What do you do when the government ignores the citizenry?
Talking to a close friend the other day, I was griping about Americans' failure to get on board and help turn the country away from its disastrous course when my friend made the astute remark that the country had turned around: the problem is that the political establishment isn't reacting. He has a good point. Looking at the poll numbers (and listening to what most people are saying), there's tremendous discontent which is being ignored. It's as if the Republicans and Democrats have staged a coup with the help of their corporate sponsors.
According to a recent poll, 60%t of all Americans strongly want the country to change direction and only 24 percent of those surveyed think the nation is on the right track. Discontent crosses the red and blue lines to include Democrats, Republicans, and independents. More than 6 out of 10 called the war in Iraq not worth fighting (yet all major candidates want to stay!), and nearly two-thirds gave the national economy negative marks (a response that agrees with data showing that whatever gains exist are probably going to the wealthy). The abysmally low voter turn-out in the U.S. is just another sign of the divide between public opinion and corporate-led policy.
Personally at this point, I'd back just about any plan that got someone into the White House who hadn't been bought and paid for by monied interests. It's time that the discontented form a coalition to elect someone outside of the entire process. With so many people still glued to the corporate-run news media, it's hard to see how a new process could take shape. Does anyone have any ideas?
4 comments:
Maybe people should stop paying their taxes (again). It seemed to work last time.
No taxation without representation... right?
Those of us on the left should stop voting for Democrats. By voting for the "lesser of two evils" we just perpetuate the system.
In the primaries, we should vote for the Democrats we like (Kucinich?). But for the presidential election, I'd have to agree. We'd be better off with a true opposition party that offered an authentic alternative--even if that party wasn't immediately successful.
Another case is health care. 2/3rds of Americans answer "Yes" to the question, "Should the federal government guarantee universal health care for all Americans?". Yet of the Presidential candidates, only one (Dennis Kucinich) has a health plan that will actually include such a guarantee. All the others will still result in significant numbers of people lacking access to routine health care procedures. Why is it that every single Presidential candidate with the exception of one feels so comfortable with ignoring the will of the American public? Do we really have democracy when there is no candidate with a chance of winning who actually represents the will of the people?!
- Badtux the Questioning Penguin
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