| My first presidential vote after becoming 18 was a write-in vote for Eugene McCarthy in the District of Columbia. He was not on the ballot in DC, but he had spoken at Georgetown during his campaign and made the most sense. A short piece on the 1976 Independent campaign is on wikipedia. I believed then and still believe that my vote was a powerful one because it communicated what I desired.
Despite my father's threat to pull the plug on my parental financial aid if he ever saw me on national television, from his California living room, demonstrating against the establishment (!), I was one of the thousands of student demonstrators marching on Washington against the B1 bomber. News of the demonstrations was carried widely on national television as part of the nation's dialogue, with demonstrators themselves on television panels articulating their views with the talking-suit pundits on the nightly news. When Carter announced his decision to stop funding the project, we felt a wonderful victory.
My nephew today can demonstrate on the mall all he wants without worry about network news cameras or certainly any media panel invitations; news organizations know that their advertisers and parent company shareholders do not look kindly on bestowing unto demonstrators anything except for fringe status for a few colorful seconds. The networks have also learned that they don't lose ratings because of such avoidance, and their staff is invited to nice cocktail parties with government insiders when they behave, so why should they tell the story?
Our media often lead us to be blithe and accepting rather than informed and demanding.
Demonstrations today, if the news is to be believed, happen only in France and England when the government tries messing with social security and medicare benefits. The underlying narrative is that those foreign demonstrators are unruly and irresponsible, not realizing (they way Americans 'sensibly' realize) that their governments have to make these cuts (the way our government 'realistically' has to make these cuts) in order to be responsible. We're told we should appreciate that disruptive demonstrations do not happen here. In the meantime, social security erodes.
The story that is never reported (in our media, anyway) is how effective those demonstrations in France and in England are in protecting public interests: how governments there are actually afraid of what their people might do, people who vote in higher numbers than we and know how powerful their vote is. The demonstrations often result in victory of public interest over private interest.
There will always be powerful private interests that stand to profit from the erosion of public programs. These are the groups that lobby intensively for reductions in social security and medicare benefits. These are the lobbies who are well-represented on these 'bi-partisan' commissions.
Demonstrations in Reykjavik two years ago following a terrible meltdown of the Icelandic economy brought down the government with no violence - with only a strong voice of anger and no-confidence. A new government was voted in that immediately fired the central bankers. Our new president didn't do anything like that; its bi-partisan cabinet included a Treasury Secretary of the same ilk (and the same party) as the previous president's.
'Bi-partisan' is one of the scarier terms of the day in American policy-making. While trying to sound reasonable and centrist, it doesn't reflect that over half of voters do not affiliate with either of the two parties that accept the dictates of big money contributions. A 'bi-partisan commission' does not in reality connote inclusive collaboration with the grass-roots of any conservative or progressive movement. It means, rather, that the only groups who will be happy with the outcome are both sets of corporate lobbyists.
My other nephew is working in Australia now. He is meeting young Australians who have been better educated in public school, who can go to university without getting into ridiculous amounts of debt, whose medicare is comprehensive and publicly provided to all ages (so they don't go into debt if they need medical care), whose relative solvency allows them to be enterprising, and who know how to demonstrate and take back power when their government goes astray.
Gives me hope, but won't leave me blithe. |
