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Mary Shepard, W A M M
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With the memory of the last election debacle still fresh in our minds, most people are reluctant to think of the next one. If only there was a “none-of-the-above” option on the ballot, perhaps we could discover how many people would become voters if they had a chance to register their unhappiness with the choices presented to them.
Truthfully, our election process never rests. While we are asleep, others are preparing for the next one. Past election losers are busy repairing their fences from whatever mistakes were made the last time around. New candidates are compelled to achieve name and face recognition among indifferent voters who are much more interested in the stars of the entertainment and sports worlds. Without an ongoing presence on TV, candidates know they will be quickly forgotten. The attention span of the general public seems to be shrinking.
Such things as ease in front of TV cameras, a good sense of humor, and an ability to avoid locking oneself into one side or another of a raging controversy while still seeming to be decisive, are real skills. Statements like “I haven’t decided yet” risk the impression the candidate has not given the subject the attention it deserves. Answers to tough questions must be qualified enough so that the candidate can reverse positions when conditions change. All the while, the candidate must give the impression of being decisive and forthright.
Meanwhile, well-informed reporters must ask the right questions of the candidates, and fuzzy replies should be followed with demands for clarification. Reporters often fear they will be perceived to be harassing the candidate rather than trying to get clear answers. Image is everything for reporters and candidates alike.
Much of this is the result of television. New rules for media ownership will not help. The owners have inordinate power over program content. Half the radio stations are owned by such opportunists as Rupert Murdoch, who are only interested in moneymaking, which does not necessarily help listeners receive the information they need to know.
Television viewers are aware that they are constantly being conned by the advertising industry with sales pitches promising results that we know will be impossible to achieve. Television, as we know, has proven to be a useful tool for enhancing images and hiding blemishes, and it is the campaign venue of choice because it reaches so many more people than large meetings. The huge size of the broadcast (radio as well as TV) audience and its diversity make it impossible for the candidate to please everyone within earshot. So speeches often indulge in generalities and timeworn platitudes.
The net result is that the cornerstone of our democracy—the ability of citizens to communicate with candidates—has been transformed into a series of boring, stylized events. Admittedly, good political analysts are better now at telling us what a candidate has done or said in the past that could be predictive of future decisions on particular issues. But this information is filtered through commentators who have special interests of their own and are backed by sponsors with enough money to buy air time.
U.S. candidates as well as the general public are becoming much more sophisticated than they used to be about the history and geography and culture of other nations. They are learning to make the necessary connections between events abroad and our own politics. No longer is it easy to make the general public believe political ruses like Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. Making them care enough to respond, however, may be another matter. The coverup of the manufactured excuse for attacking Iraq is now buried in the back pages of the papers—never on the front page where the full story belongs. It is difficult to say whether it will become a major campaign issue at all. After all, the major media commentators tell us, “It doesn’t matter if we were lied to. By attacking Iraq, regardless of the reason, we are now rid of a political faction which threatened our control of Middle East oil.” And so the U.S. continues to descend the slippery slope to imperialism.
Fortunately, we have now had generations of young people traveling and living abroad as students or volunteers. Their international experiences are changing voting patterns. Neither George W. Bush nor his father had any major foreign exposure and the same could be said of most of our past presidential candidates unless they had been born abroad and spent early years there. Elitists like the Bushes may have been abroad as tourists or as executives of corporations with foreign branches. Such experiences, too often, are reduced to meetings in airports, which look alike worldwide. An extended experience immersed with peoples of other countries at many levels of class and occupations is what is needed for real understanding.
In sixteen months we will have another chance to redeem the damage done by the non-election of 2000. In a June 10, 2001, article in the Washington Post, commentator and analyst Greg Palast said, “If you liked the way Florida handled the presidential vote in November you’ll just love the election reform laws that have passed since then in ten states.” Prospects for clean elections have not improved much since then. The reality is that voter fraud can be applied in many different ways, all of them difficult to prove and impossible to prosecute. Most proposed reforms have no enforcement provisions and cannot guarantee full disclosure of conflicts.
The surest way to honest elections is to have honest, well-informed people on the ballot who are willing to hear and evaluate dissident opinions. Which brings us back, full circle, to the difficulty of knowing what sort of people are on the ballot when we go into the voting booth. This calls for diligence and integrity of the media and the politicians of all parties. Our present formula for elections makes such needs difficult to achieve. Are we ready for 2004? This could be our last chance to save our democracy. |
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The Cost of War
The cost of the Iraq war can be calculated in myriad ways: lives lost, dollars spent, opportunities missed. Another cost is the loss of trust and integrity in our government when companies with connections to the Bush Administration profit because of the war. Here are two examples:
On April 17, 2003, the Bechtel Group, a U.S. construction firm, received $34.6 million of an 18-month Iraq reconstruction contract worth up to $680 million. A limited bidding process prohibited public review and was kept secret from Congress. George Schultz (former secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush) is Bechtel’s senior counsel and director, and chairs the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a pro-war group with White House ties.
Halliburton, an oil industry company, has so far been paid $76.7 million for work in Iraq. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, & Root has a contract to operate Iraq’s oil industry, which could ultimately be worth $7 billion. It also has a $90 million contract to provide services for the Americans working to rebuild Iraq.
Vice President Dick Cheney ran Halliburton from 1995 to 2000 and receives $180,000 a year from the company in deferred compensation.
— Sharon Grimes, W A M M
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© 2003 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete July/August 2003 Index - click here
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