The detailed questions being asked: “Why isn’t Gore arrested for speaking freely?”, “Which aspect of the constitution will the parties subvert next?”, (both questions were paraphrased) have on the surface short answers but imply a much deeper frustration and question. That question, “Why doesn’t national leadership provide intelligent options?” is a very interesting one. It’s a question that has occupied my thinking on many a late evening. You can’t arrest Gore for speaking out, that is what free speech guarantees, but you can and should ask why there is not an opposing argument that is given as much press coverage. You can’t just say politicians are subverting the constitution without being specific about what law and what constitutional article is involved. But you can and should ask why do the politicians not provide the public with (1) intelligent well argued choices, and (2) intelligent and well qualified candidates.
I think there are three or four interacting reasons that have lead to the current state of affairs. (1) As TV and mass marketing entered the picture in the late 40’s and early 50’s a lot of effort was spent learning how to manage the message. That effort led to much of the social theory behind advertising and it includes the processes involving test audiences, polling, instant feedback devices for public speeches, the interaction between emotional and logical decision making, etc. (2) TV has conditioned the public to quick solutions for complicated problems. Everything is packaged as a short story where the problem is presented, the hero explores the people and evidence involved, and then wraps up the problem in time for the final credits. We all see that scripting repeated thousands of times and may have come to expect that in real life there will be a hero and neat instantaneous solution. (3) The public’s interest in the hard sciences, mathematics and economics has declined to almost zero and as such there few people in any local community that have a broad appreciation for any problem. Without respected locals to explain options, and with leadership that makes an emotional appeal for the ‘hero’ role, there is simply nobody to provide the problem background needed for intelligent voting. (4) Since the time of the East India Tea Co, we, at least the UK and the US, have evolved the idea that a corporation is to be treated as an individual in the eyes of the law. If BP in Texas, cuts the funding for refinery safety so that the plant blows up and kills dozens, then BP not the individuals that cut the safety budget is charged with manslaughter. If I get drunk and kill people while DWI I get charged with manslaughter and sent to jail. That penalty is for me deterring, but you can’t send BP to jail. They just get fined an amount that would be scary for an individual but is in the round off domain for a company. But we have taken this idea of corporate ‘individualism’ further and now are granting corporations full freedom of speech including the aspect of free speech that says you can give your money to influence public policy. Just as applying criminal penalties equally to individuals and corporations does not make sense neither does allowing unlimited political and lobbing giving. As individuals we might give $25, $100 or even $2000 to a candidate and if millions of us did that it would add up to big dollars. But us millions don’t speak with one voice and the candidate must speak to us via the media and message management. However, a corporation can with one check equal all our small contributions and a corporation speaks with one voice, the CEOs. That means we only get diluted influence while a few sting pullers can figuratively bribe the leadership, i.e. I’ll continue to match the donation I gave you for your last election advertising, but you need to work with my team (i.e. the experts in hard topics that corporations employ) on how to phrase the xyz law.
I argue from the left side, because I really do think there is a government role on managing the economy to provide all individuals with an opportunity. But I am almost as critical of Obama and the Democratic controlled Congress as I was of Bush and his Congress. McCain may have been a good president had he beat Bush in the 2000 primaries but his selection of Palin for VP clearly showed he was senile by 2008. Gore could not demonstrate that he could analyze positions in 2000 and his advocacy for AGW throughout the last 10 years continues to demonstrate that fault. His speech making shows no evidence of analysis results; that is there are no answers to any of the following questions: Yes there has been warming for most of the last 150 years but what evidence is there that it is caused by man? Yes CO2 levels have gone up but is that cause or effect? Why is this warming any different than the 150 year long warming periods that occurred in the Medieval, Roman and Minoan periods?
I have no doubt that Bush was the worst US president ever. How did he get elected? Rowe and cohorts in S. Carolina via ‘push polling’ painted McCain as having black daughter thereby giving the Bush the Super Tuesday win and the nomination, then the same group of Bush campaign manages spread the word that he was a Born Again and would overturn Roe v.Wade. Since Bush never overturned Roe (and legally had no power to do so) the campaign understory was a lie as was the primary story. The public elected a man based upon two lies, plus another related to Air National Guard service that Gore was unable to analyze. The public was not qualified to evaluate and we got hoodwinked by media manipulation. Bush was so bad that he basically guaranteed a Democratic win but just why did the Democrats pick an orator with no executive experience? For that matter why did they pick Gore or Kerry neither of whom are particularly adapt at selling a position. Basically the Democratic nominating convention includes the idea of “Super Delegates”. After everybody goes through the primary process two candidates will typically be close to the required majority but not over it. At the convention the super delegates then get the final say. They are biased in favor of party hacks (Gore and Kerry) but if they see a real opportunity for a win they go for the most electable candidate. Bill Clintons ‘impeachment’ was a media game orchestrated by Gingrich that the public was too uninformed to see through. The stench of that set the tone for the 2000 election and the super delegates tossed in Gore to repay for election support. Bush’s reelection in 2004 seemed assured so the super delegates tossed in Kerry again to repay political debts. Finally in 2008 the super delegates knew they could win and they had a choice between Hillary and Obama. Hillary’s a pretty decisive person and some of the stench from the B. Clinton presidency has rubbed off on her. The Super Delegates decide Obama is most electable and go with the orator that has a work history as a community organizer. To be a successful community organizer you have no legal power and must be a coalition builder. Put that man in Washington where the Republicans and the other nations in the world will not join a coalition and a man like Obama is helpless. The man won’t make decisions; he goes for consensus every time. His analysis focuses not on what is needed for the country but what is needed for consensus. Bush got to be the worst president by deciding everything from erroneous positions and for the good of his friends. Obama may get to be the second worse president because he doesn’t decide anything.
There have been two long paragraphs and I have not addressed Congress. I won’t bore with another long paragraph but I think you can see how corporate and special interests could utilize media, deep pockets and public naivety to give us poor choices.
The obvious question then becomes what can be done? I can’t be the ‘hero’ and provide the answer before the final credits because it just too complicated. But if I was going to design a solution I would take several steps to withdraw the privileges of corporations. It is sort of hard to do because corporations were formed under the old rules and reversing them after the fact is typically unacceptable. But now corporations are chartered by the states. It seems like it would be reasonable to say that the federal government does not recognize the state charter. That would mean that corporate officers would not be protected against personal criminal prosecution for federal crimes. But at the same time we could offer a federal corporation charter that provided appropriate protections but added restrictions that prevented federally charted corporations from political participation.
That change would eliminate the current funding and lobbing and probably force the political leadership to seek funding and guidance from the public. But it would be creating a vacuum and I have no way to reason out exactly how that vacuum would be filled.
Tom  |