Quoting journalist Lewis Lapham, Attorney John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute wrote: “The shaping of the will of Congress and the choosing of the American president has become a privilege reserved to the country’s equestrian classes, aka the 20 [percent] of the population that holds 93 [percent] of the wealth, the happy few who run the corporations and the banks, own and operate the news and entertainment media, compose the laws and govern the universities, control the philanthropic foundations, the policy institutes. …” (“Don’t Be Fooled by the Political Game: The Illusion of Freedom in America,” Aug. 10, 2015)
Whitehead went on to say: “Being a citizen in the American corporate state is much like playing against a stacked deck – you’re always going to lose.”
Some may view Whitehead’s treatise as an attack on the America we love. I, however, view his argument as frighteningly accurate. And nowhere is it more transpicuous than in the election process, specifically the current presidential election process.
It’s not an accident that it costs north of a billion dollars for a candidate to mount a run for president. That fact alone limits public participation and marginalizes the input of We the People. Specific to that point, how many have felt that their voices do not matter? How many feel that regardless of the number of phone calls and emails to those who promised that if elected they would serve you – that attending to the interests of We the People is furthest thing from their minds?
Our Founding Fathers never intended for presidents to be approachable only to those who can pay $500,000 to have dinners with them, or that a donation of $100,000 will get you a night’s stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. How many of you can afford to attend a $35,000-per-plate dinner? How many small-business owners can afford to buy a table for a minimum of $20,000 at Capitol Hill political events?
Sure, it is nice to think oneself a player because for a $2,000 donation candidates acknowledge you, but acknowledging someone and doing the bidding of We the People are not remotely synonymous.
The selection of candidates suitable to the establishment of either party is a closed process with only the illusion that we play a part. The GOP/RNC routinely destroy candidates We the People want in favor of their “pets.” Recall what the Republican Party did to Republican Rep. Allen West. Recall what Karl Rove and the RNC minions did to Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and are now attempting to do to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
If We the People had a say in what is taking place – they would involve us in the process start to finish. As it is, the people are expected to send money and vote as we’re told.
We are barraged with the damnable campaign heterodoxy that a conservative cannot win the presidency – only a moderate can, we’re told, because conservatives are too divisive and the country needs someone who can form a consensus.
And, of course, as fortune (for the party elites) would have it, the candidates able to bring about consensus just happen to be the ones they are promoting.
Regardless of the drivel those like Frank Luntz pedal, consensus is the prolegomenon that precedes our being shortchanged yet again. Well spoke the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when she said: “Consensus [is] the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner [of] ‘I stand for consensus’?”
“Consensus” succinctly stated means the establishment gets what they want and We the People get shafted.
Whitehead argued that there is today little to no difference between the Republican Party and Democratic Party.
Only blind ideologues and/or those unaware of how inside-the-beltway machinations work would disagree.
Unlike Whitehead, however, I contend that we are not helpless, but that we are craven and easily led. As a collective, We the People have lost our ability to discern outright lies from the mellifluous lips of elapids more subtle than the one who visited Eve in the Garden.
Until We the People understand we cannot fear losing if we want to win, the establishment will rule. Losing in the short run to secure our future in the long run is not a defeat. Even if the bogeyman of the day wins, it is better to have that happen than to hold our noses and allow Rove et al. to force candidates upon us.
I would also remind everyone that money doesn’t outspend votes, which means the enemy can spend whatever they want, but if we vote en masse for our candidate, their money buys them defeat.
Media wishing to interview Mychal Massie, please contact [email protected].
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