by Glenn Parton
Glenn Parton is a member of the Shasta County Central Committee for Redding, CA. This article was previously printed in the NorthCal Democrat Newspaper. His article "Love Politics" was recently featured in an article by Dave Pollard at How to Save the World.
America is polarized between those who would like to move forward in health care, education, environmental protection, wages, jobs, etc. and those who are not ready or willing to do so. In this tug of war between Democrats and Republicans, Democrats have an uphill battle because we want change, while Republicans want to "stay the course" that is pulling downward.
The present socio-ecological crisis, entailing the progressive poisoning of all our food, is already so serious that if Bush remains in power for 4 more years, then the future is risked. No one knows for sure when this unhealthy and unsustainable way of life will end, perhaps in one or two generations, perhaps sooner, but one thing is certain: Republicans are accelerating the pace of world-disaster, while Democrats will slow it down, control the galloping pace of unbridled capitalism, not let corporations-for-profit run wild toward the precipice.
The 2004 Election is a fork in the path of history, with nothing less than the fate of the living planet at stake. The high road of the Democratic message is that it is necessary, desirable, and possible for elected representatives to rise above short-term selfish interests and govern for the good of the entire country (and the world to a significant degree). This idealistic message contrasts sharply with the cynicism and fatalism of Republicans who basically do not like politicians and politics because they have a low opinion of human nature (the explanation for which goes beyond the scope of this letter) and do not trust anyone to make judgments and decisions that benefit everyone. The Republican answer that each person should maximize his or her own private interests and (somehow?) the general good will result is the height of social irresponsibility that appeals to the egoistic side of human beings.
The Republican Party has become a gathering place for the greedy, stupid and ignorant. It has a three-fold structure: a small leadership that sets and steers the agenda; a core or base constituency (around 40 percent) who are stupid in the sense that they do not recognize the truth when they see it or hear it, no matter how many times they see it or hear it; a remaining membership who are ignorant in the sense that they are "capable of learning" the truth, and so are possible swing or switch voters. The difference between the stupid and the ignorant is that the stupid are inaccessible to reason because their minds are closed more than anything else by religious dogma, while the ignorant can still be educated, but tend over time through association with staunch Republicans to become infected with the sickness of the politics of selfishness and resentment. The ideologues at the top will keep on preaching and spreading the free-market gospel around the globe, which no amount of facts or evidence to the contrary will alter, and little is to be expected from a mass of followers for whom politics is a religion based on fear, not reason.
There is no other credible explanation, except stupidity and ignorance, for why tens of millions of people vote Republican. The statistics are that 5 percent of Americans possess 50 percent of the wealth, while another 15 percent have an additional 30 percent of the wealth, which leaves 80 percent of the people struggling and scratching for the remaining 20 percent of the wealth. This disparity of wealth in America is obscene, and it is the direct result of a Republican-led deregulated market economy that is owned and operated by big companies. Democrats want the wealthiest people to pay more taxes toward a fair and equitable society with a higher quality of life for the vast majority, but far too many Americans have been duped by the big lie that Washington politicians are the problem or that the federal government is the enemy, and these people do not concern themselves with the difference between good and bad government because, for them, all politicians are the same and all government is evil.
The notion that government is the problem goes back to the origin of our country, which was established by overthrowing a ruling elite, and the mistrust and hostility toward government has been with us ever since. The underlying premise of the U.S. Constitution is that government is best that governs least. However, two hundred years ago America was predominately an agrarian economy of small property owners. The accumulation of wealth in private hands was not great enough to be perceived as the major threat to the freedom, justice and happiness of the People. It was not until the Industrial Revolution during the second half of the 19th century that the rise of corporations overwhelmed the public sphere and trumped the common good.
Theodore Roosevelt, the last good Republican, was among the first to realize that the Republican Party was now captive to big business, so he resigned from the Party in 1912. His cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a Democrat and the first president (after 3 Republican do-nothing presidents in a row--Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover--caused the Great Depression) to use the force of the federal government to solve social problems having to do with a bad distribution of wealth. In doing so he was going back to the roots of Western civilization--before the political theory of John Locke, Adam Smith and our beloved Thomas Jefferson to that of Plato and Aristotle. These ancient Greek founding fathers did not favor limited government, but rather they saw government, comprised of the best and brightest citizens, as the leading edge of social progress. John Kerry belongs to this tradition, while George W. Bush represents the corporate ruling elite, especially the money-hawks of Texas.
There should be no reluctance of the part of the Democratic Party to explicitly, boldly, and proudly put forth the idea that government (on the local, regional and especially the federal level) must play an active role in securing the quality of life for all Americans, including the creation and protection of a decent job for everyone who wants one, as was intended by the New Deal and the WPA. The shadow of Ronald Reagan, who won on the ideological platform of "getting government off the backs of the people," should not make us timid on this point. A Democratic campaign for a strong activist government (for regulating big business and enforcing public goods) separates the two parties in a way that the Republican Party and the media will not or cannot blur.
We should have learned from the 2000 Election that those who have the best ideas do not always win (power). Fighting for better health care, education, environmental quality, retirement benefits, minimum wage, job security, as Al Gore did 4 years ago, may not be enough again because the Republicans will repeat as many times as money can buy that they are also for these things, only adding that the best way to achieve them is through privatization. Democrats have a different and workable solution: we want to lift the State above the present situation in which it is mixed up with economic special interests, and make it serve all the people. This is not socialism that calls for public ownership of railroads, airlines, utilities, etc. but rather the control and regulation of big business for the welfare of society as a whole.
In short, Republicans want to support/subsidize and facilitate corporations (and toward this end the super-ideologue, Ronald Reagan, created the largest federal bureaucracy in American history, now surpassed by his disciple George W. Bush), while Democrats want to control and regulate these impersonal mega-entities. This is the fundamental divide between the two parties that we must clearly open up for the American public in order to win this fall.
Given the imminent danger of the Republican Party it is incumbent on all intelligent people to unite under the Democrat banner, at least for the next 6 months. The strategy of defeating the Bush Administration, which is the biggest obstacle to the realization of all our goals, is more important than the principles that divide us. Deep thinkers, like Ralph Nader and the Greens, need to understand that unless we remove Republicans from power there will not be enough time to build a long-range movement for fundamental lifestyle changes in this country, which the most aware people understand must happen or else! At this historical moment there is no force in America with a realistic chance to post-pone world-disaster, perhaps long enough to avert it, except the Democratic Party.
There has already been an influx of excellent thinkers into the Democratic Party--Michael Moore, for example, but more progressive persons and organizations for the environment, justice, peace, etc. need to get involved in the Democratic Party right now. The media wants the upcoming election to be a sporting event, a horse race, a cliff hanger (in which Republicans win by a nose, a photo-finish, an electronic vote?) but if enough thoughtful and caring people speak with one voice in November, including those who usually don’t vote, then it will not be a close race this time, just as it should not have been a close race last time.
George W. Bush has no plan or strategy for solving major problems facing this country--the War in Iraq, outsourcing, environmental degradation, the deficit, rising energy prices--except a well-funded advertisement campaign, a personal cheerleading routine for the economy in which "prosperity is right around the corner" (to borrow a phrase from Herbert Hoover), a smoke and mirrors magic show in which important issues disappear from the table and perhaps Osama bin Laden is pulled out of a hole, and the scare tactics of terrorism and taxes. However, Democrats can never rest on our laurels, regardless of what the polls say, because the Party of Dirty Tricks, Crooks and Liars is looking for another way to steal the power of the presidency.
-- Glenn Parton may be contacted via email at Rain51@hotmail.com
9:19:06 PM  | |
|
|
