Here's an article I wrote before the Presidential election this year.
In Egypt and Tunisia, masses of protesters successfully removed authoritarian, western-backed autocrats from power.
In Greece and throughout Europe, bands of activists have united to challenge the harmful austerity measures being forced on them.
Even in the United States, thousands have gathered in Zuccotti Park and in cities across the country to protest the gross inequality that dominates the American political and economic systems.
But like previous election cycles, this year we have the same old choice of two representatives of the American power structure, both Harvard graduates, who will likely receive over one billion dollars each in campaign contributions, mostly from corporate donors.
The most important issue in the 2012 election is not any of the significant problems facing the country: unemployment, health reform, or inequality. It is clear that President Obama’s proposals will do little to address any of these and Governor Romney’s will likely make the situation worse.
Nor is it any of the potentially cataclysmic problems facing the planet: climate change, hunger, or war. Both candidates are even more indifferent to confronting these because they are seemingly far away and ignored by the corporate media.
No, the most important issue surrounding the 2012 elections is the nature of our democracy itself.
In particular, what is important this year is how our democracy is becoming increasingly eroded due to the influence of corporate money. This process has been ongoing for decades now, but has become even more relevant with the Supreme Court’s devastating decision in the Citizens United case.
This presidential election will be the first since that fateful Supreme Court decision and it is increasingly clear the winner will likely be decided by who can best sell themselves to corporate power.
At the most basic level, a democracy must ensure that each citizen can have an equal role in the political process. When money, which is distributed incredibly unequally in the United States, is used as the basis for political speech than this fundamental tenet disappears.
The implications of this upheaval are dire. While Washington has always been aloof of the interests of the public, it can now further insulate itself behind a wall of money from corporate donors and lobbyists. Any issue, foreign or domestic, will be decided based on the whims of corporate power, which almost always runs contradictory to the needs and will of the public.
The harmful effects of these corporate influences can be seen in almost any area. They extend from health reform, where the power of wealthy insurance companies overcame the needs of the uninsured and poor by preventing significant reform, to climate change, where efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions were halted by the fossil fuel industry’s continuous effort to prevent any real measures from passing. Even in the realm of foreign policy, where defense contractors and private security firms use their influence to keep us mired in conflicts that drain money from the government into their own pockets while resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians.
So how can we counter these seemingly unstoppable forces?
The first thing we must do this election year is understand that true democracy is not something that will be handed down from above. This is the ultimate lesson from Tahrir square and other sites of revolution.
Many on the left, myself included, made the mistake of thinking that simply electing President Obama in 2008 was enough to generate real change. The last four years have made it clear that we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves.
Using this year’s election to reinforce in our minds and the minds of others the limits of electoral politics is our best hope to create mobilization to strengthen our democracy. Making this fact clear will not be an easy task. The corporate media will focus on the minute, almost imperceptible differences between each candidate, trying to make the options seem significantly different. It is our job to reveal this charade and convince the public that the choices we are presented with are not real choices at all—it’s Coke and Pepsi or McDonalds and Burger King.
We can achieve this goal a number of ways. We can help support and publicize third party candidates to make it clear how much wider the spectrum is than that presented by the two major parties. We can occupy the elections—making our presence felt at campaign rallies and debates, when the media’s attention is the highest. And we must make valuable connections with both forces already in opposition to our present predicament and those who have become disillusioned.
Most of all, we need to break free of the mindset that traps us in the perception that democracy is something that happens only during election years and learn that constant democracy is the only genuine democracy.
