Conscious Choice: Democracy is Not a High-Speed Internet Connection

October 2000 | Choice Books

Democracy is Not a High-Speed Internet Connection

by Mark Harris

"Eased into governance by years and years of conservative ideology, the corporations of America today effectively oversee the Congress, the regulatory agencies and indeed the presidency itself. There is no Article in the Constitution that recognizes the supracitizenship of conglomerates; nothing is written that grants enlarged and preemptive voting rights to business organizations and their trade groups. But as Washington is run today, major issues of public policy are bent and distorted by these multiheaded Brobdingnags who bribe Congress with their money and coddle it with their lobbies, so that time and time again socially desirable legislation in the public interest, whether having to do with public health or safety, environmental protection, preservation of our natural resources or any other issue of clear relevance to the entire society, is defeated, sabotaged or transmuted by language into its perverse opposite... ."

"How contemptuous it all is, what an enormous humiliation to a society of free people."

— E. L. Doctorow, "In the Eighth Circle of Thieves," The Nation (August 7/14, 2000).

During the Democratic convention this summer, singer Melissa Etheridge entertained the crowd with an energetic version of "This Land Is Your Land." As I understand, Tom Brokaw of NBC News reportedly referred to the song as "a Pete Seeger classic." However, I don’t think Woody Guthrie, the song’s writer, would have minded Brokaw’s slip much. Guthrie believed his songs belonged to the people, and he always made it clear that anyone was free to perform or do what they wished with his music.

Now, I’m not sure if "This Land Is Your Land" has yet been made into a television commercial for some sport utility vehicle. Perhaps Guthrie would have drawn the line there. I also doubt that Etheridge sang all six verses of the song. Such as the stanza that goes:

Was a big high wall there
that tried to stop me
A sign was painted
said: "Private Property"
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing
This side was made for you and me."

Jim Hightower reminds us of Guthrie’s words in his book If The Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates (HarperCollins, 2000, Hardcover, 354 pages). Like Guthrie, Hightower is not duly enamored with the folks who run this country. His sympathies lie more with society’s dispossessed, the marginalized poor, all those on the other side of that high wall of a very selective national prosperity.

In essay after essay, the former Texas commissioner of agriculture and syndicated radio host delivers an often scathing but always informed commentary on American politics. Hightower writes in the informal, indignant vernacular of an "old-fashioned" southwestern populist or labor agitator. Folksy, blunt, and steeped in long (and long downplayed) American traditions of social protest and rebellion, If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote reads like the loud blast of a ruptured tire. Of course, what’s being deflated is a political system dominated by a sorry litany of global speculators, polluters, downsizers, HMOs, media conglomerates, finance industry finaglers, and $500-an-hour Gucci-clad lobbyists.

You might say Hightower’s bullshit meter is set on high. And it’s constantly going off.

It’s a Small (Moneyed) World, After All

Hightower, however, delivers more than just the cynical smirk. His critical take on two-party politics flies in the breeze of a vision of revitalized democracy and a more equitable and just economy. He accordingly skewers corporate "fat cats" and their political legions in the two-party system whose notions of civil society are almost as self-serving as their own inflated sense of personal entitlement.

Which brings us to the topic of George W. Bush and Al Gore.

In case you haven’t heard, these are the two individuals who among the roughly 100 million eligible Americans have any chance at all of actually becoming the next president of the United States. It’s a twist of statistical fortune almost beyond belief, I know, but one of these men also just happens to be the son of a man who was already president of the United States. You might think in a true democracy, the chances of two guys from the same family (we can’t even speak of women) actually becoming president would be about as astounding as getting hit by lightning on your way to claiming your winning Big Game lotto ticket.

But as someone clever said recently, the United States is becoming more and more like a democracy theme park than an actual democracy. Which may be another way of saying that the two major parties are taking us for another ride this election year. A really boring ride! In fact, declares Hightower, the whole insipid system just "begs for ridicule."

Hightower, of course, is just the man for the job. Ask him what he thinks about Al Gore, for example, and he’ll describe "a fellow not comfortable coloring outside the lines," a "born conformist" (actually, that’s Gore’s mother speaking) cheerily skipping down the yellow brick road of Wall Street check writers. As for Bush, well, he’s perfectly suited for many important, high-paying jobs — the ones, that is, that don’t require any heavy-lifting, either mental or physical.

But if Hightower views the two-party campaign as an exercise in irrelevancy, it’s not simply because Bush and Gore are just more of the same ol’, same ol’ (though they are). It’s also not because both candidates are bought and paid for by corporate money (also true). It is also not only because media coverage focuses more on election games than election issues (true again). Mostly, the elections are irrelevant because millions of people understand at some level that whoever is elected, it just won’t make a damn bit of difference to their lives.

Hightower cites Manuel Gonzalez, a superintendent of a Bronx food market: "I won’t vote. Doesn’t count anyway — the politicians do what they like. It’s not a people’s country. It’s a money country."

Economic Injustice, You Say?

Hightower is concerned about the sentiments of such nonvoters, but not for the usual reasons. There are no scolding lectures here along the lines of "don’t complain if you don’t vote." Hightower is actually inclined to praise the none-of-the- above crowd. At least they’ve given up the illusion, more or less and however implicitly, that the Democrats and Republicans actually represent two distinct political parties, as opposed to two factions of what may be the world’s most perfectly honed one-party system.

What motivates Hightower’s critical perspective is the idea that concentrated economic wealth corrupts our democracy. Lacking popular control, social policy pretty much bears the stamp of a broad corporate agenda that values profits over people, and puts a big brake on our potential to create a more just and truly abundant society. Yet rarely are the realities (and privileges) of economic class questioned by the major candidates. Why should they? They’re almost entirely financed by these very elites. Nor is the corrosive nature of a moneyed democracy examined much by a media that is as much a part of big business as the big business it purports to cover objectively.

Tellingly, Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham reports that when Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate for president [Hightower is now backing Nader], appeared on CNN’s Crossfire and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the hosts of both shows seemed befuddled by the candidate’s reference to "economic injustice." It’s hardly surprising. The mainstream media tend to react to any kind of substantive social criticism with a smug indifference, if not incomprehension. Dissent isn’t stamped out or rebutted as much as just ignored or reduced through superficial reporting to some sort of quirky yawn of an opinion. After all, why even talk about arcane issues like poverty or social safety nets when we’ve got the NASDAQ, the "safety net" heir apparent for the new millennium?

Yet a nagging question lingers. How much democracy can there really be when 1 percent of the people own about 62 percent of all corporate stocks? Or when a guy like Bill Gates has a net worth equal to that of the 120 million poorest Americans? Perhaps it’s not so much that the emperor of American prosperity has no clothes. It’s that too many of his citizens are homeless, unable to find $6-per-hour apartments in a new economy built on millions of $6-per-hour jobs.

Hightower talks about these issues. He asks why in a "boom" economy the majority of the work force earns less in real dollars than they did 20 years ago despite working a month more of hours every year than back then? He questions the economics of a society that allows the number of children living below official poverty levels nearly to double since the 1970s — to nearly a quarter of all children. He reminds us that a booming stock market is not the only measure of societal bliss, that for too many Americans the "prosperity" of recent years represents only a limited option on the trading floor of economic justice.

What Is Democracy?

Hightower has faith in the capacity of the American people to resolve these issues. He thinks we’re generally smart and fair-minded, and he stands his hopes on democratic traditions of fair play and justice that run deep in the American spirit.

We can do better, he just wants us to know.

"Being connected to the Internet is not democracy," Hightower concludes, "having a choice between Gore and Bush is not democracy, receiving five hundred channels of digital television is not democracy, being rewarded a slice of corporate-allocated prosperity is not democracy. Democracy is control. Whatever goals we strive for as a people — racial harmony, peace, economic fairness, privacy, clean water and air—all are dependent on our ability to control the decisions that affect these goals."

If this is our land and not America, Inc., then it is up to us make democracy real. There’s a bumper sticker that reads: "Enjoy the Weekend? — Thank the Labor Movement." There’s a lot of history behind those words. As well, a lesson in how our democracy and the rights we enjoy have actually evolved, through grassroots activism, social protest, and the hard work of education and political organizing. That is what makes democracy real. If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote reminds us of these lessons. It’s a refreshing antidote to the election blather currently raining down upon us.

If The Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates (HarperCollins, 2000, hardcover, 354 pages)

Mark Harris is a Chicago-based writer. Visit his Web site, A Writer’s Voice.

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