In the age of Rope a Dope Politics
Definitions:
"rope a dope" 1. The name Mohammed Ali gave to the boxing technique he used to defeat
a less experienced opponent by tricking him.
"rope a
dope politics" 1. The political
version of rope a dope, Ali's role is played by both
political parties and, if you don't know who the dope is, you
haven't been paying attention.
political parties and, if you don't know who the dope is, you
haven't been paying attention.
One hundred years
ago Henry Adams wrote, "The progress of evolution from President
Washington to President Grant was alone evidence enough to upset Darwin" With
Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and our dysfunctional
Congress added to Adams' time line,
his wry observation has been stripped of much of its humor. The decline has become too persistent to be
attributed to chance and too threatening to be ignored. America 's political industry, to no
ones surprise, dismiss any comparison to President Washington as meaningless
with the assertion that, “Different times require different policies.” It is a "rope a dope" response, a
half truth which appears to respond to an issue while avoiding it. It is true that policies change, but sound
principles of governance do not. There
is no better standard to measure leadership than George Washington, who remains
the gold standard of principled American leadership. Washington
understood that policies not derived from sound principle lead to that slippery
slope of expediency where time and assets are squandered as the policies break
their shovels on the bedrock of human nature and human history. The longer the pseudo principled policies are pursued, the
more costly and difficult they become to correct. It is precisely where the nation finds itself
today, adrift in a sea of existential issues, the consequence of policies
derived from patriotic sounding slogans and flatteries of exceptionalism,
masquerading as sound principles of governance.
The Democratic
and Republican parties must share the blame for our failure to produce
principled leadership. The cause of their
failure lies hidden under the blizzard of rope a dope rhetoric that both
parties have heaped upon the political landscape. We are better served in our search for cause
when we view the parties as the businesses they are,
with products, expenses, employees and management determined to survive in a
competitive marketplace. Their failure can
be traced to the changes both parties made to their business models as they
attempted to survive the rising cost of remaining in business. Their new business model, trading government
policy for campaign contributions, takes advantage of the unique position both
parties hold in the nation's political process.
No other entity is better positioned to fill the roles of legal conduit
for the exchange of funds and guarantor of sufficient legislative support to
make their offerings attractive to special interests. Consider this: If an elected office holder
were to solicit a thousand dollar campaign contribution from a special interest
to support the special interest's policy wants, it would be viewed as the
solicitation of a bribe. However, when a
political party solicits a million dollar campaign contribution from a special
interest, the transaction is viewed as a legal campaign contribution by a
special interest, exercising its freedom of speech. The arcane legislation which legitimized the
exchange was written entirely by the Democratic and Republican parties. How perfect: Other parties were de facto
excluded from this major source of campaign funding by the fact that they
lacked the office holders required to make their solicitations attractive to
special interests. Their campaign
finance legislation has effectively established the Democratic and Republican
parties as a duopoly, the only two legal vendors of government policy in a
growing market fueled by the ever increasing involvement of government in the
nation's economy and its social fabric.
Their new business model has been a financial bonanza
for both parties but it has been a disaster for the nation. Its most egregious fault has been the effect
it has on political leadership. It makes
no difference which party wins election, effective policy change, the hallmark
of political leadership, is doomed by special interest commitments the parties
dare not break. Special interests, by
definition, are not congruent with general interests and special interest
policies cannot be congruent with general interest policies. The inability of the electorate to
distinguish between them has burdened the nation with decades of special
interest policies purchased with campaign contributions and justified with
"rope a dope" rhetoric.
The modern media
driven merchandising campaigns, which our elections have become, are extremely
expensive. The 2010 mid-term election saw
campaign costs soar to a record four billion dollars and the 2012 presidential
election is expected to exceed six billion dollars. When one considers that the media and the
press, the constitutional watchdogs of our political process, are the major
recipients of those campaign expenditures, is it any wonder the nation finds
itself on the cusp of the worst disaster of its history? Large campaign contributions purchase far
more than access to elected office holders, they purchase veto authority over
who will fill the highest appointed positions of government where policy is
developed and administered. The duopoly
engendered by our campaign finance legislation has morphed into a
"'fourth" branch of the Federal government, undefined by the
Constitution and distrusted by the citizens.
Its insatiable appetite for financial support exerts a gravitational
influence on policy that is so profound, it has changed President Lincoln’s
description of our government to "Government of the people, for the
special interests, by the parties."
What would
President Washington say about our leaders and their policies? We need not speculate on his answers because
he left a timeless prescription for good governance in his Farewell Address,
that was known to every American schoolchild for a hundred years but faded
from the nation’s attention toward the end of the nineteenth century. It is time to revisit that remarkable
document, it not only establishes a benchmark for measuring how far we have
wandered from the path of principled governance, it defines the only course of
action that will return the nation to that path.
Before beginning
that examination, it should be noted that Washington 's Farewell Address was written
with the collaboration of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the authors of
80 of the 85 Federalist Papers. All
three were members of the Constitutional Convention and heard all the
argumentation and reasoning which shaped its final form. That priceless experience was augmented by
the positions each held during the perilous first years of the new republic's
life, Washington as the first President, Hamilton as the first Secretary of the
Treasury and Madison as a leader in the House of Representatives. Theirs was a pedigree for American political
leadership that we have not seen since.
We would be foolish to ignore them.
President Washington made his intentions clear with these
words, "a solicitude for your welfare which can not
end with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to that solicitude,
urge me on an occasion like the present to offer to your solemn contemplation
and to recommend to your frequent review some sentiments which are the result
of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me
all important to permanency of your felicity as a people.” (Washington 's
Farewell Address) Clearly, President Washington was
directing his message to the people not the political parties which had come
into existence during his presidency. He
had seen enough of them to learn they should not be trusted and that "We
the People" are the only constitutional element capable of redressing
their excesses.
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PRESIDENT WASHINGTON ON POLITCAL PARTIES “One of the expedients of party to acquire
influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims
of other districts. You can not shield yourselves too much against the
jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they
tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by
fraternal affection......
...I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy....
...It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another....
....There is an opinion
that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the
government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain
limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism
may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in
those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not
to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always
be enough of that spirit for every
salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the effort
ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not
to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a
flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume." (Washington 's
Farewell Address)
We have failed to maintain " a uniform vigilance" of our political parties and find ourselves
surrounded by the wreckage of our neglect, our colossal public debt, our
unaffordable and overgrown military establishment and our fatally flawed
foreign policy with its Manichean view of the world and its "special
relationship" with another country.
The duopoly's policies pursued in these areas are completely at odds
with President Washington's First Principles but they have been bought and paid for with
very large campaign contributions from the nation's most powerful special
interests. No laws were broken. There was no need to break any. The duopoly has inoculated itself and its
benefactors against criminal prosecution with their duopoly serving campaign finance
legislation. Unfortunately, but
predictably, their special interest policies have come together with a toxic
synergy that has paralyzed the organs of
government and locked it onto a course to disaster. The toxicity of those policies becomes
apparent when they are examined in the light of President Washington's
First Principles.
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PRESIDENT WASHINGTON ON MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS. “avoid the necessity of those overgrown military
establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to
liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican
liberty.” (Washington 's
Farewell Address)
President
Washington raises two questions:
1.Does the United States
have an overgrown military establishment?
2. If we do,
what is the necessity that couldn't be avoided that justifies it?
Any nation which
spends as much on its military as the rest of the world combined, beyond any
reasonable doubt, has an overgrown military establishment. If no other nation on the planet requires
such huge expenditures for its defense, why do we? Our Defense budgets have been
politicized. The problems which flow
from that politicization are far too numerous to be detailed here, but let us
touch on a few.
Our defense budgets have been adopted by both parties as reelection
tools which bring manufacturing and service jobs to their constituencies and
large campaign contributions from a grateful defense industry eager to
ensure the reelection of those who support their revenue stream. Weapon systems unwanted by the military
remain in the budget because discontinuing them would threaten the reelection
prospects of incumbents. Proposals for
new weapon systems spread their manufacturing facilities over as many
Congressional Districts as possible to maximize Congressional support. Congressional reviews of proposed weapon
systems require data on the number of jobs they would create in each
congressional district. All these
practices increase reelection support but inflate costs. Does anyone believe Congressional pressure on
the Pentagon to integrate women into combat roles and accept "outed
gays" in the military was driven by the desire to improve military
effectiveness or lower costs? Of course
not, they were driven by political considerations which trumped the additional
costs. The ending of the draft in favor
of a volunteer military has made personnel costs the fastest growing component
of the entire Defense budget. Signing
bonuses alone, in a one year period, during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan exceeded one billion
dollars. Mundane tasks such as cooking
and cleaning, formerly performed by military enlisted personnel have been
outsourced to expensive civilian contractors to make life in the military more
comfortable for career volunteers.
The level of defense spending is so high it has created a military far too
costly to deploy on invasions like those of Afghanistan
and Iraq . Those invasions, we were told, were
undertaken to kill or capture the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the
attacks on the World
Trade Center
and the Pentagon. Joseph Stiglitz and
Linda Bilmes in their book, The
Trillion Dollar War, have developed the true costs of those
invasions. Stiglitz is a 2001 Nobel
Prize winner in Economics and a former Chairman of the President’s Council of
Economic Advisers and Bilmes is a former Chief Financial Officer of the
Department of Commerce. The book was
published in 2008 when the invasions had no known termination dates, which
required their cost estimates to be stated as a range which varied based upon when
hostilities might end. Their estimates
ranged from a "Best Case" cost of $2.016 trillion to a
"Realistic - Moderate Case" of $3.095 trillion. Neither case included the cost of interest on
the borrowing required to finance both invasions.
Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense, once lamented
"there are no metrics" to measure the effectiveness of military
actions in "asymmetrical warfare" like the Iraq
and Afghanistan
invasions. Rumsfeld, an honest man, was
telling us in Pentagonese that he had no way of knowing whether we were
winning. Stiglitz and Bilmes have
provided a metric which makes Rumsfeld's question moot. Using the "$3.095 trillion , Best -
Moderate Case" and assuming there were between 200 and 10,000 Al Qaeda
terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq when the invasions began, we can assess the
prohibitive costs of both campaigns.
Surely, the number of Al Qaeda terrorists was closer to 200 than it was
to 10,000 but it makes little difference.
If there were 10,000 Al Qaeda terrorists and all were killed or
captured, it would have cost $309,500,000 to kill or capture each terrorist. If there were 200 terrorists, the cost would
have been $15.048 billion to kill or capture each terrorist. Neither case includes the cost of interest on
the borrowing required to finance both invasions. It is clear from Rumsfeld's lament, he failed
to see the forest for the trees.
The costs developed by Stiglitz and Bilmes make it clear, the attempt
to bring justice to the 9/11 perpetrators by invading Afghanistan and Iraq were contrary to reason and
common sense. In a word, they were
preposterous. All the perpetrators would
never be brought to justice and the invasions had the unintended consequence of
increasing their numbers while trashing the international standing of the United States ,
especially among the Muslin population of over one billion. It should be clear to all, a cooperative
Muslin population is an absolute requirement for any effective and affordable
program to deal with Muslin terrorists.
When Muslins cannot publicly support United
States policies, the United States is the loser.
The rope a dope assertion that "Our defense spending is affordable
because it is only about 4% of the our GDP" ( Gross Domestic Product), has
been so widely repeated it has taken on a faux aura of truth. Even Lawrence Summers, former Secretary of
the Treasury and former President of Harvard University offered it as proof of
the affordability of our defense spending.
When examined more closely, it's just another rope a dope assertion,
analogous to a salesman at Cartier's telling a customer that a $10,000 tie pin
is affordable because $10,000 is only about 4% of Cartier's GDS", (Gross
Domestic Sales). A more meaningful test
of affordability would be the comparison of cost to available revenue. Since our leaders have chosen not to make
that comparison, we will do it for them using the Federal revenue
in FY2007. Before making that
comparison, we need a more inclusive total for the cost of defense. That is defense spelled with a lower case
"d," not just the costs of the
Defense Department budget with a capital "D."
We have spent $6.242 trillion on Department of Defense budgets in the
last decade and an additional $3.095 trillion on the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions
plus another trillion dollars on the Department of Homeland Security. That total of $10.337 trillion doesn't
include interest on borrowing for defense spending or the definse spending hidden in other areas of
the budget like the budgets of the CIA, the Department of State, the Department of
Justice, the National Security Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department
of the Treasury, the Department of Veterans Affairs, etc. When they are included, the average annual
defense expenditure for the last ten years is well over one trillion dollars
per year.
The total revenue from Federal tax
collections for FY 2007 were approximately
2.692 trillion dollars. (The
table below is stated in thousands of dollars.)
Total Tax Collections
--------------------------------------------------- $2,691,537,557
Less refunds --------------------------------------------------------------- 295,246,560
Less refunds --------------------------------------------------------------- 295,246,560
1st
Net ----------------------------------------------------------------- $2,396,290,99
Less trust fund collections for
Social Security, Railroad,
and other retirement plans. -------------------------------------------------838,042,066
2nd Net ---------------------------------------------------------------- $1,558,248,931
Less trust fund collections for
Social Security, Railroad,
and other retirement plans. -------------------------------------------------838,042,066
2nd Net ---------------------------------------------------------------- $1,558,248,931
Less debt service, the interest
on the public debt from
"Treasury Direct" at ------------------------------------------------------429,977,998
3rd Net----------------------------------------------------------------- $1,128.270,933
Less average annual defense
expenditures over the past ten
years ----------------------------------------------------------------------$1,000,000,000+ on the public debt from
"Treasury Direct" at ------------------------------------------------------429,977,998
3rd Net----------------------------------------------------------------- $1,128.270,933
Less average annual defense
expenditures over the past ten
4th Net ---------------------------------------------------------------- $128,270,933-
The nation's average annual defense expenditures for the past ten years
may have been 4% of the GDP but they consumed over 90% of available
Federal revenue from tax collections. It
is an unsustainable financial plan which has added trillions of dollars to the
national debt. If continued, it would
fulfill Osama bin Laden's wildest dream of bankrupting the United States . Even Admiral Mullen, shortly before retiring
as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2011 said, "The biggest
threat to the United States
is financial default by the
Government." Too bad he
didn't speak up sooner.
President Washington's second implied question on overgrown military
establishments remains to be answered.
What is the "necessity" that couldn't be avoided which
justifies our overgrown military establishment?
It could only be a foreign threat, which brings us to our equally
preposterous foreign policy with its
"Axis of Evil" and its "Special Relationship" with Israel .
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THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE DUOPOLY Our
duopoly would have us believe President Washington's foreign policy principles
are no longer relevant in our high technology era with its weapons of mass
destruction. It's another rope a dope
assertion which two major foreign policy initiatives of this high technology era
bear out. One was completely consistent
with President Washington's principles and was, arguably, the most successful
foreign policy initiative in the nation's history. It was the Marshal Plan. For those unfamiliar with the Plan, it was
undertaken to halt the spread of Communism and Soviet influence in Europe by
assisting in the restoration of Europe 's
economies which had been devastated by the Second World War. The Plan began in 1947, lasted four years and
cost about $12 billion dollars. It
offered financial assistance to every nation in Europe that had participated in
the second World War including our former enemies, the real Axis Powers, and
the USSR which had become the worst threat we have ever faced with the largest
army in Europe, soon to be armed with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons
and intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering them to any part
of the United States in minutes. The USSR
declined to participate in the Plan, calling it a capitalist plot to take
control of Europe 's economies and prohibited
their European satellites from participating.
The results were spectacular. The
economies of all the countries that participated were soon restored to above
pre war levels, including West
Germany .
The USSR
and their satellites, who didn't participate in the plan, became examples for
the world of the failure of Communism.
The spread of Soviet influence in Europe
was checked and we all know the rest of the story.
The second
foreign policy initiative, our "Special Relationship" with Israel , is
completely at odds with President Washington's principles and has been an
abject failure. It has brought no peace
to the Israelis, no peace or justice to the Palestinians and no end to its costs to the United States . In its sixty four years of failure, the costs
of the "Special Relationship" have surpassed the costs of the entire Marshall Plan which was continental in
scope as opposed to "Special Relationship" funds which were lavished
on one very small nation with a population of about eight million.
WASHINGTON ON FOREIGN POLIICY WHICH MUST BE AVOIDED (as exemplified by the "Axis of
Evil") ".......In the
execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent,
inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments
for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable
feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward
another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is
sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one
nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury,
to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when
accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur." (Washington 's
Farewell Address)
THE POLICIES OF OUR DUOPOLY The labeling of
MORE ON FOREIGN POLICY WHICH MUST BE AVOIDED (as exemplified by our "Special Relationship" with
THE POLICY PURSUED BY THE DUOPOLY What precisely is this "Special Relationship" with
The CRS is charged with responding to Congressional requests for factual information on issues of concern to Congress, There are several Issue Briefs on Israel/U.S. relations which are available to the public on the internet or through the mail, at no charge. One Issue Brief, CRS Report 96-92; titled, Israel : US Foreign Assistance lays out a half a century of money, weapons transfers and other costly gifts given to Israel between 1949 and 2002, the year the report was written. It identifies over $87 billion transferred to
The General Accountability Office (GAO) publication GAO/ID-83-51, titled U.S. Assistance to the State of Israel, in the section titled U.S. Commitment to Israel, describes the "Special Relationship" with these words: "It is rooted in shared cultural, religious, moral and political values. The commitment is not couched in terms of any specific agreement such as a mutual security pact. Are we to believe "shared cultural values" explain the transfer of well over $100 billion to
Large campaign contributions have become the very best investment a special interest can make. The Return on Investment (ROI) beats anything Wall Street can offer. The investors can even hedge their investments by contributing to both parties. Isn't
During his last campaign swing through the United States. ,
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, found it necessary to scold the
President of the United States
on national television over their disagreement on the wisdom of Israel making a preemptive military strike on Iran 's
nuclear facilities. Prime Minster Netanyahu
reminded President Obama that it was his (Netanyahu's) duty to protect Israel 's
security and sovereignty. Netanyahu was
absolutely correct and President Obama said nothing. He looked like a deer frozen in the
headlights, unable to make the obvious response any principled President would
instinctively make, "You are correct Mr. Prime Minster, and may I remind
you, it is my duty to protect the security and sovereignty of the United States ." President Obama's silence spoke volumes. Why the sudden silence from an otherwise
extremely articulate young man? It had
to be fear of displeasing AIPAC in an election year by stating an obvious truth
in public.
President Washington's warning, on the dangers of "special relationships" made more
than two hundred years ago, said it all, "a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a
variety of evils. Sympathy for the
favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in
cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities
of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars
of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to
concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt
doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting
with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and
a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are
withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote
themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the
interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity,
gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable
deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or
foolish compliances of ambition," corruption, or infatuation..."
"...Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests..."
"....The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop." (
***************************************************************
THE POLICIES PURSUED BY OUR
DUOPOLY The duopoly has no policy
for managing the public debt, other than continually raising the debt
limit. Even as our ballooning debt
brings the nation to its knees, neither party has made any serious effort to
manage the debt because managing it would necessitate spending cuts and spending cuts
would jeopardize the duopoly's ability to offer guaranteed policies which must
be paid for with the duopoly's unlimited credit card. Managing the public debt would throw a monkey
wrench into the smooth, quiet and out of sight workings of the duopoly's
exclusive Policy Trading Market where special interests execute a
variation of the Wall Street "leveraged buy out." For a relatively small investment, campaign
contributions, special interests acquire something of much greater value, the
guaranteed policy support of the U.S. Government. Our duopoly engage in "leveraged sell
outs" where they exchange something of little intrinsic value to them,
government policy, for something they require to remain in business, large
campaign contributions.
CONCLUSION
Most Americans know little about President Washington's Farewell
Address, which many historians consider one of the nation's founding
documents. It is over four thousand words
long and his announcement that he would not run again is contained in the very
first sentence. The words, "avoid foreign
entanglements," do not appear anywhere in the document. Washington
wrote it to identify First Principles of governance, principles required for the
derivation of sound policies which would have avoided the
existential threats gathered before us today. He warns us that political parties pose the greatest threat to our republic
because they, "open the door to
foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the
government itself though the channels of party passion." He knew political parties they could not be abolished and he warned us to keep a uniform
vigilance of all them because they will place their party's interests
ahead of the nation's interests.
We have ignored his warning and, as he predicted, the parties pursued policies which are completely contrary toWashington 's
First Principles, but are consistent with his warning that the parties would place
party interests ahead of the nation's interests. Their policies have yielded large
contributions for the duopoly but they have saddled the nation with
ineffective, counterproductive, and unaffordable special interest policies, justified with rope a dope
rhetoric. Our defense
spending is usually justified with some version of, "No cost is too high
to bear to ensure our freedom and our security." After spending trillions
of dollars, which we did not possess, we find ourselves with less freedom and
less security. The
"Special Relationship" with Israel
is justified with rope a dope assertions like, "We must support Israel
because it's the only democracy in that part of the world." Even if that were true, which it is not,
democracy does not ensure justice, it only ensures that the will of the majority will prevail. Are we to conlcude that justice
is no longer an objective of our foreign policy?
We have ignored his warning and, as he predicted, the parties pursued policies which are completely contrary to
Public opinion surveys show the majority of Americans believe the nation "is headed
in the wrong direction" and major policy change is long overdue, but our reigning duopoly have made no significant changes to their policies because they fear the consequence of breaking the commitments
they made to special interests when they accepted their campaign
contributions. The duopoly's
unprincipled behavior is not limited to their fund raising practices. The two parties have joined together in an
arrogant, unprincipled, but successful effort to wrest control of the
nation's only televised Presidential debates away from the independent League of Women Voters and replaced the League's principled and independent board with a duopoly
friendly board, half of whose members are appointed by the Democratic Party and
half appointed by the Republican Party.
Most of us have three ballot options.
Option
1: Vote for the Republican Candidate.
Option 2: Vote for the
Democratic Candidate.
Option 3: Vote for a third Party
Candidate.
If you choose either the Democratic
or the Republican option, your candidate will enjoy the financial advantages of
the duopoly's special interest fundraising practices, which include the services of
the political industry and sufficient financial resources to purchase
media time and print space for a first class, billion dollar merchandising campaign which will
blanket the nation with targeted rope a dope messages. No question about it, a duopoly candidate will
probably win the next election. Congratulations
may be in order, but you have just sentenced the nation to four more years of
government for the special interests, by the same two parties that brought the
nation our colossal public debt, our unaffordable military establishment and our bellicose
and preposterous foreign policy. You may
even receive a bonus this time, another unaffordable and unnecessary military
adventure in the Middle East, this time with Iran . If you have any doubts about it, just listen to
the duopoly's candidates and observe their behavior. No one is talking about ending the deadly
embrace between their corrupting fund raising practices and their
special interest benefactors. The
Presidential candidate who wants us to flip
the coin over, has taken time away from his campaign in the United States to fly to Israel where he
attended a $50,000 a plate fund raising dinner, hosted by none other than
Sheldon Adelson. Make no mistake, the
duopoly and their hirelings have no intention of abandoning the practices
which brought them to power. They will only abandon them when they fail
and they will fail only when voters stop voting for them. Like it or not, your vote will be counted as
a vote of approval for the duopoly's unprincipled practices and unprincipled
policies. It's the only way it can be
counted. There is no line on the ballot
for conditional approval.
If you choose Option 3, you have decided to vote for the third party
candidates who best meet Washington 's
principled standards. The key to solving our duopoly dilemma is in the hands of the tens of millions of voters who are
dissatisfied with the duopoly and their candidates, but haven't voted for third
party candidates because they believe it would be casting a non
significant vote. If you are one of
those voters, consider this: Voting for a duopoly candidate makes your vote
"significant" only if you define significant as being included
in a winning candidates total. That's
a very low bar for the definition of significant, especially when one considers
the very significant issue which confronts us: What is the purpose of any
election in the United
States today? Is it to select the lesser of two evils or
the least undesirable of two bad alternatives?
If it is, we have wandered a long way from the path of principled
governance, perhaps too far to find our way back. That fear alone should be jstification enough for voting against the duopoly.
The number of dissatisfied voters who decide to vote for third party
candidates will not be known until the ballots are counted. If there are none, nothing will change. The duopoly will breath a sigh of relief and
return to busness as usual. If all the
dissatisfied voters were to vote for third party candidates, the duopoly's
strangle hold on the election process would be broken. Somewhere between those two extremes lies the
probable outcome. The higher the total, the
weaker the duopoly becomes and the quicker they will change their ways or be
gone.
The corruption of our political
system would not have surprised the Founding Fathers, who understood that all
political systems degenerate over time and eventually are abandoned or
replaced. Perhaps that time has come for
our republic, we cannot know with certainty.
We do know with certainty, that if the rampant corruption of our
political system is to be stopped, it will require an electorate that values
principle and demands it of our leaders.
The necessary reforms will not happen serendipitously. Principled leadership is our only protection from the frailties of
human nature in public office. President
Washington understood it and feared it might not be understood or remembered by
future generations. It is precisely why
he wrote his remarkable Farewell Address, remarkable for its simplicity, its
timeless wisdom and its prescience, rooted in its understanding of human
nature. Washington and the Founding Fathers have done everything they
could, now it's entirely up to us. We
are the only ones who can take that necessary first steps toward the path of
principled governance. It won't be done
by the Supreme Court or a duopoly controlled Congress or White House. It can only be accomplished through the
ballot box.
The good news is,
the abysmal approval ratings of the duopoly are its Achilles heel. Their extremely low approval ratings can now
be translated into votes which will make it difficult, perhaps too difficult, for
the duopoly to continue their business as usual. The third party threat to the duopoly's control is
greater today than it has been since Ross Perot ran for the presidency. There is the Libertarian Party, the Green
Party, the Constitution Party, the Tea Party crowd, the Occupy Wall Street crowd,
the Ron Paul & Son crowd, etc, which offer ballot box alternatives or
support for manifesting the disapproval of tens of millions of disgusted
citizens who are mad as hell and aren't going to take it any longer. Option 3 is the only significant
choice for returning the nation to the path of principled governance because it sends an unambiguous message to the duopoly.
If we are to survive the tests which lie before us, sacrifice by everyone will be necessary and that will require leadership we trust. We don't have that leadership and we will never get it by choosing Options 1 or 2. It's really a matter of Principle. John Quincy Adams said it well, "A vote for principle is never lost"
If we are to survive the tests which lie before us, sacrifice by everyone will be necessary and that will require leadership we trust. We don't have that leadership and we will never get it by choosing Options 1 or 2. It's really a matter of Principle. John Quincy Adams said it well, "A vote for principle is never lost"