|
Of
Boycotts and Elections
By
Charles Sullivan
11/19/07 "ICH
"
-- -- One hopes that at some point the American people will
come to the realization that most elected officials these days
do not serve the public interest, but their own economic self
interests and those of their financial backers. The few who
would serve the public interest are filtered out by the
insurmountable fortress of capital that is the bulwark of
electoral politics, especially at the federal level. Genuine
public servants have roughly the same chance of winning a seat
in Congress or the Whitehouse, as one has of winning the
lottery.
For the totally uninitiated, or those on narcotics: the odds are
astronomical.
It requires unfathomable sums of money to even play the game,
and that, in and of itself, precludes the majority of us from
meaningful participation. It filters ordinary people possessed
of ordinary means from serious contention. Ordinary people
overwhelmingly comprise the national demographic, and yet they
are wholly without representation in government at virtually
every level. Without substantial financial backing, you can play
but you cannot win. You are relegated to the outer fringes of
the system, a distant planet circling a distant sun in a distant
orb.
A game in which only the wealthy can afford to play assures that
only the wealthy will win. The result is that we have a system
of electing politicians to serve a very tiny segment of the
population—less than one percent, while simultaneously working
against the great majority and, accordingly, the public welfare.
In the rarified lexicon of corporate run politics—profits
matter, people don’t; no matter the self righteous proclamations
to the contrary. The wonder is that so many people continue to
invest so much of their precious time and energy in a system
that has so obviously and completely abandoned them.
Perhaps abandon is not the appropriate word. Betray might
be a better choice. Electoral politics in the US is the realm of
high rollers and robber barons, not of ordinary people from
working class backgrounds struggling for a piece of the much
ballyhooed ‘American Dream.’ That system has utterly betrayed
them, leaving them out in the cold to fend for themselves as
best they can, against the very crooks and thieves who are
mortgaging their future to the Corporate States of
America.
The people’s plight is akin to playing the lottery and hitting
the jackpot against enormous odds. It is a game of desperation
in which defeat and loss are the predictable outcomes for all
but a few. The money system wins, we the people lose; and we
look like fools and chumps for having played the game against
such tremendous odds. But, as Thoreau said so well, “It is a
characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”
Collectively, we have yet to show much wisdom. We just keep
doing what we have always done and keep getting the same sorry
results, and wonder why things never improve.
When the choice is between Hillary Clinton, Rudi Giuliani, John
McCain, Mitt Romney, John Edwards and Barach Obama, there is no
meaningful choice. The difference between these candidates is
primarily a matter of semantics. In each case you are getting
essentially the same person representing the same economic self
interests, the same policies. All of them are pro war.
Contenders are in contention because they are the recipients of
serious corporate money, not because they are champions of the
people or servants of the public welfare.
Ron Paul is not the answer either, as so many so desperately
want to believe. Like his neoconservative brethren, Dr. Paul
seeks to shrink the public domain and privatize
everything—including all public lands. Economic self interest is
the centerpiece of Paul’s political ideology and that not only
does not serve the public interest, it undermines it. Dr. Paul
is as much a product of Milton Friedman’s economics as any
neocon and equally dangerous.
We have an electoral system that always chooses between two
evils, what Ralph Nader calls, “The evil of two lessers.” But
choosing the lesser evils assures that evil rules and, as we
have seen, the evil is deepening with each successive election.
To my mind, Dennis Kucinich is better suited to represent the
people than any of the other candidates in the field. However,
the democratic leadership will never permit Kucinich to win the
party nomination because he would undermine their authority and
threaten the established orthodoxy that controls the system.
Genuinely progressive candidates are cynically used by the party
leadership to create the appearance that the party still has an
effective liberal wing when, in fact, it does not. The
progressive wing of the party exists but it has been
marginalized through lack of media exposure, lack of financial
backing, and through the lack of support of the party
leadership.
Candidates with the qualifications of Dennis Kucinich only serve
to retain the party loyalty of progressives. It keeps
progressives playing the game while also preventing them from
doing anything meaningful or revolutionary.
We saw what happened to Howard Dean a few years ago; and Dean
was a very moderate liberal, at best only slightly left of
center. Progressives will not be allowed to compete.
More people already choose not to participate in electoral
politics than those who vote. It is not difficult to understand
why: because they see elections as the sham they are, riddled
with corruption and illegitimate to the core. The people
intuitively know when they have been disenfranchised. They know
that elections are about profiteering, not about public service
or the collective good.
It must also be noted that the previous two presidential
elections were stolen by George Bush and his cohorts. There are
serious concerns about the efficacy of paperless electronic
voting machines, like those manufactured by Diebold with its
close ties to the Republican Party and neo-conservatism. A
system in which foxes are the guardians of the hen house is not
in the people’s interest; nor is it in the interest of justice.
As US citizens, we should have enough integrity that we do not
allow the public wealth to be stolen with our blessings. We
should denounce the process that unabashedly transfers the
public domain into the private sector as the outright theft that
it is. We should not pretend that it is the pubic interest or
that it is a democratic process because we voted for it. It is
self-interested greed and nothing more.
I could not blame any sane person for not voting, for
non-participation in a process that is so obviously fixed. We
need to devise better and more imaginative strategies through
which to express our dissatisfaction, our outrage with the
process. A good beginning might be to wash our hands of that
system entirely.
Clearly, the solution is to get the special interest money out
of politics. But how can the people achieve such an ambitious
objective against such tremendous odds? Those who benefit from
the system effectively own it, and they are not going to
voluntarily dismantle it. It is too lucrative for them to let it
go and erect a genuinely democratic system in its place.
Participation in a sham system, while pretending that it is
legitimate, will only prolong the prostitution and continue the
corporate feeding frenzy at the public trough. We must do
something different than what we have always done in the past,
if we are to get a different result.
One method of undermining the system may be to boycott the 2008
elections by not participating in them. Since the outcome is
already predetermined by the selection of only pro corporate
candidates—war mongers and disaster capitalists all, there is
really nothing to lose. The system is rigged to keep the war
profiteers and corporatists in power, by keeping genuine public
servants out of contention. The appearance of democracy and
citizen participation is just window dressing, more facade than
real.
As democracy craving citizens in an ever more dangerous emerging
fascist state, our energy would be better spent denouncing the
electoral process that only masquerades as a democracy than
participating in it and giving it the appearance of legitimacy
to the outside world. We have an obligation to expose it for the
sham it is and say, “No more!”
This might be accomplished by boycotting all federal elections
until the special interest money is coerced out of the process,
and the playing field is leveled; where outcomes are determined
by ideas and commitment to public service, rather than access to
huge amounts of capital and cronyism.
Perhaps then Dennis Kucinich or Ralph Nader might have a
legitimate chance to win office, or even your next door
neighbor. Public service could be put into the political process
thereby legitimizing it by making it democratic.
Electoral boycotts could be conducted by large numbers of public
spirited citizens turning out not to vote, but instead to
protest, which if widely publicized would be too large and too
controversial to be ignored even by the corporate
media—democracy in action indeed. We really have nothing to
lose.
As it is now, government is nothing more than a revolving door
between political administrations and business. Corporate
lobbyists are running the government rather than the people.
Voting is one of the sacred cows that symbolize a democratic
republic but it does nothing to actually create such a republic,
especially in the absence of meaningful choice.
The strategy of boycotts is low risk to the individual and it is
legal. It requires very little physical effort and little
personal sacrifice. Everyone can participate, regardless of
political knowledge, income level, age and party affiliation. It
could potentially become a grass roots movement toward real
democracy and it could begin immediately. If conducted on a
large enough scale, it could provide real results too.
The idea of political boycotts does not originate with me but I
believe the initiative has merit. Perhaps we should give it the
serious consideration it deserves. How such boycotts might be
organized will be left in more capable hands than my own. The
first step is to widely publicize the idea and to generate
serious discussion about it. Let the dialog begin.
A Note about Reform
and Revolution:
Ultimately what we are talking about here is not reform but
revolution. Voting in the absence of meaningful choice is a poor
substitute for real democratic processes. It is an exercise in
self-deception and futility designed to keep the working class
people servile and marginalized.
Electoral boycotts are one of many tools available to us as we
plant the seeds of revolution and create the atmosphere for a
major paradigm shift sometime in the future. Boycotts are a
peaceful way of hastening the change that will eventually make a
more just society possible; a world in which just people, not
wealth and privilege, decides the future.
The political system should belong equally to every citizen,
rather than to the moneyed gentry that have locked most of us
out. No one is going to give us the keys. We must take them
because they rightfully belong to us.
Revolution is possible only with a broad awakening to our
predicament in a sham democracy that is subservient to immense
wealth and power. Awakening must be followed by enlightenment
through self-education and comprehension of the problems we face
as a people. It will grow by having serious discussions amongst
ourselves and by putting everything on the table.
Revolution is a word that scares some people because it conjures
images of armed rebellion and chaotic violence. But it does not
have to be so. India was
transformed by non-violent resistance to horrible tyranny. The
people and their detractors will decide what form it will take.
Revolutions do not just suddenly erupt. They are grown slowly
and over increments of time, beginning from seeds that are
carefully sown and nurtured. Sowing seeds are an act of faith;
an expression of hope that there will be a future worth living.
Revolution should only frighten those who hold the keys to
empire. We are only at the very beginning of a long journey of
transformation. We are laying the foundation stones of
fundamental change and redistribution of wealth and power that
must be based upon justice and equality.
Charles Sullivan is a nature photographer, free-lance writer,
and community activist residing in the Ridge and
Valley Province of geopolitical West Virginia. He
welcomes your comments at
csullivan@phreego.com.
Click on "comments" below to read or post comments
Comment Guidelines
Be succinct, constructive and
relevant to the story.
We encourage engaging, diverse
and meaningful commentary. Do not include
personal information such as names, addresses,
phone numbers and emails. Comments falling
outside our guidelines – those including
personal attacks and profanity – are not
permitted.
See our complete
Comment Policy
and
use this link to notify us if you have concerns
about a comment.
We’ll promptly review and remove any
inappropriate postings.
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
