The Freedom to Participate in Power

Let Them In

by RALPH NADER

 

From New York City to Oakland, and several cities in between, the police, on orders from city officials, have smashed the Occupy encampments and evicted the protestors from public parks and spaces. More politicians from Congress to the state and local level want the Occupy people OUT!

Well, why don’t they start letting them into the places where decisions are being made against their legitimate interests? Let them IN to:

Having jobs and affordable housing;

Their legislatures without having to pay to play;

The courts when they are wrongfully injured or have other grievances without being blocked by corporatist dogmas and judges;

Access to civil lawyers pro bono when they are in dire need, as suggested by Cincinnati attorney Paul Tobias;

The dispensing and regulatory agencies with their petitions (without having to face grinding delays and costs);

Universal health care so they can escape the present avariciousness called “pay or die”;

Fair contracts, from student loans to mortgages, without fine print and gouging fees and robo-signing type shenanigans that trap them into contract peonage (see FairContracts.org);

Fair and clean elections with voluntary public financing and easier ballot access for third party candidates to give voters more choice beyond the two party dictatorship;

The media to express themselves on television, radio and in newspapers, so dominated by the plutocratic values of corporatism;

Public places to petition and circulate their materials in these large malls that are taxpayer subsidized but considered off limits because they are corporate owned;

The political process, with other citizens, with full rights to challenge in courts and by referenda the politicians and their corporate paymasters who unconstitutionally and illegally plunge our country into wars, invasions and occupations abroad;

A clean environment where they can breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food by enforcing the existing laws with adequate budgets;

The facilities to band together as workers, consumers and taxpayers that exist for commercial companies and their investors;

There would be no need for encampments or street demonstrations if people were allowed IN to these arenas of power, communications and good livelihoods. You don’t see corporate executives and managers protesting in the streets. Because they are already IN!

It has been said repeatedly that the Occupy Wall Street movement has no specific agenda. Look at their signs and banners. It is obvious; they want IN. They no longer want to be excluded, disrespected, unemployed, defrauded, impoverished, betrayed and in big and small ways OUT.

They want justice, opportunity and, as the ancient Roman lawyer Marcus Cicero advocated for, the freedom to participate in power.

When You Play the Plutocrats’ Game, They Win: On Civility and Half Measures

Thursday, August 11, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
by Kristine Mattis

Like many Wisconsinites, I am feeling rather dejected after the disappointing August 9th recall elections. But unlike most of my brothers and sisters, my disappointment stems not so much from the outcome, but from the adherence to propriety and to a faith in inherently corrupt and unjust systems.

I was inspired and awed by the spontaneous and sustained uprisings in February and March and solidarity of the people of Wisconsin. Having lived numerous places throughout this country, there is no other place I would have wanted to call home at that moment. I was so proud to be among the protesters and my tendency toward negativity was suspended for a brief period. And then it ended. People went back to work (or unemployment) and though small demonstrations continued, the massive manpower and money was instead redirected toward recalling six Republican state senators and attempting to replace them with Democrats.

Though I was surprisingly impressed by the bold stand that the fourteen Democratic state senators took to protect the rights of their citizens, and though, having attended hearings in the state legislature, I have found many of these Wisconsin Democratic representatives to be supportive of the needs of the people in the state, I chose not to devote my current activism to the recall elections.

I was at the bargaining table last year when the Wisconsin state legislature and governor’s office were controlled by Democrats. Nevertheless, we state employee unions were told off the bat that any increases in any types of monetary compensation were off the table, and that our health insurance premiums would be increased. Game over. Doing anything else was too risky in “this political climate,” they said. Having worked in the U.S. House of Representatives previously, I saw firsthand the complicity and complacency of many federal Democrats, but I really had no knowledge of politics at the state level in WI. I learned quickly as, after months of negotiating, even our very crappy contracts were voted against by a couple of turncoat Democrats seeking political leverage from the incoming legion of Republicans.

In the past thirty years, state and local governments – in fact society in general - have been catering more and more to corporate interests, and consequently corporate interests have been taking over our state and our society. This has resulted in their co-opting of the only two major political parties allowed to exist in the U.S., as well as in the largest redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich in history. In real terms, massive unemployment, poverty, hunger, homelessness, and social decay has spread across America, going largely unnoticed by anyone not experiencing it, or more likely, trying their hardest to deny it. The corporate controlled media does not report it to any substantive extent. They are too busy promoting new products, gadgets and consumer distractions.

In addition to consistent tax cuts for the rich and corporations and the expenses incurred from two-plus illegal and unnecessary imperial wars, the most recent recession in 2008 - caused by the unregulated casino known as Wall Street - has caused most of the fiscal crises in the states and throughout the nation. Yet, the Wall Street bankers committed fraud, the “brilliant” Ivy-League educated economists looked blithely away as the economic system collapsed, and the government officials who should have prosecuted the thieves let the perpetrators go scot free and proceeded to blame vital public employees for the financial woes caused by the rich. They not only allowed the criminals to go away unscathed, they fed these same criminals OUR money so that they could maintain their obscene wealth. Meanwhile, all over the nation, we, who had already lost everything, were being told we had to lose MORE so that those same rich people whom we had bailed out could “save” us through their privatization of all public goods (which, of course, does nothing but fatten their pocketbooks and starve us dead).

These unspeakable acts of reverse Robin-Hood corporate socialism took place under the watch of both Democrats and Republicans. We’d all like for it to not be so, in order for us to be able to easily place blame on one side, and go to the polls to vote in the other direction, but that vote is just a half measure. It often obtains little and changes nothing.

I do not wish to blame the Democratic officials in my state, because many of them - including Rep. Tammy Baldwin, and numerous state assembly-persons and senators whom I have had the good fortune of meeting during these recent months - have proven themselves more stalwart and progressive than most. I also recognize the insidiousness of the phony “grassroots” Tea Party, their corporate sponsors, their Republican allies, and their media propaganda machine. But laying the blame for the desperate state we find ourselves in solely at the feet of the GOP is completely disingenuous. Despite the rhetoric in the media, the real conflict is not between the Democrats and the Republicans; here and throughout the world, there is not a political war but a class war – and the rich are winning by a landslide. Given that context, trying to exact change through electoral politics is futile because the system is already rigged by the plutocrats, and because if one is not willing to deviate from their system, one is bound to lose.

Many political activists working on the recall elections have been saying that we want to elect Democrats to “stop the bleeding” and then we will hold them accountable to the people. From my vantage point, I do not see bleeding; I see fatal hemorrhaging from the carotid artery that only societal change, not politics, will be able to surgically repair.

When we play the game of the plutocrats, we allow:

• A “Citizen’s United” election in which endless corporate moneys control the outcome
• Continuation of the false premise that Wisconsin even had a budget “crisis”
• Media framing that “the people have spoken through their votes” (regardless of the fact that this cannot be the case in a country where corporations are considered people)
• Domination by “middle class” in discourse, instead of discussions about poverty, racism, and severe social injustices
• Political tricks and illegal maneuvers (see: falsification of election date on absentee ballots, consistent election irregularities in Waukesha county clerk’s office, phony robo-calls by right-wing groups, voter intimidation at polls, voter disenfranchisement through cumbersome voter ID law, etc.) going uncontested or unprosecuted
• “Conspiracy theory” narratives to dismiss all skepticism, despite tremendous evidence of organized wrongdoings

One of the main ways we play into their game is through prevarication and civility. What should have happened, as many chanted on March 9th – the day the state Assembly illegally voted on the anti-collective bargaining bill and 7000 people immediately flooded past the gatekeepers at the capitol doors to protest – was a general strike. If our elected officials can break a law that attempts to protect the transparency of our state legislative process by pushing through a vote without due notice, then citizens should have broken a wholly unjust law that attempts to criminalize the rights of workers to not show up for work.

I’m originally from New York. New Yorkers have a justified stereotype of being rude and abrasive (often unprovoked and for no reason). By contrast, what I have found living in Wisconsin for the past two years and in the Upper Midwest for the past four, is that civility is at a premium here. As a general rule, people like to maintain decorum and do not like to complain. That can be a very nice thing, for example, when you are new in town and everyone is welcoming and nice. But it is extremely disadvantageous when one is reticent to “act out” for fear of conflict or contention.

One of the Democrats in the recall elections said in an interview that she did not like the recent changes in Wisconsin government, because things had become so divisive and people could not compromise. Given the current state of affairs, I would say that compromise is not in order. When it comes to balancing a budget by hampering or eliminating all of the social safety nets for the poor in order to enhance incentives for corporate interests, a legislator who seeks a balanced “compromise” on these unequal terms is not a legislator that any citizen needs. Likewise, a citizen who would rather retract into her (not-so) comfortable life by casting a vote rather than by challenging an unjust political and social system is not a citizen who will be victorious for her cause. Right now, I hope that Wisconsinites can realize that when battling plutocracy, one must leave one’s civility at the door. Maybe now’s the time to take a lesson from the New Yorkers; maybe now’s the time to stop playing by their rules and to be belligerent, obstinate, and uncompromising.

Two Parties, One Politics

Take Over the Election
By JAMES ROTHENBERG

Opinion polls reveal, not surprisingly, that the public has little confidence and trust in politicians. Politicians are overwhelmingly comprised of Democrats and Republicans, but this distrust has yet to manifest itself in a repudiation of these two political parties. No paradox here. The public, so far, is not equipped to shake off the grip that the Democrats and Republicans hold over society. In a pathetic twist, it is in these indirectly discredited parties that a nation’s hopes are eternally placed.

Here’s a common example of voter frustration, call it I’ll-remember-this-in-the-booth. Voter A dislikes officeholder B’s public positions and announces to the world that, come November, the people are going to remember and goodbye officeholder B. This remonstration resets with each term because goodbye does not mean hello to anything substantially different, promising continual frustration. Lacking another remedy, voter A clings to the illusion of the ballot box as the mechanism for change.

Since a politician’s primary allegiance is to party, and since Democrats and Republicans comprise a duopoly over the political spectrum, the ballot box is definitely not an instrument of change. Both parties are consumed with the perpetuation of their own power and loyal careerists (party “housemen/women”) who do their part stand to be rewarded. Party goals are what comes out of the ballot box, while propagandists craft a story of a citizenry engaged in the affairs of the nation.

The West used to mock Stalin’s elections, where his was the sole party on the ballot, but the election was important nonetheless. People did show up and vote, and voting, even if only for a single candidate, can be pointed to as a symbol of validation of the system.

Here we have two parties. That’s one party better. More accurately, we have two parties with power. The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) sees to that. I wonder how many people understand that the independent sounding CPD is actually a corporation founded, joint-owned, and run by the Democratic and Republican parties. They don’t make a point of this on their website. It’s deceptively labeled “nonpartisan”.

The role the CPD plays is to place obstacles in the way of rival challenging parties. That’s as far as their nonpartisanship goes. Their criteria for participation in the general election presidential debates include requiring that the candidates name appears on “enough state ballots to have at least a mathematical chance at securing an electoral college majority”, and “that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations”.

Since both entrenched parties serve wealthy and powerful elites, and since money is the predominant factor in politics, we can guess at the mathematical chance of a rival party candidate meeting the protective criteria. We’re propagandized to do our duty and vote, but voting validates a system rigged for, and by, the Democratic and Republican parties. It only encourages them.

Party allegiances and political careerism (that could be modestly alleviated through enactment of single term limits) made it possible for an aggressive Republican administration to invade, occupy, and subsequently, devastate Iraq, and for a weak Democratic Congress, that saw it as an existential threat to oppose it, to aid in its complicity.

In my local area, the Republican Party is giving us a candidate for 20th Congressional District Representative from its Permanent War faction. “I think Congress should declare war on Al Qaeda.”. “… we need to form a Joint Inter-Agency Task Force similar to the World War II Office of Strategic Services…. this joint body must have the authority and military capability to move quickly and decisively against any terrorist group anywhere on the globe whenever it deems the moment right.”

Sounds a little like Arizona, where the state now has the authority and police capability to move against Mexicans whenever it deems the moment right. Incidentally, when the strongest argument from the new law’s supporters is that the state law merely mirrors the federal law so leave us alone, it invites this: What makes you think we like the federal law?

One further quote from our Permanent War candidate stands out: “…we must convince the world that we are fighting to not only protect our cherished way of life but to save all of civilization from the diabolical designs of Al Qaeda.”

The “world” has good reason to think that we are the biggest threat to peace and is not so naïve to believe that we have a military presence in over 100 of the world’s countries for the benefit of civilization. If the situation was reversed, and it was a foreign country with this military presence, along with our record of hostile interventions, we ourselves might be skeptical about their altruistic claims.

The big question: What can be done to break the back of the Democratic and Republican parties? First, it would be nice for the masses (those who already vote) to be sufficiently aware that the answer to their hopes and prayers do not lie with the same forces that have made them hope and pray for a better, fairer way. Let’s say we are partway there because distrust runs high, even though the parties themselves retain immunity. In a similar manner, a president may be intensely disliked but there still remains immunity for the office. Why? Because it’s been there a long time. And so have the parties.

Let’s do a thought experiment. Suppose the creation of a new political party called, The Left (just so there’s no doubt). It hasn’t been there for a long time but it might attract progressive Democrats, Greens, some Libertarians, Socialists, Unionists, working people, poor people, disgruntled people. There would be no support from major political donors. But it wouldn’t have to die for the simple reason that it outnumbered the opposition. It’s the larger class (pardon the expression).

Of course, simply outnumbering the opposition would not be sufficient, because this has long been the case and it has done nothing to stem the upward flow of wealth and the disproportionate, continued sacrifice of the dispensable class in imperialistic wars. The established parties have a steady stream of funding and a propaganda theme that links their existence and fate with that of an abstract, beloved nation. That’s been enough, but it’s short of a gun to the head.

All they have is a game, and all they require is that it be played. This is the vastly preferred, and highly cultivated, “soft” control over the population. The achievement of this game is that the population is led to believe it is controlling “things”, when the outcome is that the population ends up controlling “itself”.

This is a game that few would want to play if only they recognized it for what it is. So recognition comes first. We’re partway there.