The Questioner

While some of the articles, essays, and other pieces included here argue a particular position, others simply inform, color, or illuminate the field of dialogue.*

        Abortion
        Capitalism vs. Democracy
        The Constitution-relevancy
        The Death Penalty/Capital Punishment
        Free Will   (Thesis - "The Ecology of Choice")
        Genetically Modified Food
        Gun Control
        Honesty
        Less Government
        Media Balance/Bias
        Standardized Education
        Voting And Change

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Our constitutional democracy produced a society that was the envy of many around the globe. We built institutions that created more wealth, educational opportunities, military power, and innovation than had ever been seen. Our constitution became the model for other democracies and would-be democracies, from France and Poland in the 18th century, to Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam in the 20th. Our national highway system, public education, national parks, and social security programs became models of forward thinking, citizen focused government leadership. But that was then. 

The current stagnant state of our country can be illustrated by comparing recent initiatives in both China and the US involving financial stimulus and health care. The US, under pressure from the financial institutions themselves, deregulated the industry and allowed the sub-prime mortgage meltdown to occur. Now, with massive taxpayer bailouts having gone down the rat hole of hoarded industry profits and bonuses, those same companies are fighting efforts to re-regulate their industry. The taxpayers are left with a massive deficit and only marginal benefit.

In China, whose system of government might be described as benevolent despotism coupled with capitalism, their 2009 stimulus package went directly toward infrastructure building, export tax reduction, and agriculture. Their quick action spurred economic growth, so much so that they are now as much the engine for the world's economy as is the US, whose economic output they will surpass in the coming decades. 

China also recognized that, in order to manage and contain medical costs that might become a drag on its future GDP, it had to take charge of its problematic health care system. So, after discussions among experts, China decided to begin moving toward a universal health care system that improves access for rural residents, trains more primary care doctors, and streamlines, through electronic record keeping, medical records and prescriptions. Compare this to US efforts at any sort of real reform, efforts that have floundered for decades under the weight of insurance industry lobbying, buy-offs of congresspeople, and an ineffectual mainstream media easily manipulated by corporate flacks. 

How did we get to this point and allow this to happen? How and when did we lose our democracy?

We would have taken more notice and perhaps raised more of a fuss if it had happened all at once. But the destruction happened gradually, as politicians and corporate interests took notice of opportunities to advance their power and profits. Among the incremental abuses and gradual whittling away of our democracy are five seminal events that were game changers in our descent. 

1) January 30, 1976 – US Supreme Court Decision in Buckley v. Valeo. Many view this decision as equating money with free speech. More accurately it asserted that money enabled speech. But money is neither equivalent to nor an enabler of free speech. By enabling according to wealth, the decision rations and restricts speech, in much the same way that monarchical power in Europe, against which our Founding Fathers sought to separate us, rationed speech. By confusing rationing with enabling, the conservative majority on the Court ensured that those with the most money (corporations, lobbyists, wealthy elites) could purchase the most speech, and be the most prominent voices in public, political dialogues; in the words of Orwell's Animal Farm, be the "most equal" under the constitution. Corporations have become the new monarchies.

2) October 7, 1996 – the creation of Fox News by ultra-conservative Rupert Murdock and Roger Aisles, former Reagan political operative. News reporting has always had its biases, if in nothing more than what is chosen to be reported and what is not. Fox News was the first major US outlet that was openly designed and intended to promote the conservative agenda. But a more potent and longer lasting impact was its effects on legitimate mainstream media. Because of the success of Fox News, mainstream print and electronic media have altered their business models to focus more on reflecting and pandering to constituencies, rather than leading or educating. Fringe and contrary positions are highlighted and elevated to levels of prominence and plausibility equal to those whose credibility is more factually or scientifically supported. Opinions proliferate under the guise of "balance," without definitive clarity or authority, leaving only quantity as a stand-in for quality of information, and the illusion of being informed. The rise of Fox News contributed to the rise of what is now being called the American "Idiocracy," a constituency of ill-informed (yet supremely and vehemently confident in their misinformation) voters upon whom our democracy depends. The result is, as Bertrand Russell said, "... the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." But as James Madison stated, "The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty." 

3) December 19, 1998 – the impeachment of Bill Clinton. When Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since Nixon and Watergate, they had a simple and short agenda: revenge. Beginning with "Foster-gate," "Travel-gate," and "Whitewater-gate," there was nothing they didn't try to "-gate" in their singular quest to even out the history books by disgracing a Democratic president. But after all these "gates" fizzled, they were faced with a dilemma. They knew about the President's affairs, but could they really get away with impeaching a president over the supposed "high crimes" of his social behavior? Could they do so without the press roundly criticizing them, comparing their charges to the recent, real high crimes of the Iran-Contra affair, mocking the Republicans and making them look ridiculous and blatantly partisan? Why yes they could. Republicans took close and careful notice of how mainstream media covered the impeachment process only in terms of "balanced" he said/she said reportage, staying on the level of day-to-day events and political significance, staying away from meta analysis and discussion of the propriety of the impeachment itself. Republicans realized that any position or proposal, no matter how unsupported by reason, reality, or science, would be uncritically reported on, and therefore promoted as at least as reasonable and plausible as alternative positions, elevating any marginal, but widely held, partisan position and proposal to the level of legitimacy. 

4) Dec. 12, 2000 – 2000 Presidential election. Regardless of the constant changes in American political and social life, most Americans felt they could count on their system of government, their system of "checks and balances," to ensure that their democracy was functioning properly and fairly in accordance with the designs of the Founding Fathers. The 2000 presidential election showed this not to be the case. True, there has always been election fraud, from poll taxes, literacy tests, and exclusion of those in prison, to ID requirements, road blocks, and insufficient polling stations in urban areas. But now, the fraud was being perpetrated on a national level. After Florida encountered difficulties in counting and certifying its state vote, the decision of the state's Supreme Court to allow continued counting was overturned by the US Supreme Court along partisan and ideological lines, with Thomas and Scalia refusing to recuse themselves for ties to the Bush family. Even the question of the authority of the US Supreme Court to overrule a decision regarding a process reserved solely for the states has never been resolved. The loser had been declared the winner, as was later verified by comprehensive recounts of all of Florida's votes. Our system of checks and balances could no longer be counted upon to control abuses of power. The Supreme Court was exposed as the partisan institution it is. The media, already grown impatient with both the process and a public quite willing to allow time for a fair resolution, quickly balanced away any lingering questions in its desire to move on to the profitable Christmas marketing season. 

5) Jan. 21, 2010 – US Supreme Court Decision in United v. Federal Election Commission. Whether or not the Supreme Court had actually decided in 1886 or any other time that corporations had "personhood" rights, the question is becoming more and more moot. With each corporate-serving decision, the Court effectively transfers rights, privileges, and liberties that were previously reserved for actual citizens. Without using the word "person" or "personhood", the current corporatist majority, led by life long corporate lawyer, John Roberts, has effectively granted all those same citizenship rights to entities with the unlimited resources, wealth, and influence to exercise a special favored status in our participatory government. By removing any limitations on corporate political spending in this latest decision, coupled with Buckley v. Valeo, the Court formalized the two caste American society: those with money and power, and those without. Those positions and opinions sufficiently backed by money will be promoted, heard, and therefore supported by the citizenry. Those without sufficient financial backing to access the pay-to-play mainstream media public dialog, will not. As any advertising person will attest, it's all about the number of product "impressions," whether you're selling cars or political philosophies, in the marketplace of ideas. The final nail in the coffin of American democracy. 

We like to think that having a democratic society, at least on paper, ensures the greatest chance to secure prosperity for the majority of its citizens, while dictatorships are too corrupt and inefficient to do the same. Our black and white notions need to be revised. China does not have to deal with political pork barrel maneuvering, entitlements, and corporate paybacks. They have the ability to make quick decisions for the benefit of their nation's future, and not worry about the domestic fallout from local party leaders or corporations. 

Still, top-down decision making cannot anticipate or react to all the variables of the market and the human needs of its people as well as a market economy and grassroots decision making. There will always be inefficiencies in totalitarian governance, in addition to human rights abuses and limitations on free speech. But democracies are also not foolproof. A democracy needs, first and foremost, an educated and fully informed electorate to make sound decisions. A democracy also needs publicly financed elections, in order to keep the disproportionate influence of monied interests from corrupting the decision making process. Due in part to the above five events, we have not nor will we likely fulfill either of these needs, effectively turning a bottom-up theory of governance into another form of top-down dictatorship.

As corruption and virtual bribery take over our government, and the model of balanced irrelevancy takes over media, creating in the first instance the Corporatocracy, and in the second the Idiocracy, corporations and industries that should be allowed to fail or fade will stay propped up in the short run. But with declining democracy comes poorer government management of the economy. As the size and the incomes of the middle class decline, so too will the profits of most corporations, propped up or not, leading to the ironic result of the Corporatocracy having created and enlisted the Idiocracy to undermine itself.

We can see evidence of the Corporatocracy-Idiocracy complex all around us, from the hypocrisy  of the new Tea Party to the rants of global warming deniers, both groups purposely and usefully kept ignorant and malleable.

The Corporatocracy-Idiocracy complex has evolved its management of our society over many years of trial and error, most notably by the five events noted above. The general concerned citizenry have not evolved similar responses to keep our democracy viable. Let's hope we begin to soon.

Harv Teitelbaum