How To Take Back America

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Best quote:

"True enough, in many cases. And it isn't working for them, because, as
Democrat Harry Truman said, "When voters are given a choice between voting
for a Republican, or a Democrat who acts like a Republican, they'll vote for
the Republican every time." (And, history shows, voters are equally
uninterested in Republicans who act like Democrats.)"

Djf

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 14:55:05 +0900
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: How To Take Back America

How To Take Back America
by Thom Hartmann
Monday, March 24, 2003
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0324-12.htm

Marching in the streets is important work, but wouldn't we have greater
success if we also took control of the United States government?

It's vital to point out right-wing-slanted reporting in the corporate media,
but isn't it also important to seize enough political power in Washington to
enforce anti-trust laws to break up media monopolies?

And how are progressives - most standing on the outside of government,
looking in - to deal with oil wars, endemic corporate cronyism, slashed
environmental regulations, corporate-controlled voting machines, the
devastation of America's natural areas, the fouling of our air and waters,
and an administration that daily gives the pharma, HMO, banking, and
insurance industries whatever they want regardless of how many people are
harmed?

This lack of political power is a crisis others have faced before. We should
learn from their experience.

After the crushing defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964, a similar crisis faced
a loose coalition of gun lovers, abortion foes, southern segregationists,
Ayn Rand libertarians, proto-Moonies, and those who feared immigration
within and communism without would destroy the America they loved. Each of
these various groups had tried their own "direct action" tactics, from
demonstrations to pamphleteering to organizing to fielding candidates. None
had succeeded in gaining mainstream recognition or affecting American
political processes. If anything, their efforts instead had led to their
being branded as special interest or fringe groups, which further diminished
their political power.

So the conservatives decided not to get angry, but to get power.

Led by Joseph Coors and a handful of other ultra-rich funders, they decided
the only way to seize control of the American political agenda was to
infiltrate and take over one of the two national political parties, using
their own think tanks like the Coors-funded Heritage Foundation to mold
public opinion along the way. Now they regularly get their spokespeople on
radio and television talk shows and newscasts, and write a steady stream of
daily op-ed pieces for national newspapers. They launched an aggressive
takeover of Dwight Eisenhower's "moderate" Republican Party, opening up the
"big tent" to invite in groups that had previously been considered on the
fringe. Archconservative neo-Christians who argue the Bible should replace
the Constitution even funded the startup of a corporation to manufacture
computer-controlled voting machines, which are now installed across the
nation. And Reverend Moon took over The Washington Times newspaper and UPI.

Their efforts, as we see today, have borne fruit, as Kevin Phillips
predicted they would in his prescient 1969 book "The Emerging Republican
Majority," and as David Brock so well documents in his book "Blinded By The
Right."

But the sweet victory of the neoconservatives in capturing control of the
Republican Party, and thus of American politics, has turned bitter in the
mouths of the average American and humans around the world. Soaring
deficits, the evisceration of Social Security, "voluntary" pollution
controls, war for oil, stacking federal benches with right-wing ideologues,
bellicose and nationalist foreign policy, and the handing over of much of
the infrastructure of governance to multinational corporate campaign donors
has brought a vast devastation to the nation, nearly destroyed the
entrepreneurial American dream, and caused the rest of the world to view us
with shock and horror.

Thus, many progressives are suggesting that it's time for concerned
Americans to reclaim Thomas Jefferson's Democratic Party. It may, in fact,
be our only short-term hope to avoid a final total fascistic takeover of
America and a third world war.

"But wait!" say the Greens and Progressives and left-leaning Reform Party
members. "The Democrats have just become weaker versions of the
Republicans!"

True enough, in many cases. And it isn't working for them, because, as
Democrat Harry Truman said, "When voters are given a choice between voting
for a Republican, or a Democrat who acts like a Republican, they'll vote for
the Republican every time." (And, history shows, voters are equally
uninterested in Republicans who act like Democrats.)

Alternative parties have an important place in American politics, and those
in them should continue to work for their strength and vitality. They're
essential as incubators of ideas and nexus points for activism. Those on the
right learned this lesson well, as many groups that at times in the past had
fielded their own candidates are now still intact but have also become
powerful influencers of the Republican Party. Similarly, being a Green
doesn't mean you can't also be a Democrat.

This is not a popular truth.

There's a long list of people who didn't like it - Teddy Roosevelt, H. Ross
Perot, John Anderson, Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader - but nonetheless the
American constitution was written in a way that only allows for two
political parties. Whenever a third party emerges, it's guaranteed to harm
the party most closely aligned to it.

This was the result of a well-intentioned accident that most Americans fail
to understand when looking at the thriving third, fourth, and fifth parties
of democracies such as Germany, India, or Israel. How do they do it? And why
can't we have third parties here?

The reason is because in America - unlike most other modern democracies - we
have regional "winner take all" types of elections, rather than proportional
representation where the group with, say, 30 percent of the vote, would end
up with 30 percent of the seats in government. It's a critical flaw built
into our system, so well identified in Robert A. Dahl's brilliant book "How
Democratic Is the American Constitution?"

When the delegates assembled in Philadelphia in 1787 to craft a
constitution, republican democracy had never before been tried anywhere in
what was known as "the civilized world." There were also, at that moment, no
political parties, and "father of the Constitution" James Madison warned
loudly in Federalist #10 against their ever emerging.

In part, Madison issued his warning because he knew that the system they
were creating would, in the presence of political parties, rapidly become
far less democratic. In the regional winner-take-all type of elections the
Framers wrote into the Constitution, the loser in a two-party race - even if
s/he had fully 49.9 percent of the vote - would end up with no voice
whatsoever. And the combined losers in a 3- or more-party race could even be
the candidates or parties whose overall position was most closely embraced
by the majority of the people.

The best solution to this unfairness, in 1787, was to speak out against the
formation of political parties ("factions"), as Madison did at length and in
several venues. But within a decade of the Constitution's ratification,
Jefferson's split with Adams had led to the emergence of two strong
political parties, and the problems Madison foresaw began and are with us to
this day.

This is particularly problematic in presidential elections. H. Ross Perot's
participation in the 1992 election drew enough votes away from the elder
George Bush that Bill Clinton won without a true majority. Similarly, Ralph
Nader's participation in the 2000 election drew enough votes away from Al
Gore that it was easy for the Supreme Court and Jeb Bush to deflect media
notice away from Florida's illegal vote-rigging in the pre-election purging
of the voter rolls and thus select George W. Bush as President.

Conservative activists recognized this inherent flaw in the electoral system
of the United States and decided to do something about it, recruiting Ronald
Reagan and forming his infamous "kitchen cabinet." They took over the
Republican Party and then successfully seized control of the government of
the United States of America. As we can see by comparing documents from the
1990s Project For A New American Century with today's war in Iraq, these
once-marginalized conservative ideologues are the real power behind Bush's
throne.

Liberals weren't so practically minded. Instead of funding think tanks to
influence public opinion, subsidizing radio and TV talk show hosts
nationwide, and working to take over the Democratic Party, many left to
create their own parties while others gave up on mainstream politics
altogether. The remaining Democrats were caught in the awkward position of
having to try to embrace the same corporate donors as the Republicans,
although they weren't anywhere near as successful as Republicans because
they hadn't (and haven't) so fully sold out to corporate and wealthy
interests.

We see the result in races across the nation, such as my state of Vermont.
In the 2002 election for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, the people who
voted for the Democratic and Progressive candidates constituted a clear
majority. Nonetheless, the Republican candidates became Governor and
Lieutenant Governor with 45 percent and 41 percent of the vote respectively
because each had more votes than his Democratic or Progressive opponents
alone. (Example: Republican Brian Dubie - 41%; Democrat Peter Shumlin - 32%;
Progressive Anthony Pollina - 25%. The Republican "won.")

Similarly, Republicans have overtly used third-party participation on the
left to their advantage. In a July 12, 2002 story in the Washington Post
titled "GOP Figure Behind Greens Offer, N.M. Official Says," Post writer
Thomas B. Edsall noted that: "The chairman of the Republican Party of New
Mexico said yesterday he was approached by a GOP figure who asked him to
offer the state Green Party at least $100,000 to run candidates in two
contested congressional districts in an effort to divide the Democratic
vote."

The Republicans well understand - and carefully use - the fact that in the
American electoral system a third-party candidate will always harm the
major-party candidate with whom s/he is most closely aligned.

The Australians solved this problem in the last decade by instituting
nationwide instant run-off voting (IRV), a system that is making inroads in
communities across the United States. There are also efforts to reform our
electoral system along the lines of other democratic nations, instituting
proportional representation systems such as first proposed by John Stuart
Mill in 1861 and now adopted by virtually every democracy in the world
except the US, Australia, Greece, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

These are good and important efforts for the long-term future of American
democracy. But they won't happen in time to influence the 2004 elections,
and we're facing a crisis right now. A few Democratic stalwarts survive who
may oppose Bush on the national stage, but while the rest of us fixated on
the war, neo-cons are creeping on cat's paws into the very heart of
Jefferson's Party.

Thus, the best immediate solution to advance the progressive agenda is for
progressives to join and take back the Democratic Party, in the same way
conservatives seized control of the Republican Party.

After writing the first draft of this article, just as the first 2003 attack
of Baghdad began, I thought about how the Democratic Party could change if
most of the protesters in the streets were to join the Democratic Party and
run for leadership positions in their local town or county. In short order,
it could become a powerful force for progressive principles and democracy in
America and the world, maybe even in time to influence the 2004 election.

So, I called the Democratic headquarters in my home state of Vermont.

"Sign me up!" I said to the startled young man who answered the phone.

"What?" he said, taken aback by my enthusiasm.

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," I said, standing and
waving my arm as I talked on the phone. "We have to stop the right-wingers
from ripping up our constitution, despoiling our earth, and turning America
into a fascist state! Sign me up!"

"Are you a Democrat?" he said.

"Can I be a progressive Democrat?"

"Sure!" he said.

"Then I'm also a Democrat now!"

He chuckled, and said. "We're getting a lot of calls like this."

He took my contact information, and gave me the name of my county's Party
leader. I told him to put me on the list for future fundraising events, to
let me know how and when I could run for local Party leadership, and how I
could participate on a regular basis in the decision-making processes of
"my" local Democratic Party.

An hour after that call, I received an email characteristic of so many I get
these days.

"I've never been so depressed in my entire life," the correspondent, an
attorney and longtime progressive activist wrote. "Bush is completely
ignoring us. My nation, using the same rationale Germany did in the 1930s,
has just gone to war against a nation that did not attack it, and my
president has declared himself a military dictator. Every time we announce
peace marches, they raise the 'threat level' so they can keep us away from
government buildings or use force to prevent us from marching. I've lost all
hope."

A few minutes later, another old friend and activist wrote that her "heart
was heavy and tears came easily." A flood of other emails arrived after the
publication of my most recent article on Common Dreams, and all but one
expressed despair, fear, or panic.

So I've started answering them by saying:

"The nation I love is confronting a crisis no smaller than those faced by
Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Washington: a crisis that will determine if American
democracy survives to the next generation. So-called 'conservatives' are
turning our government inside out, trying, as they say, 'to drown it in the
bathtub,' killing off regulatory agencies, ripping up the Constitution,
cutting funding to social services, and turning pollution controls over to
industry. Government expenses in the trillions of dollars are being shifted
from us, today, to the shoulders of our children, who will certainly have to
repay the deficits Bush's so-called 'tax cuts' (which are really tax
deferrals) are racking up. War is being waged in our name and without our
consent.

"And, most disconcerting, the leadership of this administration is made up
of blatantly profiteering CEOs, former defense industry lobbyists, and
failed hack politicians so outside the mainstream that one - Ashcroft - even
lost an election in his home state against a dead guy.

"Unlike most other modern democracies, our American electoral system only
allows for two political parties, at least at the national level. So, given
that the rich, the polluters, the paranoid, and the zealot war-mongers got
to the Republicans first, we have no choice but to take back the Democratic
Party, reinvigorate it, reorient it, and lead it to success in 2004. We may
not be able to stop Bush now, but we sure as hell can throw him out of
office next year at the ballot box."

But what, some have said in response, about the corporate-controlled media?

That was the same problem faced by the Christian Right 25 years ago, when
the coverage they could get was of Tammy Faye Bakker scandals. But once
they'd taken over the Republican Party, the press could no longer ignore
them, and Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are now regulars on network TV.

Another person answered my now-form-email by saying, "I want to participate
in producing a detailed plan for the future of America, rather than just
joining a corrupt and tired-out political party."

My response was that if there were enough of us in the Democratic Party, it
could become a cleaned-up and powerful activist force. It's possible: just
look at how the anti-abortion and gun-nut folks took over the once-moribund
Republican Party.

Another said, "But what about their rigged computer-controlled voting
machines?"

My answer is that only a political party as large and resourceful as the
Democrats could have the power to re-institute exit polling, and catch scams
like the voter-list purges Jeb Bush used to steal the 2000 and 2002
elections for himself and his brother.

And the Democratic Party can only do it if we, in massive numbers, join it,
embrace it, and ultimately gain a powerful and decisive voice in its
policy-making and selection of candidates.

Thom Hartmann (thom () thomhartmann com) is the author of over a dozen books,
including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight."
www.thomhartmann.com This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but
permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so
long as this credit is attached.


--
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
In Tokyo as Glocom visiting research fellow through April 2003
Cell: +81 80-3121-6128 Work: +81 3-5411-6613 http://www.glocom.ac.jp
eFax: +1-408-490-2868 rberger () glocom ac jp rberger () ibd com


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