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The joyous voices now being raised in Cairo were right all along: they do speak for the Egyptian people, at least the vast majority. It is a voice that took a very long time to be heard. It spoke with authority, resolution and determination and, in the end, Mubarak was the one who had to cave.
Where does this voice come from? Where, in America, is our own voice of the people and what, in the future, will that voice demand?
Our politicians, cheap and otherwise, claim to speak for “the American people”. The Republicans probably use it more than any other phrase. The American people want us to do this, the American people want us to do that....and on and on. How do they know? In truth, they translate whatever election results they get into what they want to believe. The American people, according to the Republicans, didn’t want Obama to do anything when he and the Dems won a huge victory in 2008, but, in 2010, they instructed the Republicans, by taking the House, to reverse everything Obama was doing to that point.
Here is the simple fact: we have a democracy, but it is a limited democracy (by current capabilities) and one where the “voice of the people” is largely left out of the picture. This is no accident. It was intentional by a large faction of the founding fathers who wrote our Constitution and remains largely unchanged to this date. Most of the founders were at least a little uncomfortable with the whole idea of democracy, but they were more uncomfortable with a monarchy ruled by a king. By negotiation and compromise, they edged the young nation toward democracy, but they also intentionally limited it in scope.
In truth, the voice of the people means very little, except on election day. To counter that, we have vast forces arrayed to turn the elections away from popular needs toward the desires of the few. The idea is to drown out the voice of the people by convincing vast numbers of voters that they must take a different course and, in some cases, actually vote against their own self interest. This is not new. Voters have a tendency to vote for a ruling elite anyway. It falls under the name “deference”. The lower economic classes tend to defer to the upper classes and allow them to have the joys and sorrows of actually running a government.
Voters have no official status in our government system, except perhaps as a mob in the street. Because we believe that our democracy is sound, the voices of individuals and even large groups are largely discounted in our national life. We, the voters, don’t really count. The media treats elected officials as the beginning and end of all wisdom, with a few professors and experts thrown into the mix occasionally. Citizens are treated as a source of quick sound bites and lately the television networks don’t even say who the person is (the sound clips go by too fast for that).
What does the ruling class have to say to us? In the words of Justice Athony Scalia of the Supreme Court, “Get over it”. Here is what you are to do, citizen: pay your taxes, go to work and be quiet. Shut up. Nixon long ago called us “the silent majority” which was a phrase that came into use during the Civil War. Nixon actually wanted the public to be quiet, so he tried to turn it into a compliment.
When election day comes, you will have your one small voice crying in the wilderness while the corporations, the wealthy and the well connected pull the strings. That’s the deal. If you don’t like it, what are you to do? How is the “consent of the governed” given? By passivity? Apparently.
Various states have tried to include a greater role for the public in democracy. California has its proposition system and it is a general disaster. It is used by big corporations mainly to get what they couldn’t get by other means. To be certain, we don’t want a mess of that nature in our national future, one that has helped cause California to be thrust again and again into crisis.
One of the basic problems with “people power” is that people, voters, don’t have to face the facts when they are wrong or when they make a huge mistake. If a whole state makes a mistake, like electing wildman Jesse Ventura governor of Minnesota years ago, then whom do you blame? In that rather rare case, it is possible that many voters did look themselves in the mirror and say, “Well, I’ll never do that again”. Otherwise, voters let themselves off without any blame when what they choose goes wrong. That’s the problem.
When politicians make a mistake, we are ready. It is easy to see where they went wrong and turn them out, fast. If we make a mistake, we are less likely to admit it. That’s just human nature.
We need a better way for the voice of the American people to be heard. Polls are not the answer. They are flawed and only reflect what was asked, in a specific way, on a particular day. The polls do not “instruct” the Congress or the president as to what to do.
I believe we are nearing a point when the American people will take matters into their own hands and make certain their voices are heard. The Tea Party groups are something, in the essence, resembling a faux revolution. In some respects, the tea party effort is fake from top to bottom. In their hearts, many involved with the Tea Party associations believe they are acting as revolutionaries or true conservatives, but, in fact, these groups came about because of huge funding by rich contributors intent on stopping Obama from conducting the business of government. However, the Tea Party groups are a valid symbol of the frustration and disappointment many people, throughout the political spectrum, feel about the nature of our government and our rancid political campaigns.
Our country is becoming impossible to govern, in part because an angry minority within the Republican party and the right has decided to make government fail. That is the best way they believe they can prove that the Federal government won’t work, but insuring its failure. This in combination with huge contributions against democracy by the rich and the entrance, thanks to the Supreme Court, of corporations as active participants in elections (as opposed to behind the scenes) all add up to something new and very troubling in American history. Big business has long been at war with democracy. Now, it is an active participant on the field of battle at election time.
Unless we move our democracy forward and create the opportunity and specific means for the voices of citizens to be heard, we are headed for failure. Each stage of our national development requires specific actions. We can’t just sit around and quote Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin or Thomas Paine and think we’ve done our jobs. Our democracy is under assault from many forces and we need to increase its scope to allow for its survival and for wider participation by the public. This is part of the lesson that I draw from Egypt’s revolution.
Doug Terry, 2.11.11
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