No Democracy Here (Or Anywhere Else Either)

Lois M. Scheel

1990

Published in:

Section 3 Newsletter October 1990, No. 86
The Northwest Technocrat, 1st quarter 1991, No. 322

Show us a democracy anywhere in this world, and we will show you the man on the moon, his ears stuffed with green cheese.

After repeated failures in elections -- failure to get the right person in, failure to pass any workable bills to control pollution, crime, the economy, unemployment, disease, hunger, inadequate housing, deteriorating infrastructure -- and failure in just about every aspect of our present social order, less then 40 percent of the people still entertain the past by exercising their precious right to vote.

"If you don't vote, then you have nothing to say about what goes on in this country," we non-voters are told. But when less than 40 percent of the population make it to the polls, isn't this non- voter majority saying more by their silence than all the political hubbub of the voters and their politicians combined? (In 1986 voting dropped to its lowest level in four decades -- 37.3 percent. Some 178 million Americans could have voted. Only 66 million did.)

Just what do we get for our vote? Right now we have a president, a clone of our former president, who picked a vice-president with the qualifications of a department-store mannequin. Some say, with tongue in cheek, that the vice-president was chosen for his bodyguard qualifications: considering the alternative, no one would dare take a shot at the president.

So we had eight years with a president whose greatest achievement was making the people feel good about their country. And now we are threatened by another eight years with a man who, along with his cohorts, ran one of the dirtiest campaigns in history; with a man who stands up for the flag and wants to pass legislation to punish those who, as their means of being heard, would burn it; with a man who thinks nothing of burning innocent human beings in Panama to get one scapegoat, a former ally of the U.S., under the pretense that the United States was protecting U.S. citizens after one U.S. serviceman was killed when he entered a zone that was off limits to U.S. citizens. Thousands of Panamanians died, as well as 23 American servicemen -- nine of them killed by other Americans. What an ingenious way to protect American citizens.

Cedric Belfrage, a jounalist and one of the founders of The National Guardian in the 1940s, sent out this warning many years ago:

"Let us not be blind to the fact that the majority of Americans are under the spell of a few men who rule their destinies and mold their minds -- and these rulers and molders can only be properly described as know-nothings who make glory out of knowing nothing, because to know is to shatter the entire edifice of fraud that has been built up."

Today the new generation of Americans seems more immune than ever to the lies handed out by their government. Once again we are courting another Vietnam, and young soldiers, who are not so far removed from that particular war, go uncomplaining to do battle in the Persian Gulf, a crisis that came just in time to ward off peace and give the military a shot in the "arms." This new crisis also helps to take American citizens' minds off poverty, except for those who live in poverty. Suddenly the war on drugs begins to retreat as this new-found enemy takes its place in order to ensure the perpetuation of social-problem amnesia.

And so we should go to the polls and vote for more of the same?

What is particularly amazing is the parents of our new warriors, who did live through the time of the Vietnam debacle, are so willingly letting their children go off to another war debacle to spill their young blood for oil barons. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll released August 21, the Newsweek Poll released August 20 and the New York Times Poll released August 12, 72 percent approve of how George Bush handles the Middle East conflict; 16 percent disapprove. To the question, "Should the U.S. take military action if Iraq invades Saudi Arabia?" 74 percent approve; 16 percent disapprove. To the question, "Should the U.S. take military action if terrorists loyal to Iraq kill Americans anywhere?" 67 percent approve; 21 percent disapprove. And 34 percent approve of assassinating Saddam Hussein as a way of quickly ending the current Middle East crisis, ignoring historical fact to the contrary.

Families are forming support groups to cope with anxiety they feel over their loved ones who may face a bloody battle or chemical warfare, but they are proud of these offspring they let go off to war. There is nothing that kindles the fires of emotion like bands playing, spectators cheering and young heroes marching off to battle, even though they might wind up as dead or maimed heroes.

Some would have us believe that an unrelenting God for some inexplicable reason "wants it this way." (Is it any wonder that Harry Truman was thankful that "God was on our side" when he ordered the bomb dropped on Japan?) If one God looks over all, would he/she take sides?

And where are all those noisy people who believe in the sanctity of life? Can't you just hear their silence regarding our youth going off to war in the Middle East? Why are fully developed human beings less important than undeveloped fetuses?

Then, of course, if peace should break out on all fronts and our yankees came home, unemployment would know no bounds. We already have mass unemployment due to most businesses modernizing their operations, which means installing more machines. If they didn't modernize, they would be forced to take a back seat to more innovative corporations. (And, by the way, you don't see the presidents of successful business corporations being voted in by persons who haven't the foggiest notion of operational procedures. They are chosen for their qualifications. But the president of the United States?????)

Even if all citizens over 18 attended the next election (including the mentally retarded as is allowed in Canada) and voted for jobs for everyone, their vote would not be heard; but if they would just listen, they could hear the whir of machines replacing jobs. Politicians and their consituents cannot hear what is going on over the din of their own political rhetoric: "Fight crime! Build more jails! Do something about those unsightly street people; they are an embarrassment to American democracy! Put then to work!" And they would force people into honoring a flag that has come to represent all the misery they see around them, the dissolution of hope.

And no matter whom we elect for president or any other political office, beneficial change would not occur. Any thinking person should know that you can't appease everyone. When the facts are in, you do what is needed, not what pleases a certain segment of the population. Yet politicians spend more time and money planning for the next election than they do trying to bring about improvements for the general populace whom they claim to represent. They are so wrapped up in these inane activities that they can't find time to consider the fact that social change is already here, and they aren't keeping up with it. Our technological age has become too complicated for political action, so we are swamped with political inaction.

Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary defines democracy as: the acceptance and practice of the principle of equality of rights, opportunity and treatment. Well, if all capable citizens don't have that cherished job, they aren't being treated equal are they? If all citizens don't have adequate housing, clothing, food, medical care and purchasing power, they aren't being treated equal, are they? And do the youth of this land of free speech have anything to say about this atrocity if they had attended the last election and voted? After all, they have only one life to give for their business tycoons. They ought to have some say regarding this precious possession. So much for democracy and voting in the land of the fee and the home of the knave.