their very right to a job? When was the last time any employer ever involved its workforce in the decision-making process of whether a mine, mill or factory should be closed?
Without workers having rights in their places of employment and a real voice in the decision-making process all talk of democracy is nothing but idle chatter.
If we turn to specific issues of war and peace; if this is a democracy here in the USA the government would not have begun the current wars to begin with, and one need only look at the issue of health care where most people choose single-payer or a form of a national public health care system when given the choice over what we have and Obama’s phony “reform.”
On paper we have all kinds of rights; but, when it comes to these rights being carried out in practice this country is hardly the world’s greatest bastion of democracy as the well-paid big-business pundits and free-market sooth-Sayers try to portray it.
Amazing we have two parties, Democrat and Republican. Yet most voters are Independent. There’s your third party.
There is a pendulum in this country that will swing back from the mirage. Our short history repeats itself. I predict Americans have finally had enough. Most are Independent as another poster pointed out. If every Independent votes against every incumbent, a message gets sent and the political establishment as it exists gets destroyed. So we go back to apple pie,ice cream and the American way.
Only the truth will set us free once again. If we look back into history to at what made us the most respected and sought after nation to ever exist you will find that first of all we were a United Nation. A scab who took the food off a neighbors table by crossing a Union picket line was not a welcomed neighbor. We did not have a Fox News that constantly preaches fear of taxes, goverment, homosexials, abortions and etc. for the sole purpose of keeping us a divided nation for the wealthy. Before the first phoney fuel crises proud Americans bought American. Our nation had not been sold out to the communist atheist nation that supplied the arms to kill our Troops in Korea and Vietnam. if you think those goods that Americans developed are cheep you do not diserve to have social securtiy, health insurance or any other benifits. A closed mind is no better than a dead mind.
There are so many problems in our “democracy” that it would be a long laundry list if I listed them all. Expanding the House is definitely something that is needed. And, we need to remake the Senate. One of the big problems is tiny population states have two votes in the senate. They are smaller than many cities, but have more votes. The country has outgrown its original plan and the lessons of democracies around the world, where there is better representation, need to be applied in the U.S.
Really good points Alan. Some countries now require that 50% of their legislature be women, in order to ensure representation. The lack of Indians, when they have a significant population in the state is a sign of non-representation.
It is not only workers in the workplace, but there is a need to democtratize the economy. Worker owned businesses is one of the changes that need to be encouraged. But, there is a long list. My favorite, which does not get discussed, is the need to transform corporate welfare into taxpayer investment. We need to be treated as investors when taxpayers provide corporate welfare to businesses, i.e. representation on the board and, most importantly, sharing in the wealth created. This could grow into a guaranteed national income and could be modeled after the Alaska Permanent Trust, which shares oil revenue among all Alaskans.
Democratize the economy and the wealth divide will shrink, prosperity will be shared fairly and a more democratic government will follow.
I’m trying to draw a graph of the picture in my head that shows how corporate interests gamed the system so easily. It’s mathematical, very geometric, and it makes perfect sense: gerrymandering, non-representational vote, too few elected officials, a rigid two-party system — it really knocks down the number of elected leaders you have to bribe to override public opinion, and then forces them into a pen for easy captivation (the two-party hierarchy). Media consolidation becomes a force multiplier — for all the bitching about the “unprofessional” internet, we’d probably be a shitload worse off right now without it.
The only problem with the graph is that there are so many ways we’re screwed, it’s hard to fit them all into one picture.
I agree; what tax-payers finance they should own; or at least receive the proceeds from as you say, as if they were “investors” because this is what we really are. So many corporations are subsidized in one way or another by tax-payers.
The House tends to be rigged towards the GOP because, of gerrymandering and redistricting. Over the last 20 years many Sothern African American liberal Democrats made a Faustian bargain by negotiaing with the GOP for maps in many states which give them a few very safe, black, districts which vote 90-10 Democrat in exchange for many more GOP districts which go 60-40. This is why when you looked at the electoral map of 2004, there was a sea of red between small blue splotches on the East and Left coasts.
But Alan, we do have complete diversity in our Senators. We have Senator Yale and Senator Harvard. How can you not see that this is fair and balanced? This is a very superior oligarchy.
Haven’t seen much evidence of a real Democracy. Every issue boils down to Republicans openly trying to destroy anyone who isn’t rich, and Democrats caving for no apparent reason. It happens too consistently to be anything other than deliberate.
“We did not have a Fox News that constantly preaches fear of taxes, goverment, homosexials, abortions and etc.”
Thats not true at all. Such messages come in the form of Sunday morning sermons.
Fox is a small voice compared to the collective voices of churches. You need to go to the source, not parrot the same tired ‘its Fox’s fault’ line. Unless you buy into the whole M$M conspiracy propaganda.
Truth is not an perception that changes with view.
American “democracy” has degenerated so far that there are no meaningful primaries within parties. Why in blazes is no Democrat challenging Obama?
Yes. In fact, imo, there is no longer a “two party” system in the USA. There is only a UniParty of Republicrats/Democans who are owned by the super-wealthy & corporations. It’s a one-party Kleptocracy with the Oligarchs in charge.
What we all get to witness – those of us who actually pay attention – is what we here at FDL call the Kabuki Show. It’s played out over & over with so-called “Republicans” mostly being mean-spirited bullies who do everything possible to rip off the “small people,” whilst putatitive “Democrats” cave in constantly.
It’s a joke; it’s Kabuki Show being played out by bought off “policitians” who pretend to be “representing” the “small people.”
All three branches of the federal govt are being run by the upper 1% of this nation, and the upper 1% are doing their d*mndest to take over at the State level, as well… witness what’s been happening in WI with the Koch’s buying off the Governor, some state reps & some state judges. It’s a dis-ease that’s taking over our nation.
Yes…both at once. As well as a plutocracy, kleptocracy and aristocracy.
Not to mention just plane FUBAR.
I agree with you about churches, but I have personnally witnessed how Fox & Rush Limbaugh really played a roll in brainwashing my family members. I find it shocking, frankly, and I don’t see it any other way. Of course, the 700 Club also played a huge part in their brainwashing, too.
I think the M$M and the churches (some of them, not all) are just working hand in glove, but that’s JMHO, of course.
I’m beginning to think of the Obama presidency in a new way. The Y2K coup installed Bush and the Republicans in office, but left the Democrats internally untouched. Through Obama, the Y2K coup forces have taken over the Democrats.
We never had a democracy at the presidential level and it was years before any democratic selection of senators. This does not even account for how long it took to get full citizenship for many who resided here. The Constitution provided the basis for some rights that might be considered democratic, but the “patriot” act has gutted the rights enshrined in the Constitution. The Constitution has not been discarded because it provides cover for the corporatist dominated government of bought representation. We have insane people at the top, no matter how reasonable they appear, and most show their insanity. Without the internet and sites such as FDL, we would be worse off that those under the communist rule of the past in the ussr.
I wish it was not in October…From a historical perspective…
This is the latest in a long line of “woe is us” threads. The real issue is what, if anything, we can do. Unfortunately the way this place is set up no discussion lasts more than 24 hours. I might add, this place is no democracy. Liz Berry, who I did not agree with, is apparently the latest to offend the powers that be. If we can’t create a true democratic community someplace on the internet, we have no hope of changing the nation.
Nice. Were screwed every which way, but one. We have a growing consensus out here that the game of democracy is rigged and is no longer working. We should all remember that just a generation ago another monolithic Oligarchic and even totalitarian system in the EX-Soviet Union collapsed of its own incompetence. Our so called system is rapidly heading in a similar direction.
Mirage democracy, of course.
That was easy. Next question?
“A major problem is the two party duopoly acts much like a two party dictatorship”
I believe that phrase, or something close to it, was used by one of the recent protestors in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. Great minds think alike!
It’s not the upper 1% percent who control the nation, its the upper 0.01% (probably not even that much). I heard Sen. Bernie Sanders say on the Rachel Maddow show that the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 50% of Americans. As a matter of political practicality, it’s important to have the mere upper 1% realized that they are disenfranchised, too. The extreme polarization of wealth in America is deplorable, but actually makes change easier. In our control by a tiny sliver of overlords, we are not that different from France in 1789 or Russia in 1917. (Hopefully, with our historical democratic traditions, a new revolution here would not be violent as in those countries).
I’m not persuaded the pendulum will swing back. The post-Civil War South is a good example. By the early 20th century the Jim Crow Laws were in force, and they stayed in force for 60 years. It was a low-wage area in a high-wage country, and the elite that ran the South were happy with this condition. I think we are moving in the same direction in the rest of the United States. Breaking the public unions and all the other unions combined with high unemployment for as far as the eye can see is a recipe for a low-wage economy. That was the South.
What’s missing is the racism and ‘class attitudes to the poor’ (think White Trash) that characterized the southern elite. But I don’t see that waiting much longer.
As to street protests, anything serious would be put down by the national guard. The US does not have a tradition of effective protest the way they do in Europe. Also no real sense of collective purpose.
At this point in time it is very hard to see how things are going to play out, but I don’t think there is any automatic equilibrating mechanism that puts the US back onto a democratic path. More likely the opposite.
It’s not any kind of a Democracy.
A “representative democracy” is a nice idea that exists only to the degree that much of the population has been dumbed down over the years so that they believe the crap that is spoon-fed them by the small number that are stealing them and us blind.
We’re going to be a shitload worse off within a generation. There’s a real paucity of critical thinking. Education is our only hope.I repeat: education,education, education.
Democracy we jail more people than any other country in the world. Just from a cost basis we are the most oppressed people in the world people who are happy don’t break the law and can change laws to make things like pot that they want legal.
Note I say on a cost basis there are many countries where the people are killed and tortured but on cost we win.
Next look at how much we spend on a media to lie to us around 30% of Americans believe Obama was born in Kenya why the Right wing Media.
Internationally BBC, Al Jazeera viewers and in America Left Wing bloggers, heck Daily Show comedy viewers know more about the issues than Fox News and Right Wing Bloggers.
Any bets Left Bloggers and Daily Show viewers know more about the issues than traditional news only viewers?
We need to do a poll on that!
It’s a militarist dictatorship, with political theater for the rubes. Not to mention the greatest purveyor of for-$$ terror and violence the world has ever seen.
Next question.
I’d call the US a Security State Kleptocracy.
“A closed mind is no better than a dead mind.” Yes! And the puppet masters know the visceral issues that keep minds closed and real change from happening.
I never considered that, but it’s an interesting thought, caleb36. You may very well be spot-on about that.
:)
The equilibrating mechanism is proportional to the risk that the <1% of the wealth in this country feel that THEIR future (read "their money") is at stake or at risk.
in a nutshell
80 % of our oil goes to DOD….imagine that
One mild point of disagreement. Those people we’re jailing are not sitting around their cell all day. They are all working, for pennies an hour.
In the rest of the world that’s called a labor camp.
STEP 1… re-register as an Independent [not affiliated with any political party]. Americans need to stop supporting-rewarding the two corrupt political partys.
STEP 2… be determined to vote for candidates OTHER than corrupt Democrats or corrupt Republicans…. again, stop rewarding-supporting-encouraging corrupt politicians.
We have to break the back and stranglehold these corrupt organizations have on our country
and 75% of stock trades are held for….wait for it…..11 seconds
Don’t forget that with the advent of electronic voting systems and the subbing out of our elections to corporations, we no longer have any semblance of transparent vote counting. As one recent example among many, in the recount of the Kloppenburg – Prosser (the strangler) judicial race in WIsconsin, the state election commission certified the election before even reading the official reports of highly suspicious “irregularities” in key election districts.
It’s not a mirage it’s a “KABUKI show”. Its all staged for our benefit as the real business takes place at the various “private” clubs and restaurants in DC.
sick,sick,sick
Worth repeating:
Without workers having rights in their places of employment and a real voice in the decision-making process all talk of democracy is nothing but idle chatter.
Best comments I’ve read in quite some time.
The IMPERIAL US CORPOCRACY
So that pendulum swings back where or when? To our early years of genocide, exploitation, and slavery?
dont forget…the 200,000,000 GUNS
When your armored vehicles are powered by jet engines, they do slurp the fuel down.
ASPEN….where the roots and leaves turn
the strangler 707
oh and….20,000,000,000,000.00 to aircondition the tents each year
It’s a mirage and has been since 1974.
This has been another in a series of
Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
oopsie meant 20 billion
Oh, this should work . . . insulting the very people we want to organize.
the US is a plutocracy.
everyone in office is rich
to run for office you have to be rich
both parties represent the interests rich
only the rich are represented.
no other outcome is possible with the current system.
This comment from Common Dreams pretty much sums up why I’ve come to detest Independence Day:
Every year 4th of July parades feature more military hardware and more people who look like Walmart greeters handing out flags.
All I can think of as I watch these parades is John Prine singing “YOUR FLAG DECAL WON”T GET YOU IN TO HEAVEN ANY MORE…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgRVNjsuycQ
Just a reminder that in some states there is no political party registration, which negates step 1.
As for step 2, got to have such candidates to vote for them.
Nancy Pelosi is daughter and sister of mayors of Baltimore, MD.
Seen “The Wire” on HBO. Seen Baltimore in “The Wire.”
Let me say that again. Nancy Pelosi’s father and brother were Mayors of Baltimore, MD.
“Pelosi is Italian-American and was born Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro in Baltimore, Maryland, the youngest of six children of Annunciata M. (“Nancy”) and Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., who was a Democratic party U.S. Congressman from Maryland and a Mayor of Baltimore.[4] Pelosi’s brother, Thomas D’Alesandro III, also a Democrat, was mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971, when he declined to run for a second term…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Pelosi
reminds me of May day in the old USSR
a solution to the present debacle of US 2 party is a Constitutional change allowing voters to use their one vote either vote for their preferred candidate OR against a candidate on the ballot. This would:
1) greatly increase voter participation eliminating conscious abstainers
2) eliminate parties running batshit insane loons
3) open the door for additional parties by diluting the influence and manipulation of the process by the current 2 parties.
4) Open the door to addressing the key political problem in the US: media consolidation where a handful of plutocrat run mega media conglomerates manipulate almost all of the information the electorate receives. Competition in the political realm would enable the break of Big Media to happen – an impossibility in the current arrangement.
Wrong…
The vast majority of states have some form of party registration. Re-registering sends a message loud and clear to the partys that we will no longer support their “product”… corruption.
NO we dont have to have such candidates… any voter can write in a name or candidate of their choice… or make no choice.
And last buy not least… voters can show their support for Independents and third party candidates by VOTING for them.
You are one of way to many people, who self proclaims yourself to be helpless. STOP being helpless. You are doing it to yourself!
Stand up for what you believ it. Have the courage to do the right thing. Advocate for Independents and third-fourth-50th political party candidates.
STOP being helpless.
Not wrong. I said some, and I live in one of those states. We cannot register by party and, therefore, can’t re-register. Your solution omits me.
And I’ve run as a Green candidate twice and successfully coordinated the ballot drive in VA to get Nader on the ballot — my point is we need to get such candidates on the ballot.
That would be an interesting graphic, Jane. Would love to see it.
The “democracy” is a mess. Voters are manipulated into voting against their interests out of fear of the other (this works on both Republican-leaners and Dem-leaners). Of course, the reality is the two parties mostly agree. They really are tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum — they agree on 8 letters and disagree on 2, just enough to fool people into thinking they are different.
It is not time to reform the system, it is time to revolutionize it. A total makeover is needed. Reform will not work.
The pendulum only swings if we make it swing. It does not happen automatically. That is why we are organizing http://www.October2011.org. Sign up, join in, spread the word and mobilize.
The Dems are not caving. They are giving their major donors what they want. They know they can take their more porgressive voters for granted because elections are rigged to give them nowhere else to go. The only wasted vote is a vote for either corporate party. We need independent elections, to go along with independent movements and independent media. Today is a good day to declare your independence!
MSNBC and CNN do their fair share of brainwashing as well. FOX on the right, MSNBC for the Dems and CNN for the corporations. If you turn them off for awhile and get your news from other sources, then when you go back you can see through the FOG (Forces of Greed). The propaganda is thick and obvious once you are aware of it. Independent media is critical to making real change.
We can do a lot. We have more power than we realize. We need to act in unity, independent of the two parties and the corporate media. Our demands need to be clear and uncompromising. We have the power if we mobilize. Sign up and spread the word: http://www.October2011.org.
We live in a very sophisticated propaganda society. The corporate media puts on x-generals, x-national security and x-intelligence officials to discuss war. They put on former corporate elected officials and campaign managers to discuss politics. They spice those x’s with current officeholders, sometimes a corporate funded think tank gets on. We hear lots of people telling us the same thing. We do not hear what real Americans thing. We do not see the near daily acts of resistance taking place around the United States against many injustices. If the actions of Americans were reported we would see that America is in revolt. People are pissed and looking for a way to have an impact. Join us at http://www.October2011.org – sign up and spread the word.
A third party would have the bower to create compromises based on factors other than corporate donations. Five Senators could force GOP and/or Dems to enact laws that would benefit people, not the rich slugs.
Sorry all, but the problems facing the USA are NOT going to be solved politically. The system is rigged and the two candidate system fails because each candidate is hand picked by the sociopaths, oops I meant plutocrats who run this country and the world.
They do not need us, the “little people” any more, either to manufacture or buy their shit. They have invented the Emperor’s New Product in the form of what were formerly known as “financial services” and they have gotten wealthy by buying and selling pieces and bits of the world until now, when they are on the brink of owning everything.
Corporations are wealthier and more powerful than nations; they have replaced representatives in government with their own cronys. That is why the Republicans are openly hostile to representative democracy and this (former) Republic and why the Dems’ role is to play a weak, ineffective “counter” (Think Shawn Hannity and Alan Combes).
No friends, the impending Dickensian feudality under which we USA citizens are being swept as a permanent life style change, will NOT be reversed, thwarted, obstructed, cured or abolished by political means.
What saddens me most is that the USA will not be remembered for the prosperous Republic it once was, anymore than the Weimar Republic is remembered as it once was.
And we all know what Weimar is remembered for don’t we? This is the fate of the USA. When the village no longer services the needs of the villagers, it’s time to leave.
When enough educated, skilled people emigrate from the US to greener grasses elsewhere, leaving nothing but the super rich and their low or no pay domestic and service workers, most of whom will have immigrated from even worse places to live, or disenfranchised Americans who can no longer make a living wage and who cannot leave. When that happens, the USA will be ripe for invasion and takeover by a stronger nation populated by educated and skilled peoples.
This is history in the making, although those among us who are students of history have seen this all before.
The USA has been transformed into the antebellum south and most people haven’t a clue. Life is a cycle and the USA is in it’s biggest downswing in its very short history.
But of course, this is why revolutions have happened throughout history. The USA will be no different.
One out of four of the world’s prisoners are residing in the land of the free. With only 5% of the world’s population we have 25% of the world’s prisoners. And, 1 out of 32 Americans is on probation, parole or in prison. How many tens of millions of police cameras monitor Americans. Now, drones are being tested for even closer surveillance inside the United States.
Both parties agree that 66% of domestic spending is off the table for cuts. That is the security state budget — military, intelligence and homeland security. Everything else, both parties agree will be cut.
The most aggressive security state would be jealous of the U.S. security state and the propaganda is so effective that most Americans are unaware of it.
*Applause*
Except this is happening all over Europe too. Where exactly can you go? Unfortunately, age and lack of financial resources mean I can’t go anywhere.
To add to Zeese’s analysis of the objective situation this country faces (and why America needs a “Tahrir moment” now more than ever), here is an excerpt from Sheldon Wolin’s book “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Totalitarianism.”
Wolin notes “inverted totalitarianism” involves a “political moment when corporate power finally sheds its identification as a purely economic phenomenon, confined primarily to a doemstic domain of ‘private enterprise’ and evolves into a globalizing copartnership with the state: a double transmutation , of corporation and state.”
Then, Wolin goes on to expound upon what he calls “antidemocracy.”
Pause for a moment. Reread that quote. Process what is described.
If you look at how Howard Zinn describes the moment when Americans were desiring independence from the monarchy in England, you might think antidemocracy is a thread that ties all moments of history in this country together. Antidemocracy (or perhaps managed democracy) has always been what the wealthy and privileged elites that have pulled the reins of this country have strove to maintain. It has always been employed to control the aspirations and uneasiness among the poor and working class, especially minorities that threatened to change the cultural, political and social makeup of society.
Those who fought to change the dynamics of capitalism in the country have often been met with a fury from the ruling political class. A hammer has been brought down to fight movements to reorganize the country so that it would be more socially just. The origination of America, though, stems from groups of people choosing to not take “it” anymore and make their grievances known through taking political action.
The comments on this post show many know how to diagnose the ailments and disorders that have debilitated, eroded and paralyzed democratic society. To some extent America has never been a fully functioning democracy. However, those within its borders have fought to advance ideals and values, making America a project in development. And, for over two hundred years, it has been a work in progress.
When Zeese calls for what he is calling for through the October 2011 project, he is following a tradition of American progress—the tradition of the grassroots rising up every now and then to demonstrate to power that real power lies with the people no matter how much power might be concentrated in the hands of the Executive.
The people have a duty to make this clear to power whenever society is dangerously unequal i.e. when income inequality is grossly severe or control of people through a state apparatus of control threatens to make the liberties people have typically enjoyed extinct.
I’ve spent the last couple days enjoying myself at a Socialism Conference in Chicago. That I can type those words without worrying about someone saying something catty about the fact that I have been at a conference with socialists tells me I am secure in my political thinking; we need unbridled conversation and debate with nothing off-limits. All matters of history and currents must be examined to achieve consensus on radically altering society for the better.
Wresting power from an elite group of people, who pervert historical American ideas and values, will be done by drawing inspiration from the Egyptians, Tunisians and all others who have in recent months decided they aren’t afraid to act out anymore.
I hope to post video from the Socialism conference soon. First up will be video of Glenn Greenwald’s speech on “civil liberties under Obama” [we have civil liberties under Obama?]
Happy Independence Day
South and Central America are excellent choices, since the Borg have already been and swept through with their destructive acts of financial destruction 30 years ago.
They are too busy sucking up the wealth of the first world to care about our latin neighbors much anymore.
To continue, yes we can write in the names of candidates. But writing in versus working to get the candidate on the ballot legitimately can make a difference of .002 percent of the vote to 25 percent of the vote (experience tells me that). And working like crazy to get that candidate elected, making some really serious sacrifices, can move that percentage up above the 50 percent.
But now that I read your message again, I see you’re interested in disciplining the parties (sending a message),
a practice I don’t embrace. I abandoned them so long ago that I sometimes fail to notice intentions of sending messages to them.
there’s no evidence to suggest the bulk of the voters were ever anything but “dumbed down” and easily manipulated by plutocrats. What has changed is the dissolution of the nation as a community of people, due to the rise of the celebration of greed. The rich are so damned rich and globalized today that they no longer care about the notion of a viable nation. Feudalism is all the rage.
“The only wasted vote is a vote for either corporate party.”; boy how I wish this could be headlines and screamed from the rooftops.
Wresting power from an elite group of people, who pervert historical American ideas and values, will…
only be accomplished with a great deal of suffering. It is doubtful that there are sufficient numbers of people willing to endure the shitstorm the wealthy will throw at them to force any real change.
Strictly a mirage. We’re rapidly descending back into feudalism.
you want to protect democracy? then kill the rich.
the French certainly thought so.
“However, those within its borders have fought to advance ideals and values, making America a project in development. And, for over two hundred years, it has been a work in progress.”; well said Kevin and more people need to understand that the U.S. IS a project to be developed. That’s just one reason why those who are strict Constitutionalists need to be ‘re-educated’.
When I was growing up, I was taught that the “price of liberty is eternal vigilance”; don’t think such has been taught in the schools for years.
Yep.
Thats kinda the point I was making. They’re “caving.” Thought Obama was just extremely weak at one point, now its clear hes a criminal like the rest of them.
Works for me. Where’s the guillotine ? Or the garotte ?
It will be much more difficult given the machinations of the Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court of FDR’s time was conservative, it was not bat guano crazy conservative. Now, it is.
The Roberts Court has given the One Percenters even more political weight than they had in the 1930′s: They now have as many voices as they are willing to spend dollars, they can buy politicians with the mere threat of withdrawing their big donations, and now their businesses can be thrown into the donor pool.
We need to stop this idiocy of “corporate persons.”
October 2011… Do all of you intend to go to DC on October 6 intend to STAY there in DC until change happens? That’s how change happened Egypt. The protesters stayed right there Tahrir Square for days and weeks until change happened in Egypt.
It’s not an “occupation” if all you activists intend to go for a day, than fly home that night. It’s being somewhat dishonest to call it an “occupation” if you are planning to go home at the end of the day, it’s just the biannual DC ANSWER rant. ANSWER has been doing bi-annual DC rant sessions since the 70’s. 40 years of ANSWER rants haven’t even gotten poor Mumia a new trial. They are beyond useless.
If all you are planning to do is fly to DC for the day, rant, and fly home, don’t bother. It’s a huge waste of resources the left does not have.
I think we can beat Republicats on Guantanamo. The rendition going on through Guantanamo is an ongoing war crime. They don’t have a single talking point they can use to justify it’s staying open. If we decide were staying in DC until Guantanamo is closed, we can win that fight.
I’m not going to take part in another fly to DC, complain for s few hours, then fly home action. Call me when your are all willing to go to DC and stay until change happens.
I sure do wish WikiLeaks or Anonymous could get or dig out some of the internal polling of the RNC, DNC, and Obama Committee to Re-Elect the President.
I’d love to know how they think BO will be reelected, by what combination of money, bamboozling, outright lies and promises which will be broken. Who do they think they’ll get to buy into his schtick a second time? Are there that many people who believe he’s done the best he can given all the terrible hurdles no human could have overcome?
(Yeah, I realize they call it something else, but I get this creepy feeling that they’re just as ruthless as Nixon’s crew and, actually, that Nixon was more to the left than Obama is.)
“…to have to ask whether democracy is a mirage in the United States.”
The tragedy is that we have to ask the question at all. And it’s tragic to have to ask why the mainstream corporate media cranks out product 24/7 yet manages to ignore the very big problems our democracy faces. The problems are stark, but like global climate change, the establishment guardians just don’t want to go there. And so they don’t. Hard questions would make them work, and they prefer to keep it light, fun and unthreatening. Reality is messy, they prefer tidy. Have a nice day.
The United States is not, never has been and never will be a democracy.
The correct term is Oligarchy.
When corporations control the government of a country, that nation is ,by definition, a fascist state. Fascism and Democracy are incompatible. Sorry Kevin, but you must have missed the “Inc.” after the comma following USA, otherwise you wouldn’t have felt the need to ask this question.
Do you really think October 2011.org is a new concept or will be any more successful than past similar efforts? We need demonstrations in every community across the nation. You cannot expect anyone but the young to drop everything and head to Washington. We need demonstrations everywhere. Let’s talk about how we might make that happen.
Glad you mentioned October 6th. Of all the projects I am working on October2011.org is the most important. It brings all the issues together recognizing the common enemy of the power of concentrated corporate power. The goal is to end militarism and corporatism. People need to join us in building this. Visit http://www.October2011.org and sign up then urge everyone you know to join us. And, let them know over and over. Our blog is very active at http://www.October2011.org so there are constant materials to send to urge people to join us. We need your help — we need your leadership — to make this a success.
No the correct term is Kleptocracy.
Don’t forget the lack of proportional representation in our system. Winner-take-all elections mean fewer choices for us and fewer choices mean that our lords and masters can buy the allegiance of both.
-stewartm
Are you kidding me ?
Your original reply to me was nothing more than another self erected stone wall… to the beginnings of solutions to the problem of our corrupt governemt. Rather than embrace solutions you put up more baracades… and self proclaimed failure.
Progressives have blindly followed the Democratic party like a bunch of puppies.
The progressive community has no one but themselves to blame.
They showed themselves to be without the courage to stand up for what they claim to believe in… and they still dont have the courage… so they are treated with contempt by everyone with power and authority.
No one respects people without courage.
Has anyone here nominated someone to run against Obama? Has anyone here said… lets march to Bernie Sanders home and beg and plead with him to run for president? Has anyone suggestsed we flood Bernie Sanders with email requests to run for president? Has anyone here said ‘all of us” need to stop supporting Obama and the Democrats… and take them on because they are as much our enemy as the Republicans.
NO Instead what we get is more whining and complaining and self proclaimed failure. We get nonstop mamby pamby analysis of the problem… as if we dont know what the problem is. And we get a continuation of the problem because there is no courage to confont it… and when someone dares of offer the beginnings of solutions it is reacted to with negativity.
STOP BEING HELPLESS.
> Is the United States a representative democracy
> or a mirage democracy?
Obviously, it’s a mirage of an illusion of a hallucination of an illusion of two mirages.
There is a relatively easy way to graph the problem with the two-party system.
Start with one circle in the center and then draw two circles that cross into the main circle which would be capitalism and then make sure the two circles branching off the main circle also inter-connect then you can start drawing your smaller circles relating to our problems— you end up with one heck of a “web” intended to entrap people.
I agree, greenbell— I doubt if any oligarchy could be “superior;” but I hesitate to say this because every time we think we have seen the worst something else worse happens. Apparently there is no end to how powerful and evil the system gets— until the people decide it’s time for real change.
When Americans saw the torture pictures and didn’t immediately take to the streets, they proved themselves to be completely lacking in political virtue and quite arguably deserving of the full on ass raping that they will receive by their demented and satanic elites.
Despite the gaming of their government and their media and their blogosphere (the delusions of neoprogressivism notwithstanding–the tone does become shrill when explicit debate is made impossible and the real debate becomes implicit), they were presented with ample evidence that America was seriously fucked and they chose to look the other way.
There are no second acts in American life.
The plan will no doubt be to put up a Republican who is both completely insane and who has skeletons in the closet. Just as they prop up the USD by making the EUR look bad, so they will prop up BO by making the Rep look bad.
Republic was invented by Plato because the Greek “democrats” forced Socrates to suicide because he wouldn’t retract a public statement he had made:” Not all positions in government should be elected,some should be appointed because they require special skills which cannot necessarily be obtained in a general election.”
Plato did a historic freak-out because his teacher,mentor and lover had been killed by what passed for “democrats” in ancient Greece and created a system which was the antithesis of democracy. Everything a “republic” is; a democracy is not! And vice-versa.
A democracy is run by the majority of voters while a republic is run by wealthy elites.
America is supposed to be a democratic republic, which is an oxymoron and a practical impossibility. One can have a democracy or a republic but not both at the same time.
America is a republic with a lot of elections which creates a political “churn” characterized by shorter and shorter periods of political stability and a general atmosphere of constant political stalemate and constant election fever which makes democratic government so short sighted it becomes completely ineffective. Into this political/regulatory vacuum corporations and financial institutions rush to take control and extract more and more money.
The only time they know they have sucked up all the wealth they can is when there are only two classes of people – rich and poor!
Who is advantaged by political stalemate, the rich or the poor? The rich of course! If nothing changes then those who are making money fist over paw, the wealthy rich and their corporate faces, will just continue to expand and deepen their advantage by further hobbling any chance of real and effective democratic government which could reform and limit the ability of wealthy elites to control everything and reduce the vast majority to continuous poverty.
Morality has three positions: moral, which means one knows what it is and does it: immoral, which means one knows what it is and doesn’t do it; and amoral which means one never considers morality in the first place.
Morality is made up of the total of human and social values – not one of which can be described in terms of dollars.
Therefore there can be no better operating definition of amoral than one for whom dollars are the only or the final and deciding value considered before action and decision. This means that all corporations are amoral, banks are amoral, and the wealthy elites who control corporations are amoral.
Government on the other hand in a democracy is elected by the majority to represent their human and social values and therefore has the ability to be moral and also has the ability to force corporations and amoral wealthy elites to be moral. This is exactly why wealthy elites, corporations, and their political representatives hate government and use their lackey media to trash democratic government at the same time as they are spending billions yearly to “buy” or corrupt democratic government. These are people who wouldn’t spend a penny unless there was a dollar in it for them! The fact they spend billions a year to destroy democratic government is complete testament to the fact that democratic government is effective in forcing them to be moral.
This group couldn’t be moral if they wanted to because decisions made in terms of dollars can never be moral.
America is not now and was never intended to be a democracy. It is a republic controlled by wealthy elites.
Capitalism is where the individual takes the risk and gets the rewards. Socialism is where the government takes the risks and gets the rewards. Fascism is where the government takes the risks and the individual gets the rewards.
You tell me which one represents America!
America in every way appears to be a fascist republic.
That I do agree with: where is the upside in all this kvetching? All people around here want to do is tell me everything sucks. So what? If there is no meaningful way to do something I don’t want to hear it.
Yes, but they don’t have to lie from start to finish.
We are not a “democracy”. We are a Constitutional Representative Republic. Demcracies don’t work and tere are no true ones.
Unfortunately we have come to the time where we have past from a Fascist government of George W. Bush to an Olicharchy, run by corporations, other countries, Wall Street and the rich.
Obama is a Republican, willing to cut Medicare and “close some loop-holes for the rich!” Notice he is not saying end the Bush tax-cuts for the rich, who own most of America now. Obama is a Republican paid off by big oil and Goldman Sachs. He needs a challenger like our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
As Washington said in his farewell address in 1796:
“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”