In Defense of Democracy

Right now, on the eve of a historical presidential election, the United States is reeling from economic and environmental challenges we have not faced before. As both the earth’s temperature and unemployment rise, our water resources become scarcer and the biodiversity of our plant food crops crash. While people lose their homes and the stock market plummets, $750 billion of our hard earned tax dollars are given away in corporate bailouts. Americans are desperate for change. Many are looking for a leader who can take on these challenges and bring our country to a brighter and more prosperous future. We are left with a choice between the “maverick" and the “hope,” but are either of these candidates really so different from each other or our past?

Unfortunately, neither major party candidate has stepped up to be the change that Americans are so desperate for. Both have spoken of continued war in a time when public sentiment in this country demands peace. Obama, our supposed peace candidate, has promised a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, only to propose escalating the war in Afghanistan. He was, to the disappointment of millions of peace voters, more hawkish when asked about Osama Bin Laden and Pakistan during the second presidential debate than his conservative counterpart. How can saber rattling and war mongering be construed as peaceful? How can we, as progressive voters, elect someone who is pushing more violence and death both for our troops and for innocent civilians in the Middle East?

Equally as disturbing, Obama and McCain are even more similar on their environmental/energy policies. Both are pushing the fallacy of “clean” coal; both have included nuclear power as a part of their energy plans (whatever meager stipulations have been set forth to placate the anti-nuclear voting base); both have agreed with offshore drilling, in spite of the fact that oil companies already have leases on 80% of the ocean floor oil deposits; both have spoken of biofuels, which will not solve our energy crisis, but rather continue the cycle of oil dependence and environmental degradation as corn grown for ethanol is not only genetically engineered, but bathed with a concoction of toxic petrochemicals. Renewable energy sources, like wind, solar, and geothermal, have been included and sound great in thirty second sound bites. However, when renewables are thrown into an energy plan that is shoving more nuclear, more oil, more coal, and more petrochemicals down our throats, where is the REAL change?

I have heard too many progressive voters justifying Obama’s pro-war and pro-dirty energy policies by saying that he has to say that to get elected. At a time when even the League of Conservation Voters is telling people that nuclear energy, the waste of which is radioactive for 80,000 years, is “clean” energy, I have to wonder at our ability to overlook our own ideals and take what we can get. Have we really become that complacent?! It seems fitting to me that Obama is running on a campaign of hope. That is all his supporters are doing right now . . . hoping that he does not intend to implement the policies he is touting on the campaign trail. And if it is true that he is putting forth lies to be elected, have we become so comfortable with being lied to and deceived that we are willing to elect someone to office in the hope that they are not being completely honest and forthright with us?

Most people recognize that both major political parties are corrupt. McCain is no more a “maverick" with a record of voting in line with Bush over 90% of the time, than Obama is the concrete change he has pledged to be. The fact is our government is corrupt because both of our major political parties are bought and paid for by the same corporations and investment firms. Campaign contributions for McCain and Obama are too often from the same entities. Also, the same elitists educated at the same Ivy League schools and pushing the same foreign policies have filled our presidential cabinets regardless of the party affiliation of that president. Is it any wonder why our country has not seen any real change in decades?

We have been manipulated into voting for the same corporate/banker agenda repeatedly. They have used the fear of what the other party may take from us as a tactic to coerce us into a sham of democracy. Wedge issues, like women’s right to choose and more recently gay marriage, have sent us to the polls to vote for the same foreign policies, economic and environmental agendas over and over again. As someone who voted for John Kerry in the last election, simply because I detest George W. Bush and could not bear the thought of him being able to appoint another Supreme Court Justice, I know how persuasive this fear can be. However, we cannot allow our fear to stand in the way of our future. We cannot create the change we seek by voting for the same corporate political puppets. We have all heard that voting third party is the equivalent of throwing our votes away. We only truly waste our votes when we continue to vote for candidates we do not truly believe in and who are controlled by those that are profiting off of war and fossil fuels. It is time we stand up and, rather than make excuses for our politicians, demand leaders that will represent our true vision for our country. We must have campaign finance reform to end the buying off of our government; we must open the presidential debates so that all Americans can hear all political views, not just those that the corporate government wants us to hear; we must abolish the electoral college so that all votes in every state are equally valued and our president is thereby chosen by a true majority. We must demand a true democracy, and we need not, we cannot, look to the political figures on our television to give it to us. We are the leaders we seek, and when each individual sets aside their fear and acts as a part of this collective progressive movement, we can bring this corporate government to its knees and take our power back. This country was not founded by the corporation, for the banker. It is time that we the people reclaim what has been stolen from us. . . our hope, our power, our future. . . and create the country we envision. . . for the people, by the people!