Other Episodes:
Episode 1 voting and you: -chris
Episode 2 police and protests: -tony
Episode 3 Guest Preacher: -Alyssa Kopf
Episode 4 John Hickenlooper and the CCMEP: -tony
Episode 5 The Peace Candidate: Guest Preacher, Sunny Dawn Freeman Genz
Episode 6 Stomping on Haiti: Guest Preacher, Gary Swing
Episode 7 Advice to an 18 year old: -tony
Episode 8 Deep in the Heart of a Red State: -librarytroll
Episode 9 Statement on Ward Churchill: -Breakdown Book Collective
Episode 10 9/11: The Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century?: - Gary Swing
Episode 11 Don't Have a Cow, Man: - Gary Swing
Episode 12 When Clinton Lied, Yugoslavia Died: - Gary Swing
Episode 13 Why I support Ron Paul (and Hitler) - Tony Shawcross

Please note, the views of the Soapbox Preachers are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of denverevolution. Any facts presented have not been confirmed by denverevolution.
If you're interested in preaching from the soapbox, please send to c(at)denverevolution(dot)org

Episode 8: Deep in the Heart of a Red State: Guest Preacher, librarytroll, Jan 19, 2005

The day after the 2004 election I got on a plane and headed for Arkansas, still a bit stunned by the election results (again? we let this happen again?) and a little tense about heading into Bush territory. I was on my way to my grandmother's funeral in Heber Springs, a small town of retirees 50 miles north of Little Rock.

I already know what my grandmother would have thought about the election. She was a "yellow dog Democrat" which means that she'd vote for a cowardly dog running as a Democrat before she'd vote for a Republican. She would be horrified to know that her beloved state had gone so far astray. She considered the 2000 election fraudulent, and this one could only be attributed to either more fraud or just plain stupidity.

My host in Heber Springs, a 92 year old childhood friend of my grandmother's, informed me that she's very active in the Democratic Party and was steamed about the election results. She's been around long enough to not be fooled by politicians who claim to know what's in her best interest. As we inched our way through town in my rental car, I was pleasantly surprised to see Kerry/Edwards lawn signs and bumper stickers. Where were all the Bush supporters? Had they run out early that morning and pulled down their signs or had they never put them up? This was a county that had voted 60% in favor of Bush, higher than the state average of 54%.

They're probably ashamed, I thought, since they know they've voted for Bush out of fear and against their own economic interests. Average income and home value in this county are below the state average and these people will be profoundly affected by the proposed changes in Medicare and Social Security. I did see one lone Bush/Cheney lawn sign out in Eden Isle "where all the rich Republicans are moving in and taking over." My host's only explanation for Bush's victory pointed to these rich newcomers, and of course to the "nutty born-agains." This life-long Presbyterian, one of the founders of her local church, explained that the born-agains are new to Christianity, probably because of some mid-life crisis, and they're crazy about abortion. "I don't care who has an abortion," she said, "This situation in Iraq is more important."

Her sentiments were echoed by people we ran into on Main Street. We commiserated with a shop owner who said, "What are people thinking? We need jobs! And we need to stop sending our young men out to be killed!" A woman in the grocery store said, "I feel like I'm in mourning." "We've been in mourning the last few days too," we said. "I've been in mourning the last 4 years!" she replied. "I don't think we can take another 4 years of this fool."

On the nightly news show, we heard a woman call in from Little Rock. Her response to Bush's acceptance speech was "I didn't hear the President say anything about health care." She went on to rail about how she has to pay $300 a month out of her own pocket for insurance. It's worth noting that Pulaski County, where Little Rock is located, voted for Kerry/Edwards by a large margin.

All of these things helped to alleviate the antagonism I felt toward the "red states." I'm living in one after all. I'm from California but I live in Colorado, a state that is historically redder than Arkansas. The progressive folks in Arkansas were consoling themselves the same way we were in Colorado- by appreciating the gains we made on the state level.

In Arkansas, all three of their Democratic incumbents won by wide margins (U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln, Congressman Marion Berry and Congressman Vic Snyder). They gained two seats in their state House of Representatives (a 72-28 majority) and maintained their 27-8 majority in the state Senate. "No other state in the South can boast such a lopsided Democratic majority in its state Legislature. No Democratic incumbents were unseated in this year's legislative races. Democratic performance in legislative races was our best in at least a decade."

Here in Colorado we elected a Democrat, Ken Salazar, to the US Senate, and we now have a majority of the seats in the state House and Senate for the first time in over 30 years. These are all really important victories that, in some ways, will affect us more than national policies. I do wonder about people who voted for Democrats on the local and state level and at the same time voted for someone like Bush. What is going through the minds of these voters?

It could be that what happened to a woman in Texas happened in other places too. This woman used a new electronic voting machine and at the end she opted to view her completed ballot. All of her votes for Democrats had been correctly recorded, with the exception of the presidential vote. Her Kerry/Edwards vote had registered instead as a vote for Bush/Cheney. Every day we are hearing reports of voter fraud and intimidation, but for now let's say there are lots of people who are Democrats at heart who are under the delusion that Bush would be a better president than Kerry.

What color are these people? Are they red or are they blue? The way it works now, they are red. So are the more than 465,000 people in Arkansas and 960,000 in Colorado who voted for Kerry. We've been redwashed. Bush "won" so now the entire US, technically, is red and so are the 56 million or more people who didn't vote for Bush. I think the whole idea of a winner-take-all electoral system is stupid, and so is the corresponding coloring system.

So, why do we have this craptacular system that turns some very purple areas into strictly red spots, giving the illusion of widespread support that isn't based on reality? Why do we have this layer of indirection that allows the President to be chosen by an entity other than the voters? Why don't we just get rid of the darn thing and elect a president based on whoever gets the most votes? Why, that would be Democracy and our founding fathers had quite a bit of disdain for Democracy. They considered it mob rule. They carefully and deliberately created a Republic, not a Democracy. Sometimes the words are used synonymously, but there is a big difference.

"A republic, in the classical form, is a type of government that is made up of a mixture of elements from three other types of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy... There is the Roman model that has a civilian head, and an aristocratic body which is the Senate. It is marked by a bicameral legislative body (the upper house being aristocratic) and by a written constitution that marks out the duties and responsibilities of the different bodies. A classical republic is considered by its proponents to be the best compromise between the interests of the aristocracy (or of the wealthy elite) and those of the people."

I was surprised to learn that the Senate was, in fact, designed to represent the Aristocracy. There are some who believe that the U.S. officially became a Democracy in 1913 with the passage of the 17th Amendment which allowed citizens to directly elect Senators. Back when Senators were appointed by the state legislature, a whole lot of them were millionaires who had bought their seats. The progressives who pushed for the passage of the 17th Amendment hoped that the Senate would no longer be a rich man's club. No such luck.

While the Senate is not *officially* the tool of the American Aristocracy, consider this: "Members of the Senate [as opposed to the House of Representatives] often have relatively wealthy backgrounds, and many senators are millionaires. The unusual wealth of senators stems partly from the fact that about three-fourths of senators work in banking, business, or law before winning election to the chamber. Few working-class people, those who work for others and earn an hourly wage, come even close to winning a Senate seat. The scarcity of working-class senators is caused by many factors, including the high cost of campaigns and the need for connections to the political and social elite to mount an effective campaign."

It is believed by some that the passage of the 17th Amendment was the tipping point that turned the US into a true Democracy. I don't believe that this is the case. I believe that we've gradually been democratizing the US over the years (for example, by changing the Constitution so that every adult can vote, not just the 3% of the population that was white, land-owning and male) but we still have a long way to go. Ours is a thinly democratic society. It is helpful to think of democracy as a matter of degree, not an all or nothing affair. We can keep pushing and democratizing and reforming and eventually we might create a true or Deep Democracy, but it is just as likely that our democratic rights will continue to erode. It's up to us. Democracy is never given to people, it is a constant struggle for a deeper, more authentic expression of our social desires.

If we're going to move toward Deep Democracy here, the Senate would need to become a more democratic institution and the Electoral College would need to disappear, but those are very basic steps. There are other, more general requirements that our society has yet to meet. According to Iris Marion Young in her book Inclusion and Democracy, the extent to which a society meets certain conditions determines how shallow or deep the democracy is. These conditions are: rule of law, the promotion of civil and political liberties, and free & fair elections of lawmakers. Let's take a brief look at how the US measures up in these areas.

1-Rule of law: We have this here, but with uneven application along race and class lines. One example is the way the death penalty is unfairly applied. As Supreme Court Justice William Douglas put it: "One searches in vain for the execution of any members of the affluent strata of our society."

2-Promotion of civil liberties: The Patriot Act has nullified or watered down many sections of the Bill of Rights. We've taken a giant step backward in this area.

3-Promotion of political liberties: Without access to a free, widespread forum that allows for informed and reasonable debate about issues, progressive political movements and candidates don't stand much of a chance. The increase in media deregulation over the last few years doesn't bode well for the future of democracy...

4-Free & fair elections of lawmakers: Look at the number of Americans who were disenfranchised and the amount of money spent in the last few elections and you tell me if that's free or fair.

The fact that we do not fully meet these requirements means that our democracy is a shallow one. If we want to move toward a Deep Democracy we have a lot of work to do. According to John Dryzek in his book Democracy in Capitalist Times, we would have to increase Franchise, Scope and Authenticity. What does that mean?

1-Increase Franchise: Increase the number of people involved in the political process, and that means more than just allowing people to vote, it means involving the public every step of the way.

2-Increase Scope: More areas of our lives would need to become democratic. For feminists this meant expanding the scope of democracy into the household. In our everyday lives, we don't see much democracy. How democratic is your workplace? Probably not very, unless you are in a union. How democratic are the stores where you shop? Probably not at all, unless you're a member of a co-op.

3-Increase Authenticity: According to Dryzek, Authenticity means "the degree to which democratic control is substantive rather than symbolic, informed rather than ignorant, and competently engaged... Agents of impairment include misinformation, indoctrination, conformism, public relations exercises, corporate philanthropy, "groupthink," and preemptive claims of consensus."

I think it's pretty clear that we have a long way to go. So, let's say we're not a Republic anymore, but we're not yet a true Democracy either. So what are we? Just some weird hybrid? There is a term from classical Greek political theory called the Kyklos that describes the political cycle of governments. "In its simplest form, this alleged cycle looks like this: Monarchy turns into aristocracy, which turns into a classical republic, which turns into a democracy, which turns into a tyranny... which again turns into a monarchy and so on."

There is a more detailed version of the Kyklos in Plato's Republic which cycles in the following way: Monarchy, Aristocracy, Republic, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, Tyranny. It is possible to switch from one to the other and back again without strictly following the cycle, but this lays out the most common relationships between the types. For example, Aristocratic societies can become Republics and then change back again, but it is less likely that an Aristocracy would change directly to a Democracy because that would require skipping three other stages. Skipping one stage is common enough, for example moving from a Monarchy to a Republic. An example of this transition can be found in US history, when wealthy New Englanders were fed up with feeling that they were not the sole proprietors of their work and property and set out to deny the monarchy their wealth. They established a Republic, but it did nothing to distribute the gains to the masses. It simply allowed them to pocket that which would have been sent to Great Britain. It was a movement of the wealthy and powerful against a single entity.

I believe that the system we have in place in the US today is an Oligarchy- a thinly democratic Oligarchy. "Oligarchy is a form of government where most political power effectively rests with a small segment of society (typically the most powerful, whether by wealth, military strength, ruthlessness, or political influence). The word oligarchy is from the Greek for "few" and "rule". Some political theorists have argued that all societies are inevitably oligarchies no matter the supposed political system. Oligarchies are often controlled by a few powerful families whose children are raised and mentored to become inheritors of the power of the oligarchy, often at some sort of expense to those governed. In contrast to aristocracy, this power may not always be exercised openly, the oligarchs preferring to remain "the power behind the throne", exerting control through economic means. Unlike plutocracy, oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged cadre."

It is possible to have some elements of democracy in place even though the system is oligarchic. In fact, oligarchs generally like to trumpet things like elections to "prove" that they are democratic. You can have voting equality in a highly repressive society and not have political equality. You can have universal voting rights, but without the information needed to make an informed decision those rights are effectively nullified. A good portion of the supposedly democratic elections over the last century in US client states (controlled by CIA-backed oligarchies or dictatorships) have been anything but democratic. Look for more of the same in Iraq. And, of course, let's not forget about the supposedly democratic elections we have here in the U.S.

So, rather than wondering why the system seems to be malfunctioning and why the nation is so divided and why we all feel so powerless, we ought to be aware that the system is doing what is was designed to do. Power does not rest in the hands of the people. I think we're all aware of this whether we call ourselves Democrats or Republicans or Greens or whatever. Power is kept in the hands of a wealthy and powerful few by using the classic strategy of dividing and conquering. The Oligarchs and their minions in the corporate-owned media are skilled at making us hate each other. They keep the gulf between "the blues" and "the reds" so wide that we can't even communicate with each other, and they keep the voting margin between us so narrow they can easily manipulate it to their advantage.

The real losers in the last election aren't the Democrats or John Kerry, the real losers are the American people. All of us, red and blue. Well, except for the richest 1% that controls more wealth than the bottom 95% combined. The real losers aren't "the blue states," the losers are the people in America without health insurance. That number has increased by 4 million in the last 4 years. Every year at least 18,000 people between the ages of 25 and 64 die because they don't have health insurance. Being uninsured is the 6th leading cause of death, ahead of diabetes and AIDS. The real losers are the 2.5 million workers, red and blue, who lost their jobs since the recession officially began in March 2001. The real losers are the 1,400 soldiers and the at least 14,000 (possibly more) innocent Iraqi civilians who are now dead because of the US invasion.

I'm not saying that if Kerry had been elected we would suddenly have a true Democracy, but we would at least have been able to reverse some of Bush's most damaging policies.
At least Kerry would have given our fellow Americans and the rest of the planet a little breathing room. If we have any real chance of surviving, we have to reverse our energy policies, our environmental policies, our economic policies... just about every policy we've got right now needs to be changed. Kerry wouldn't have made a u-turn, which is what we really need, but at least he would have put on the brakes a little. Regardless of who was "elected" we need to push forward with democratic reform and policy change, the kind you get by demanding it, not by voting once every four years. There is a real "us versus them" dynamic at play here, but it isn't Democrats versus Republicans. It is working people versus the Oligarchs. There isn't a middle class, there are only two classes: the working class and the owning class.

Where do we go from here? How do we turn an Oligarchy into a Democracy? There is only one thing in the whole history of the world that has ever changed things for the better, and that's organizing. Keep talking to your friends and co-workers and fellow bloggers. Join or start a union. Join or start a voter block. Strengthen or start an independent community radio or TV station or website. Join moveon.org. Get out in the street- they can take your rights away if you let them, but they can't take your voice. Most importantly, talk to all the reds and blues you know. Find some common ground. Research the issues that concern you and try to understand where the people you disagree with are coming from. Don't just listen to the chorus that is singing the same song you are. Understand that those people you think you have nothing in common with are being manipulated by the same system that is manipulating you.

We all need to realize that our enemy is the 1% at the top, not people who vote or worship differently. Those "red" or "blue" people on the other side are our allies in class struggle, and until we recognize our common enemy we'll keep fighting amongst ourselves for the table scraps of the Oligarchs. Oligarchies become Democracies when the people demand it. When we rise up and chase the Oligarchs out. Voting isn't enough. That 1% isn't going to voluntarily give up their money or their power. We've got to take it from them. Is that class warfare? Yes, I suppose it is. Does that sound scary? It shouldn't. My grandma often reminded me that there's safety in numbers. We've got numbers on our side. We're the 99%. We don't need to be afraid, they do.

When my grandmother's health and memory were fading, it was decided that it would be better for her to leave her beloved Arkansas and live closer to family. She moved into an apartment in a retirement building down the street from me. Often during my visits she would pull out a copy of a poem by Maya Angelou and cautiously ask me if I'd heard it before. She wasn't at the point yet when she couldn't remember that she couldn't remember; she still knew she was often forgetful. I always told her that I hadn't yet heard it and, pleased, she would clear her throat and read it out loud to me in a voice that was still steady and strong. The poem is entitled "On The Pulse of Morning" and was read by Maya Angelou at Clinton's inauguration. I chose to read it at my grandmother's funeral and although I was speaking I could only hear my grandmother's voice, imprinted as firmly in my memory as her values are in my life. On the eve of a different presidential inauguration, I'm reminded how far we still have to go. Our armed struggles for profit continue, fiercer than ever, led by the oligarchs who, as always, willingly sacrifice the children of the poor. The peace that we desire will only come when we first make peace with our red and blue brothers and sisters. Only then can we reclaim our country. Only then will true democracy be within our grasp.

librarytroll
1/19/2005

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