Since our votes are pretty meaningless, lost in the mass of fundies, mindless independents and propagandized letter-voters, what’s left to the citizen to fight against the corporate monster?
The problem is so deep that, frankly, there’s nothing we can realistically do.
I thought of the oldest and most direct recourse, the boycott… but alas.
It’s easy enough to find retailers that aren’t involved in campaign finance, lobbying and the like. Of course, you’d have to pay more.
But what do they sell? Easily 80% of their products are directly or indirectly owned by one of the corporate monsters. Indirectly, all the products have something to do with them, even if it’s just through being transported by trucks using corporate oil. No matter what we do we feed the monster.
What’s even worse is that we are paying for our own servitude.
So what can we do? Third Way “opposition” certainly is a misnomer. Voting for the lesser evil doesn’t do any good.
Suggestions?
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“…our votes are pretty meaningless…”
Actually, less than meaningless if you live in a state with any population. EVERY state gets 2 Senators, regardless of population. Since it’s the Senate that’s the problem, we live under the tyranny of the minority. Maybe not a bad idea when the country was new, there were only 13 states, and the Federal government didn’t have much money. Nowadays, it’s those same unpopulated states that elect the corrupt Senators who are sending more than their share “home”.
“The problem is so deep that, frankly, there’s nothing we can realistically do.”
I’d agree with “not much”, but “nothing” is going a bit too far. Not that I think what we CAN do will make a lot of difference, but “nothing” is equivalent to “don’t even bother”. As long as I draw breath…
“I thought of the oldest and most direct recourse, the boycott… but alas.”
Not exactly a “boycott”. Buy local. Buy from people you know. If possible, buy from local people who you know share your opinion. Lloyd’s example with the prison farm is good. Fundie phonebooks is another example.
Basically, you have to stop looking for “the lowest price” and start looking for people you want to do business with. Even “barter” with, if that’s possible. Pay an extra 5 bucks for that DVD player, or an extra nickel for that head of lettuce, and support a local electronics dealer or farmer. Sure, the DVD player was made in China, but at least you can cut “the big box stores” (who donate like crazy to the chamber of commerce) out of the transaction. And, last I heard, China wasn’t donating to the Chamber (although that could change, now that the corrupt SCOTUS has ruled).
“Voting for the lesser evil doesn’t do any good.”
Voting for Nader didn’t do any good, either.
Vote for, and support, “progressive” candidates who can win. Speak out locally against “DINOs”. Seriously, “all politics is local”, so making local people aware of how “good” or “bad” a candidate is, is one of the better things you can do. Get your neighbors to join you in voting a bum out, or keeping a “good guy” in.
Just some ideas. We’re not TOTALLY helpless. Just “mostly” helpless.
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And there you have it! Did any progress ever come easy? We talk about the accomplishments of people past as though they were faced with some new issue they — by virtue of super powers or something — were able to tackle and resolve. No. The issues they addressed weren’t new — and neither were the solutions they proposed. They succeeded because the time and circumstances were right. They were able to win because they had enough public will behind them to succeed against the forces of status quo.
Lincoln didn’t dare run on freeing slaves — and it’s not like freeing the slaves was some new idea he introduced. For hundreds of years before him — other people had spent their lives advocating for an end to slavery. So — the opportunity of the civil war and a large population that was ready for it made it possible. War or not — if a large majority of the population had been still afraid of what might happen if slaves were freed — he couldn’t have done it. He was able to do it because hundreds of people died working for it never having seen any significant reward for their efforts.
FDR didn’t campaign on bringing in a “new deal” and he wasn’t the first person to suggest doing the things he did. The depression created circumstances that made those ideas more popular and acceptable to the masses — so — he had public will behind him as he fought people who wanted to preserve the status quo. He hadn’t been out there advocating heavily for the poor and the laborers — he ran on fairly status quo platforms. Again — the efforts of people who died never having seen any legislative success paved the way for his “accomplishments.”
LBJ? Was he actually more responsible for what he was able to do — or was he able to do it because Americans were watching children being attacked with high pressure hoses and reading about little girls being bombed as they sang hymns in church and their hearts ached over it — causing enough of the public to want to do good for those children and their families and treat them like the people they always were. We know how long that struggle had been going on — how many people suffered and died working for progress — died working to change enough attitudes to make his success possible.
Mark Twain “preached’ against imperialism — yet — it expanded — but he continued to speak out against it. As big a screw up as Vietnam was — that wasn’t enough — and the sainted LBJ escalated that imperialistic venture — so — so much for any belief that what he did he did out of any genuine respect and regard for his fellow man. Maybe his “war on poverty” was a bone to the hippies to try to get pressure off what he was doing in Vietnam. So — here we are — Twain turned to ashes a long time ago — but people who came after him quoted him as they continued his “fight” — and he’s not around to see his words bearing fruit.
We can’t all be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to witness the victories — that’s just life — it is what it is.
If I can’t actually be there — I at least want to die knowing I did something — even if it’s small — to get there — even if it’s 100 years after I’m gone. Like the nickels and pennies and quarters in the March of Dimes boxes and the Shriner’s candy displays — it all eventually adds up to something big. You might put a penny in and die right after that — but you know other people are going to put more pennies in and people are putting pennies in at other locations — and you know your penny is going to help do something good.
After all — unless we do these things only for ourselves — it shouldn’t matter if we don’t personally reap any rewards beyond the satisfaction of knowing we try. Now — as for people who are all about themselves — I guess they can do that — but I’m not about to be all about them — too.
And hey — it’s not futile. As everybody who comes here probably knows by now — I live in a poor area. Yet — to my surprise — when in response to something a cashier in a small store said I responded that I don’t shop Walmart because of certain practices — she said she used to work there and quit — and also won’t shop there — and a man passing by joined in saying he refuses to shop there. Who knows how many other people might have said the same thing if I’d stayed there all day! Poor folks recognizing the harm in those “everyday low prices” is progress! Until then — I would have guessed it might take me a month to find ONE somebody else near me who doesn’t prioritize the “low prices.”
We’re getting somewhere. We just can’t always easily see the progress we’re making.
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“Did any progress ever come easy?”
Our government is designed to maintain the status quo. That’s why, for example, the religious right can’t pass legislation banning a woman from having a choice whether or not to die while giving “birth” to a malformed fetus that can’t possibly survive; it takes 2/3 of both houses and 3/4 of the states to ignore the 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th amendments, not 50% plus 1 vote. Same goes for the right to keep and bear arms. “Liberals” can’t pass a law that violates the second by one vote and take a fundamental right away.
So, in part, it depends on how “you” (e.g. “the majority”) defines “progress”.
“FDR didn’t campaign on bringing in a ‘new deal’ and he wasn’t the first person to suggest doing the things he did. The depression created circumstances that made those ideas more popular and acceptable to the masses — so — he had public will behind him…”
Yup. Exactly.
The first image that springs to mind is an angry mob with torches and pitchforks, but that’s not such an absurd picture of what it will take to “change” America. Stopping the Frank Luntz’s of the world from driving wedges between “the people” who really want the same things. Jobs, for one. A better
chanceworld for our children, for another. Not to lose our sons and daughters and futures and security to support wars on behalf of monied interests SHOULD be another, but we’ve been brainwashed for so long that “they” are out to get us that this may be a smaller majority that it should be.But, and I’m not being sarcastic, Frank Luntz may be “the most dangerous man in America”. He’s the genius (again, I’m not being sarcastic) behind “death panels”, and soon to be “a bailout fund” for financial reform. (Note: THERE IS NO “BAILOUT FUND” being proposed. The fund in question is to be used to BREAK UP banks that are “too big to fail”.) But those buzz-phrases turn people against their own best interests, and “progressives” either don’t understand the importance of “the elevator speech” or they can’t find anyone to help them with it. (“The elevator speech” is something I learned about applying for jobs. If you happen to run into the CEO in an elevator and he asks you to tell him/her “a little about yourself” you’d better be prepared to do it in a few sentences, because that’s all the time you have. He/She didn’t ask you for a seminar.)
So, and here’s where I suspect most of us agree; the pols use social issues like abortion to divide and conquer us. The anti-choice faction has been one of the least successful groups since the 70′s, but they’re still out there helping elect POTUS’ who will nominate pro-corporate/pro police-state slaves like Alito to the SCOTUS because he’s also more likely to rule against women.
And, here’s why shit-stains like Beck and “movements” like the teabaggers gain momentum; they understand that it’s “us against the entrenched politicians”. It’s only when they go over the top and get more vocal about things like cutting taxes until the Federal government goes under, or going to war at the drop of a hat, that they lose momentum.
If the teabaggers hadn’t raised those issues, but had focussed on (for example) regulating the “too big to fail” banks, I might have joined them. It really DOES matter “how ‘you’ define ‘progress’.”
I would no sooner “follow” Glen Beck than I’d cut my own child in half (a refernce to Solomon).
Unfortunately, what this means is that things will have to get so bad that “we the people” will have to be unified in how to fix it. And, unfortunately, in the day of the marketer (the aforementioned Frank Luntz being a prime example), even then “the unification” is more difficult than it was in the days of FDR.
Really, what it will take is for people to rememember that “I saw it on the internet so it must be true” isn’t true, at all. Put another, more cynical way, America no longer has any common sense. We’re vulnerable to sound bites and the tactic of divide and conquer. (Not surprisingly, “progressives”, who tend to think for themselves, seem more vulnerable to this tactic than conservatives, who tend to get their “values” from “leaders”, whether they be pastors, pundits, or politicians. Keith Olbermann confirms what “we” already think, but I’ve disagreed with him more than once. Beck, O’Reilly, and Limbaugh tell people what to think, and they think it. Branding Faux “News” as the propaganda arm of the GOP is a step in the right direction.)
Ahh…I’m rambling. There’s more, but we’ve got some hardship ahead of us if we’re going to see any real “change”. I’m convinced of that. Voting for Nader again ain’t gonna get it done any more than voting for Obama or Palin will.
Politicians need to be more scared of US than they fear their biggest donors.
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