Confounding the Vote

This article finds us a day or two after the mid term election.  For the last 8 months, we have been besieged by  non-stop daily emails (“All is lost!”, “No Hope!”, “Triple Match!”) desperately pleading for donations.  We knew it was coming after the Supreme Court decision in favor of faux grass roots group Citizens United.  We knew the political contribution floodgates would be open and the big money would eventually decide the outcome. It’s so comforting to know that my $10 contribution is just as important as a million dollar contribution from somebody else!  I’m angry because I spent ten years of my life trying to enact public campaign financing, and here we are with the worst instance yet of money distorting the political process.  Worse, the ads purchased do more to obfuscate than to clarify ideas and positions.  Submitting all our candidates to character attacks undermines any credibility they may have.  It isn’t easy to counter the cynics who say that it isn’t the ideas or accusations that win the day so much as the number of times they get repeated in television ads.   So, we are completely disgusted with politics and don’t bother to vote, which is probably the intended effect.

However the election turned out, I expect that it will be touted as a win for the little people.  I’m also pretty sure that nothing substantial will have changed.  Don‘t get me wrong; it does matter that you vote.  If you don’t vote, you are giving up a wondrous gift that took thousands of years to be envisioned, much less won.  However, if your team lost, it doesn’t mean that the gravity of our situation is actually that much worse.  Regardless of who won, we will still need to fight against the coal and oil trains and ports, we will still need to stem the flow of our country’s wealth up to the very top, and we will still need to stand up for social justice.

That we are at a stalemate and the democratic process is broken are not, in my mind, the natural consequence of liberal vs. conservative values.   It isn’t as rational as that.  This is a classic case of divide and conquer.  If you want to accuse me of touting conspiracy theories, so be it.  Taking advantage of our complacency, wealthy and powerful interests (that is, people like you or me that have succumbed to the wiles of wealth and power) have found a way to subvert democracy and take control.  As usual, they have probably done it with the sincerest belief that they know what is best.  They have done it by peddling fear and distrust, dazzling us with toys, making us dependent on them, and keeping us very busy trying to make a living.  Nothing new here.  By pitting us against each other, they make it extremely difficult for us to organize against them.  Racial, gender, and religious differences are not going to slow down our march toward civilization. The fear and distrust that has been cultivated around them will.  The economic and political agenda of the upper class will.

The fear and distrust we have bought into hampers our ability to think clearly about everything else.  Controlling through fear is mostly the specialty of the right, but the left partakes as well. Wealthy special interests control the message on commercial media. They tell us there is not enough to go around, and that there are people that want to do us harm.  How do we know what is true?  Well, the internet provides us with virtually unlimited and multi-sourced information, but that’s a double edged sword in that what we see there can either inform  or mislead us.    Like in nature, I think we can count on the preponderance of information leading us to something close to the truth if we can avoid succumbing to the fear.  Remember that Love conquers fear, so cultivate a sense of Love and you are more likely not to get led astray by the powers that be.  If we can all see clearly, tea partiers and #occupiers should mostly be on the same page.

Regardless of what good or mischief gets done in high places, our job is still the same.  To the extent that we become more resourceful and self sufficient here in our own community and in our own region, we will resonate with and compound the good  that is happening in high places and we will be resilient in the face of the bad.  We need to emulate those communities who are farther along and act as a model for those who are behind us.  We’re just as capable and powerful as we were last week.