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BS ‘n’ About…
Bi-Polar Politics
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The two party system doesn’t work anymore. As Big Money and Big Media replace ward bosses and patronage as the powerbrokers of Democracy, there is no longer a pipeline from the people to those who represent us in Washington. It takes a lot of money and media time to stay inside the Beltway these days. You find those things on Wall Street and Madison Avenue, not out here in my neighborhood. And despite all their fancy posturing, politicians always have, and always will, represent those who get them elected. These days that is Big Money and Big Media. Where does that leave us? What does that say about them?
This dependence on Big Money and media threatens the very vision of America as handed down to us by our Founding Fathers. We were once a nation of patriot-farmers, fiercely protective of our rights, ever vigilant toward our leaders, exercising our duties as citizens of an Athenian-idealized democracy. These days we occupy seats in the Coliseum, bought off by spectacle, given the Roman choice of thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
We need more choices than that if we are to remain a free people. Most of the great democracies in history have dissolved into empire as fortunes were amassed, power bases built, and ambitions realized. Times got tough and the citizenry voted away its rights, shirked its responsibilities, and lined up behind demagogues and ideologies that history shows weren’t in their best interests.
The American people are in danger of losing the Voice their ancestors came here to find. We have been relegated to ‘the masses’, ‘the lumpenproletariat’, ‘the great unwashed’, pacified with bread and circuses, spun doctored come election time. The billions of dollars worth of polling gurus, damage control experts, spin-doctors, and Madison Avenue types being used to manipulate us and our vote would make Joe Goebbels drool. Call it what you will, it is the best-funded, most powerful propaganda machine in the history of mankind. And when the truth needs to be doctored that much to make it palatable to the electorate, can it still be ‘the truth’?
The two party system doesn’t work anymore. It certainly doesn’t reflect the will of a nation as diverse as ours. Thumbs up or thumbs down. Black or white. A bunch of rich, old white guys in suits doing a lot more talking than listening. A bunch of rich old white guys in suits owing a lot more allegiance to Wall Street than to Main Street. When a government represents an agenda instead of a people, it is no longer a democracy.
When virtually every congressional vote is split along Party lines, it means that Westchester old money districts are voting the same slate as poor, African-American Mississippi ones. It means that liberal Beverly Hills districts are voting the same slate as out-of-work, unionized, Detroit ones. The result sounds a whole lot like ‘Taxation without Representation’. The result sounds a whole lot like the kind of thing that pissed off our Founding Fathers in the first place.
The freedom of a people can be gauged by the number of their voices being heard. No citizenry ever wants to go to war if there is any viable alternative. No citizenry ever wants to lose rights it has already fought to win. No citizenry ever wants to pay more and get less in return. No citizenry ever wants to shortchange education, healthcare, and social security. Obviously there are a lot of voices not being heard in America these days.
America has never had so few choices, so few voices. Our Founding Fathers may have had a fairly narrow view of what constituted a citizen, but they gave those citizens a Constitution that gave them a voice. These days we seem to have only two voices and they both sound like rich, old white guys in suits who went to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, and hold the same stock portfolios. Theirs is the voice the rest of the world hears when America speaks. Theirs is the visage the rest of the world sees when America roars. But theirs isn’t a voice which truly reflects our democratic principles, nor the will, spirit, and diversity of the American people.
Unless we are to follow the rest of the great democracies into the dustbin of history, We, the People need to find our Voice again. America has the resources and technology to educate us enough to be a part of the process. Political parties ought to be done away with and the Internet used somehow to force politicians to actually represent their constituencies again. As tax paying citizens and partners in this great democracy we share, we deserve the respect of being presented the issues in a fair, responsible manner. Then get out of our way while we fulfill our patriotic duty and decide the future of our nation. That’s democracy. What we have in America today sure as hell isn’t. Not even close.
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