George Washington was a revolutionary. He walked the walk and became our first President. And Adams and Jefferson and so on. They were not just politicians; they were "movement people." They put their lives on the line to fight for what they believed. When we elected them, we didn't have to worry about what their real values were. We knew. It was easy to know where they would take the country because we knew where they had already taken the country. In short, we understood their values and we understood their depth of commitment to those values. How far we've come.
More than 200 years later, it is a rare politician who is a "movement person." There are few places you can go in America to regularly see so many millionaires assembled in one place. There's nothing wrong with wealth but the differences between the country's Founders living their politics and today's politicians is stark to say the least.
Not only do we have a political class that, by and large, has lived their whole lives in politics, but it's become harder and harder to know the deepest values and beliefs of people running for office. Instead, we are treated to the vague pablum of "I feel your pain" or "we can do better" or "until each citizen is free no one will be free." Pretty words to be sure. Perhaps they're even true. The problem is, such words are marketing speak and tell us almost nothing about those running for office. The truth is, in most cases, even these words don't come from the candidates themselves; they come from focus-group-tested ideas and from highly paid campaign consultants. Candidates have become products. Their job, and the job of the "sales team", is to make the advertising on the box as attractive as possible; the product inside the box is far less relevant. When you see polls posted about which candidate is "winning", it's no different than saying that Coke's ad campaign has been more effective than Pepsi's.
We cannot succeed as a nation if we allow this sad state of affairs to continue. If we continue to buy the advertising and don't demand better product information, we're taking a huge risk. In his book
The Assault on Reason, Al Gore spends a considerable amount of time discussing the anti-democratic impact of 30-second TV ads. The ads are incredibly costly to run and, in most cases, determine the outcome of elections. Most Americans do not have the candidates sitting in their living rooms for a chat on the issues. We know them by what their "sales teams" show us in a 30-second commercial. Stand the candidate in front of a playground and they want to do more for children. Show a few scenes in front of a smog spewing smokestack and they are concerned about the environment. Show them helping an old woman fill out a Medicare form and they care about the elderly. IT'S ALL CRAP.
This isn't to say those issues may not be of concern to the candidate. But we don't know the details. They're "for the environment" but won't call for the mandatory conservation measures we so critically need and they lend their support to a tire manufacturer in their home state to poison the air by burning used tires (Hillary actually did this.) They're for the elderly but they won't recognize that the pharmaceutical industry has bought and paid for the Congress that writes the Medicare laws. We're being sold smoke and mirrors rather than substance. It doesn't mean there is no substance; it just means that we are an uninformed electorate with very little access to the real information we need.
Not only do we get very little information about the actual candidates and their values and positions, but we know even less about the "pitch men" who write their scripts for public consumption. Are they merely "hired guns" or do they have a genuine commitment to the candidate and their issues? Does this matter to you? Is it important to know who is writing the scripts we hear? Is there any integrity in the process at all?
The following article describes some of the Democratic Party's top consultants. Are they actually on "our" side or are they just corporate drones out to make a buck? I, for one, would like to believe that the messages they write are backed by their commitment to the issues they are writing about. In many cases, it seems, this is just not the case. The article below is very long. I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing. If you really want to understand what those of us critical of the "corporate wing" of the Democratic Party are talking about, this article lays out the case pretty well. The intent of this post is not to make an indictment of the Democratic Party; it's to make an indictment of a system that is corrupting it. If we are unable to convince those who are just merrily campaigning along but who do not see the risks the current system, a system they seem to accept, poses, our futures are likely to be very dark indeed. The script for our collective future will either be written by profit-seeking corporations and their pitch men or it will be written by representatives of we, the people. Our elected leaders cannot serve two masters.
source:
http://www.realnews.org/stories/2007-06-01... In today’s cash-fueled political world, both parties claim they have no option but to function as indentured servants of corporate America. This, not surprisingly, creates a dynamic of dependency and obligation. The Republicans have excelled at this game, especially under the tutelage of Karl Rove and Tom DeLay. But the Democrats have, increasingly, belied their long-assumed commitment to the little guy and the average American by cozying up to the money trough as well.
This pattern accelerated markedly under the Clinton Administration, which, despite some reformist tendencies, often aided the big-business agenda, easing domestic regulations and passing international trade agreements that tended to unshackle the large corporation. Some of these changes were clearly in the public interest, such as streamlining cumbersome and often-antiquated bureaucratic processes. But many others were not: lowering environmental thresholds and diminishing governmental oversight. Once the Democrats turned into the opposition, key Clinton figures found a home in offering their advertising, public relations and arm-twisting skills to industry trade associations and corporations. They retained their links to the party, and have lived a kind of dual life ever since, moving effortlessly from corporate work to campaign work and back. The friendliness with big business has escalated under the reign of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has assembled his own so-called “K Street Cabinet” – named after the street where the lobbying hordes are headquartered. <skip>
The consequence of this trend is profound. Although establishment Democrats are, by and large, still more skeptical of the corporate agenda than Republicans, they have become strikingly less so. This has led to the creation of a kind of permanent corporate governance structure that is truly bipartisan. Many of the firms employing Democratic operatives have them working side-by-side with Republicans – often the same Republicans they go up against in political campaigns. In some cases, a so-called conservative Republican and a so-called liberal Democrat are full partners in the same firm. It’s the ultimate expression of what once seemed baffling: the apparently successful marriage of Clinton aide James Carville to Bush-Cheney aide Mary Matalin.
In many firms today, former Democratic and Republican legislators work in perfect harmony on behalf of their clients, something that is all but unimaginable on the floor of the House or Senate, where partisanship has made working effectively on behalf of the public, or on behalf of the Republic, next to impossible. As a result, the self-interest of corporations too often trumps the common interest. <skip>
Now that so many key party operatives earn their “real money” helping corporations exert influence in Washington, they face more and more conflicts when advising Democratic candidates who insist they are dedicated to reform and serving the public interest. Such conflicts speak for themselves. At the very least, it’s tricky to be the strategy adviser to a Democratic candidate who supports publicly-funded universal health insurance when one has spent years working for insurance interests that vehemently oppose any changes. But that is just the scenario playing out every day. The paradoxes are staggering. And, for the most part, they are invisible.
