Subject: Election 2000 A Space Odyssey
From: Andrew Hund (ajh9@humboldt.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 21 2000 - 02:57:32 CST
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ELECTION 2000: A SPACE ODYSSEY
By Jim Hightower
The quadrennial presidential horserace is on, and the media establishment
has unleashed its multimillion-dollar army of pundits, pollsters, powdered
anchors, analysts, chart makers, gossips, make-up artists, set designers and
others to drum up the drama, telling us peasants over and over again how
exciting, how momentous, how democratic it all is.
This is choice? Which one of them is going to stand up for your family
against the whims of the polluters, the downsizers, the tax loopholers, the
corporate welfare bums, the HMOs, the media conglomerates, and all the rest
of the establishment, which is flanked by an elite corps of $500-an-hour
Gucci-clad lobbyists and armed with enough campaign cash to build an
impenetrable wall around Washington?
Even before anyone casts a ballot, IT'S ALREADY OVER! No matter which of the
Republicrat Egos finally ends up in the big chair in the Oval Office, the
policies of our government will not change on the kitchen-table issues that
most affect Americans. Already decided is the crucial question of who
government will serve, assuring a continuation of the status quo on
middle-class income loss, global trade scams, weak-kneed environmental
gradualism, mega-mergers, biotech insanity, campaign finance corruption,
etcetera.
This is because the real election was held last year in various corporate
suites and in the Martha Stewart-designed living rooms of the rich, where
0.05 percent of "the people" voted. These are the CEOs, lobbyists, and
investors who bankrolled BushGoreBradleyMcCain and any other wannabe with
even a faint chance of winning the Republican or Democratic primaries. These
privileged few vetted the prospective candidates, making certain that each
of them can be trusted to govern in the corporate interest. Candidates that
don't pass muster don't get money. Period. The result is that in 1999, the
moneyed interests chose our choices for 2000. For example, Goldman Sachs and
its executives have put thousands and thousands of dollars into Al Gore's
campaign. And into George Bush's. And into John McCain's. And into Bill
Bradley's. No matter who wins, Goldman Sachs has a friend in the White
House-and probably will get at least one of its own executives appointed to
a key administrative position, from which to keep an eye on the company's
political investment.
But Goldman Sachs and the other plutocrats also win because their donations
assure that none of the contenders will be making trouble in the campaign by
taking any nonconformist, nonauthorized positions that could spark a
bothersome debate about the plutocracy itself, inflaming the peasantry's
simmering economic and political resentments. By purchasing candidates
wholesale, they guarantee a campaign that is much ado about nothing, with
the debate restricted to social issues like abortion, hokey issues like who
can downsize government the most (while hypocritically lavishing ever more
wasteful spending on the Pentagon, the antidrug war, and corporate welfare),
local issues like zoning and traffic jams, and nonissues like which
candidates can be the most pious about never ever even thinking about doing
cigar tricks with White House interns.
What a shame that our nation's politics is so corrupted and worthless these
days, that our two-party leadership is such an embarrassment, for America
really could have used an honest pulse-taking in 2000. All hoopla aside, the
turning of a century, much less a millennium, is a significant marker, an
attention-focusing opportunity to have a thorough public conversation-maybe
even a bit of national contemplation-about our people's progress and our
national direction. If our political system was not totally twisted, this
election could have been a time when the parties, the candidates, and the
media all came out to us plebeians, actually listening to the reality of
regular people's situations, debating a plethora of unconventional (i.e.,
noncorporate) ideas, and generally conducting a kind of two-year,
coast-to-coast political Chatauqua-not quite a plebiscite, but at least a
"whaddaya think" consultation on charting America's twenty-first century
course. Instead, 2000 will be like '96, '92-another money-soaked,
corporate-driven, issue-avoiding, made-for-television snoozer, completely
unconnected to real life.
Politics should matter. I know that's a radical thought, perhaps hopelessly
idealistic in this age of carefully calculated political centrism, when the
money backers demand candidates who are inoffensive (especially inoffensive
to money interests), and when the army of consultants that directs every
campaign insists that the way to win is not to lose. So both parties are
scuttling cautiously along the pollster-tested center line like a couple of
sand crabs, going sideways for fear of being perceived as either moving
forward or backward.
There actually was a time when a Democratic presidential nominee was a
species discernibly different from the Republican, when the Democrat was not
skittish about kicking corporate ass, and when the Democratic Party didn't
need a consulting firm to figure out who it was for . . . and who it was
against. This is a party with a heroic history of siding unequivocally with
the common people against the bastards, a party that once even voted by a
four-to-one margin as its national convention to disown any political
candidate within its own ranks "who is the representative of or under
obligation to J. Pierpont Morgan . . . or any other member of the
privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class."
Today, the Democratic Party itself, as well as its top candidates, boast of
being under obligation to Morgan-or, more specifically, to J.P. Morgan Inc.
and Morgan Stanley, the two Wall Street firms spawned by old J. Pierpont.
Democrats go shamelessly and often into these houses of greed, obsequiously
seeking campaign funds in a straight-up exchange for their populist
principles and constituency. So far, Al Gore has bagged $17,000 just from
the two Morgan firms, and the Democratic Party is obligated to the tune of
$75,000.
Now comes Election 2000, a space odyssey so far out that even Stanley
Kubrick would have a hard time imagining it. Fueled by an unprecedented
level of corrupting cash, the political system has disconnected itself from
the body politic. The result is not so much an election process as it is a
burlesque. Last year, as part of the build up for his presidential run,
Bush's handlers arranged a speech from a stage festooned with flags and
ceremonial banners. In a pitch to politically significant Latino voters, one
of the banners proclaimed "Juntos Podemos"-Together We Can. But the Houston
Chronicle reported it as Juntos Pedemos-We Fart Together. For many
Americans, that's a fair summation of what today's political system
delivers.
"I won't vote," Manuel Gonzalez told the New York Times. A superintendent in
the Bronx, Manuel speaks for the multitudes when he says, "Doesn't count
anyway-the politicians do what they like. It's not a people's country. It's
a money country." Tragically for America, Manuel is right. He can vote for
BushGoreBradleyMcCain and nothing in his life will change.
What kind of "election" is it that does not address, much less treat, the
needs and aspirations of the millions and millions of Manuels who, after
all, are America? What kind of democracy is it that can be perfectly
satisfied, even glad, that Manuel won't vote? Indeed, despite there being an
open presidential seat, despite the control of Congress being up for grabs,
despite this being the first election of the third millennium-more Americans
watched the Super Bowl than will show up for November's national balloting.
We're staring at an electoral train wreck in the making, with the likelihood
that fewer than half of the country's voters will be motivated to bother,
and with the live possibility that this year will produce a lower national
turnout than the scintillating Clinton-Dole matchup of '96 (third lowest in
history).
The noted political theorist, Dan Quayle, has commented on the phenomenon of
the disappearing voter: "A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer
people going to the polls". Thank you, Professor Quayle. Unfortunately, he's
not that much more whacked out than the rest of the establishment, which
continues to stiff America's workaday majority economically and politically,
yet blithely thinks there will be no price to pay. But our country's history
is one of rebellion, often explosive, by people who are shut out of the
system. If today's shut-out majority is not to turn ugly, a new politics has
to be forged that opens a broad new channel so these good people have a real
say in the way things are being run and being shaped for the future.
Ordinary folks have to matter again.
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