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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
November
8, 2006
Now Kick Out the Corporate Interests
Voting
in the Absence of Choice
By CHARLES SULLIVAN
Too many Americans harbor the illusion
that we live in a democracy simply because we have the right
to vote. But let us be clear about something: voting matters
only where real choices are allowed. It is universally understood
that special interest money runs the American political system
and thus defines what the choices will be. So we are left to
choose between candidates who are financed by special interest
money, which any fool can see, is no choice at all.
The system is purposely designed
to require enormous expense from its participants. According
to the very mainstream USA Today, the non-partisan Center for
Responsive Politics predicts that $2.6 billion will be spent
on Congressional races this year alone, which thus precludes
any third party candidate, as well as ordinary people, from all
but token participation. It requires big money to win political
office and big money comes from the deep pockets of corporate
America. In effect, special interest money has rendered the political
process as we know it null and void by restricting our choices
to candidates that have been pre-chosen for us by corporate America.
The choice is more illusory
than real. Plutocrats and workers have nothing in common. People
of ordinary means can no longer ascend to the presidency or even
Congress. The composition of both the state and federal governments
are very different from the socio-economic demographics of the
populations they are supposed to represent, and it is no accident.
Regardless where you look the rich are represented and the great
majority is excluded.
So if the Democrats wrest control
of the government from the hands of the Republicans, it will
be because conservative Democrats won some important races, precluding
any progressive mandate from coming into play. On the whole the
nation will remain well to the right of center, and certainly
will not progress toward the left. The bulk of the corporate
money will reverse direction and flow from the Republicans into
the coffers of the Democrats. The corporations will retain control.
One can cast protest votes,
as I often do, for candidates who do not accept special interest
money, but they are rarely, if ever, contenders. It requires
huge sums of money to get media exposure, and to get on state
ballots, yet alone contend for the prize. The system is designed
to preclude challenges to the status quo, which leaves us to
choose between Republicrats fielded by corporate backers.
Corporate money so owns the
political process that voters are left to choose only between
the finer nuances of the capital system, and between degrees
of corruption. Ultimately the choice is between lesser evils,
which speak volumes about the state of decay of American politics.
Good never springs from evil, so we witness the steady moral
decline of a nation mired in corruption and confusion.
There is nothing benign about
corporate financiers who hedge their bets by supporting candidates
of the major parties. Corporate CEOs are not philanthropists
interested in the well being of America. They are motivated by
greed and profits, and when they finance political campaigns,
make no mistake about it; they are renting or buying politicians
who will help them achieve their objectives.
Special interest money is a
malignancy that grows in the bowels of government, and it must
be removed lest it kill the host.
A system in which the high
rollers and fat cats feed upon the bloated corpses of the tax
payers and is accountable to no one should be an affront to all
decent people of every political stripe. Let us see the political
system in America for what it is, and for the cruel hoax that
it has always been.
The corporate financing of
political campaigns is, in fact, a capital investment in the
status quo that benefits the wealthy and marginalizes those with
neither wealth nor property. That explains why substantive change
is rarely accomplished through the vote in America. It also explains
the remarkable consistency and homogeneity of governmental policy
through the decades; domestic and foreign, regardless of which
party is in power.
Those policies have consistently
accrued wealth and influence to the rich by exploiting the working
class, and with disastrous results for the world. It has resulted
in war after war, occupation after occupation; and the systematic
overthrow of democracies everywhere.
The corporations and their
puppets in government are realizing enormous profits from the
system, and they will not allow significant or radical change
from within the existing order. The system cannot and will not
be reformed; the money changers will not allow it.
Now the great majority of the
population is disenfranchised and left out of the equation. Only
those with wealth are allowed to play. Money talks and those
who do not have an abundance of wealth are without voice in a
political system awash in cash and corruption.
If working class people were
running the government, rather than wealthy Plutocrats, we would
not be in the current predicament that threatens to engulf us,
and we would have avoided many of the pitfalls that have trapped
us in the past. We would never have experienced a Viet Nam War,
there would have been no invasion and occupation of Iraq; and
we would have socialized health care and decent schools like
other industrialized nations, rather than tax cuts for the rich
and massive corporate welfare.
There is a huge difference
between a government of the people and corporate 'for profit'
governance. America would be a much better place without corporate
rule, and unquestionably the world would be better off and much
safer.
I am not sure what the solution
is to the dilemma we have created for ourselves through detachment,
indifference and apathy. I do know, however, that doing the same
thing over and over will assure a similar result to what we have
gotten in the past. At some point we must acknowledge the illegitimacy
of the political process, and see it for the prostitution and
the sham that it is. It is incapable of producing just results
or the change we need in order to become a Democracy.
There are no easy ways out
of the morass we have created. It may be that another tea party
similar to the one enacted at Boston Harbor over two hundred
years ago is the only cure for what ails us. I survive on the
hope that eventually enough good people will arrive at a similar
conclusion, and that we will effect change directly in the streets
of America. That is what I would call participatory Democracy,
and it would be a thing of beauty to behold.
Charles Sullivan is a photographer, free lance writer
and social activist living in West Virginia. He welcomes your
comments at csullivan@phreego.com.
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