The primaries and caucuses have begun. Even the Republicans are voting -- though it's quite certain their votes mean nothing. In New Hampshire King George the second won 85 percent of the Republican vote. That's such a wide margin there really is no choice for Republicans.
Thus we see that for Republicans partisan interests are far more important than the ideals of representative government. This is not to give Democrats a free ticket. The pollsters and pundits tell us that for many Democrats the most important issue is defeating King George in the fall. What we see from them is a lack of concensus on who is most likely to do that.
Let me digress for a moment here. At one time it looked like the man most capable of taking on our current president's wildly arrogant foreign policies was a former governor of a small state -- in this case Vermont. But a lot of analysts believe Mr. Dean destroyed his own campaign with his little "screaming" incident after the Iowa caucuses.
"He demonstrated he did not have the character to be a good president," many commentators have said. And how is that, I ask? Are you telling me that Casper Milquetoast, who never gets irritated, even at the most flagrant injustice, is a better president than a man who is capable of saying so, clearly and distinctly, when he is angry? Who would be better to lead our country -- a man who screamed and shouted when angry, or a man who holds it in and, to compensate, sends our sons to die on overseas battlefields?
Furthermore, the incident in question was supposed to be a private moment between Dean and those who had worked hard for his campaign. Why did the press have to latch on to that one speech and turn it, unfairly, into a defining moment?
Now someone might ask me, if Dean wanted to have a private moment with his staff, why didn't he bar the press? I'll tell you why. Because everywhere where our present national leader is disqualified for his position, Mr. Dean is specifically qualified. Mr. Bush learned the lesson of press secrecy years ago. That's why, instead of telling us up front why he's making the policy choices he makes, he goes to court to prevent US from learning what advice he got. He is, at his very core, anti-democratic. Dean is not.
This incident tells us one of the reasons we have leaders who won't tell us the truth about anything, from personal lives (which are none of our business anyway) to the making of public policy. Today's politicians know the press can't be trusted to focus on important things and ignore unimportant things. The process of governing has morphed from candid discourse into expensive and extensive image management.
We probably have one Richard Nixon to thank for this. His corrupt administration (not saying his was the first corrupt one) ran head on with a major newspaper in the capital. To some extent the newspaper brought him down, confirming his paranoia that the press was his enemy. With that taste of blood the press went into a "feeding frenzy." Today they live for the moments when they can bring someone down.
There's another press trend in play here, I believe. At one time the press was an institution. Media owners were committed to the idea that they could, thorugh journalistic integrity and focused reporting, make a difference in their communities. Today the press is primarily a business. It's there to make money for its owners. To aggravate this situation, the diversity of press ownership has dropped markedly. This began years ago when rich publishers sought to add to their earning capability by buying up other newspapers.
Under pressure from these wealthy people, the government began to relax ownership restrictions on the media entities over which it exerted control -- broadcasters. Thus fewer and fewer people have control over what news we hear and what news we don't hear (the larger of the two bodies of information by many degrees of magnitude).
And there's yet another trend -- possibly influenced by the other two. At one time reporters were among the lowest-paid of all professionals. By this I mean that they were generally expected to have a college degree. They often began at minimum wage and rarely got much over twice that unless they moved up into editorial positions.
Such a life condition alters how you see the world around you and therefore how you report on it. Today reporters are more likely to be well-paid, upper middle class citizens, like the rest of their college-educated peers. One result of this is that their world view has shifted to the right. So at one time the relatively centrist Nixon would see the press as engaged in a liberal conspiracy against him. Today the influence of wealthy, conservative owners has turned the press into a cheering section for politicians to the right of a more conservative center.
So now we return to the issue of this year's presidential election. So far no one can say with any reasonable certainty whether there will be a change of occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next year or not. My money (if I were prone to playing the odds) would be on "no change." If the uncertainty lasts to the morning of November 3 we know from experience who will come out on top and how.
Now let's stop and look at facts. The policies of Mr. Bush's administration are decidedly against the average American voter. He granted big tax cuts to those few Americans who didn't need them, thus turning the surpluses of the late '90s into record deficits. These deficits will bankrupt the government just when the average voting-age American will need its services.
Mr. Bush took a relatively small cause of untimely death and made it into his reason for governing. "I'll protect you from these Islamic hatemongers," he said. Whereupon he started stirring up the hornets' nest in military misadventures that failed to achieve their stated objective but did cost the lives of soldiers from, primarily, the country's lower classes.
Some will tell you that Bush's difficulty in administering violent solutions is a result of his incompetence. I'd like to be that nice to him. But I suspect he wants to keep us so frightened we won't notice when he turns us into slaves to the nation's wealthy interests. Either way, the result for the average American is the largely fruitless loss of loved ones. The poor are, in King George's eyes, cannon fooder for serving the interests of a privileged minority.
How will average and below average Americans benefit from the war on terror? It's hard to imagine. Average and poor Americans don't even live in New York -- they can't afford to -- much less work at cushy jobs in the World Trade Center. Average and poor Americans don't usually get appointed to positions powerful enough to be located in Washington D. C. And even fewer work at the Pentagon.
Now I will grant you that the terrorists' next target will almost certainly be somewhere else. Anyway, for the next few years all the terrorists have to do is rattle their box knives every few months. An obliging U. S. administration will see to doling out the pain for them. My point is that the next terror target on American soil will probably be similarly remote from Mr. and Mrs. Average American.
In any case, our chances of dying from a terrorist attack are lower than many other possible causes of untimely death. Even in 2001 terrorism fell far down on the list of such causes. So even if the king's men manage to keep out a handful of potential terrorists by slamming the door of entry on millions of potentially productive immigrants, and even if draconian security precautions prevent attacks at major public events (such as the Super Bowl), the only difference the average voter will notice is all the inconvenience.
We've already mentioned tax policy and its dubious benefits. I personally believe the tax cut did help to bring the nation out of Bill Clinton's recession. But that doesn't meen I feel the mechanism is therefore noble or even wise. (I discuss that concept elsewhere). But companies are still cutting workers. Kodak and Kraft are recent examples. So the average American's opportunities are still limited.
What we're saying is that the policies of the Bush administration are almost entirely biased against the majority of American citizens. So why do so many of them vote for him? Are they really so dumb as to be duped by the Bush image-managment machine? Are they really so stupid they don't see what Republican policies are doing to them? Or is there something more sinister at play?
I think the answer lies in why we tolerate business leaders, celebrities, and investors who make hundreds and thousands of times as much money as most of us. There's a simple answer. Greed. Every one of us would like to become a member of the privileged, moneyed class. We support the Republicans' otherwise idiotic policies because they're good for greedy people. And we are greedy people.
There may be some truth to the idea that the nation's preachers have pushed voters to the right. But in general American's aren't that likely to do what they've been "ordered" to from the pulpit. (Witness all the Catholics who use birth control.) So while I loathe preachers whose God is so weak he has to have kings to enforce his will, I doubt that they make much of a difference in the general political tilt of the nation. What they have done is to attach themselves to what they have perceived to be the political trend of the future so they'll have a big part in the powers that rule the future.
Why else would someone who claims to follow the peaceful, violence-opposed Jesus support a president who has engaged in a heretofore unknown policy of preemptive attack? Why else would men who rail on about the paltry few verses in the Bible against homosexuality support politicians who promote a practice banned in nearly ten times as many Bible references? Why else would people who believe God created this earth and put man here to "dress and keep" it, who believe that God will eventually destroy those who destroy the earth, and who preach that "the earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof," ask people to vote for politicians whose clear goal is to gut the paltry environmental regulations this country has managed to enact?
Am I saying that democracy is a failed enterprise? No. Our economy can probably weather the storm should our nation's creditors suddenly call in their T-bills. Our military might well be able to quell any world rebellion against American hegemony. And with the religious right opposing abortion and other forms of birth control, there will probably be plenty of cannon fodder for any wars our misguided leaders might lead us into.
In short, American voters have been voting their short-term interests for as long as they've been voting. The United States has survived so far, so there's reson to believe it won't continue to survive -- at least until God comes down and surprises everybody when he reveals what he really does and doesn't like. But when that day comes, it is all too likely that he will expect repayment for the suffering we have caused. And the voters who elected arrogant elitists like George W. Bush will have to pay back for their part in putting a man who has caused so much suffering in a place where he had the power to cause it. Just in case, I won't be voting Republican this fall.