Democratic and Republican elected officials are increasingly no more than mere puppets in what amounts to a legislative folly. Congresspeople, senators, the president, all are beholden to an expensive electoral process that is bankrolled by money from large corporations. And when corporations are paying the piper, you can be sure that their song will be sung.
The real challenge in U.S. politics is for the elected official to act out the charade of Democracy. Imagine how difficult it is for a politician to get up in the morning knowing full well that he or she must do what the corporate funders want in order to keep the job, despite the fact that the mandated corporate position often conflicts with the will of the people. No wonder they always look so stressed out.
We need to be honest: We live in a corporate democracy where the health and happiness of the corporations is placed before the concerns of individuals and communities. With agreements like GATT and NAFTA being passed, and technologies such as food irradiation and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) being supported, this seems rather obvious. Thomas Jefferson may have had individuals in mind when he wrote about, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," but that is certainly not the case now.
Today our elected officials and regulatory agencies bend over backwards to make sure that corporations get what they want while we, the people, are left with a cancer epidemic approaching the rate where one in every two citizens will eventually contract the disease, and a culture so ruptured that community often means talking to someone on the Internet. We're forced to watch incinerators placed next door to our neighborhoods and schools, forced to drink milk contaminated with a hormone that only benefits the profit margin of Mo nsanto, and made to feel responsible for a national debt that the tax-free corporations largely amassed.
As activists seeking change, our first responsibility is to acknowledge and understand the realities and constraints of our current corporate democracy. To me, this means we must realize that, by and large, the legislative process is comprised of elected officials who are nothing more than lifeless, emotionless, and powerless puppets. Puppets whose strings are being firmly held by what C. Wright Mills called the "power elite," or what in today's culture could be called the corporate elite.
This is not to say that we must completely ignore all forms of legislative struggle - because there are a number of efforts that require such a focus - but we must be honest about the limitations of legislative struggles. Too often, the most we can achieve from such efforts is a continuation of the status quo or the bittersweet satisfaction of simply stopping a dreadful proposal. We can hold back cuts to important programs or fight to stop agreements like GATT and, unfortunately, rarely win. But opportunities for significant change or redirection of national priorities are simply not possible given current realities. In other words, significant movement from the current status quo is virtually impossible when utilizing legislative strategies.
Legislative politics have become the politics of tinkering, where mere obstuctionism is viewed as a victory no matter what side of the aisle you are sitting on. Take, for example, efforts by both the Democrats and the Republicans to reform pesticide laws.
During the last Congress, with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate, Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat, introduced a pesticide reform bill with the blessings of mainstream environmentalist groups. The bill, in most people's opinions (even it's most ardent supporters), was flawed and offered a slow, incremental approach to addressing a very real and immediate problem of using cancer-causing chemicals in the food we eat. The bill would have also adopted the concept of "negligible risk," a scientifically shady policy that allows regulatory bodies to weigh economic benefits against health risks when making decisions about potentially dangerous processes. But, given the corporate realities of legislative institutions, it was "the best that they could get," or, it was "better than nothing."
Republicans jumped all over the Waxman bill and easily killed it, thus claiming victory for their pesticide corporate funders while environmental lobbyists scurried with their tails between their legs. "Better than nothing" once again turned out to be nothing.
Now, with the tables turned and Republicans in control of both the House and Senate, the new majority has come forward with a pesticide reform bill of its own, introduced by Rep. Thomas Bliley of Virginia. Of course, this bill is a nightmare for those of us concerned with human health and the environment. Like good soldiers, the Democrats and environmental lobbyists are now forced to expend enormous amounts of energy, time, and money on efforts to kill it.
Strangely, mainstream pesticide efforts are now centered around efforts to kill the Bliley Bill. Environmentalists will win if the bill is stopped. But, we must ask, win what? Sure, we will have defeated a draconian piece of legislation, but, in reality, we remain right where we started - at a status quo that favors chemical corporations and agribusiness and foolishly allows the use of around 60 known carcinogenic chemicals on major food crops. Again, it's the politics of tinkering.
I believe it's time to stop tinkering with legislative gimmicks and start to go after the folks holding the strings of the congressional puppets: the corporate puppeteers. If we want to move toward significant change, it's time to start hitting the bulls-eye by going after the folks that have the power. And why not? We don't get any food from our senators; we get most of it from food companies. So the food companies and other corporate leaders must not be allowed to hide behind the democracy charade, and, instead, they must be pulled out into the spotlight and forced to take the heat, listen to the people, or suffer the economic consequences.
Going after the corporate puppeteers is exactly what the orchestrators of the puppet show are afraid of since it involves letting the public know about the whole legislative charade. Billions have been spent setting up a scenario that looks a lot like democracy, but is nothing more than a fantastic illusion whereby elected officials serve primarily as a distraction, or hurdle, to significant change.
The media focuses on their every move, despite the fact they rarely move, the public is trained to plead to them, despite the fact that they rarely listen, and all the while, the corporations stand smugly by knowing full well that it is their money that is running the show.
But even more than simply educating citizens about the democracy charade, strategies aimed directly at the culprits and short-term benefactors of unhealthy food and a toxic environment not only have more chances of actually winning but also lay the groundwork for building bigger movements that can lead to significant, system-wide change.
Besides, how can we settle for tinkering with legislative strategies when 85 million US citizens now living will eventually get cancer, most from causes that are preventable, and when the number one cause of death in children under 14 is now cancer? How can we shy away from significant change when communities are being ripped apart and subdivided as a result of a corporate culture that cares more about profits than values, and when less than five percent of native forests remain as a result of giant and shortsighted lumber and paper corporations? Finally, how can we politely sit by while, increasingly, those in power are gleefully succeeding at getting individuals and communities fighting with one another rather than setting our sights collectively on the real culprits with the power: the corporations.
Working for ultimate change starts with understanding the climate and culture that we find ourselves a part of, playing the hand we are dealt. None of us asked for, or voted for, near complete corporate control of our democracy. But it is the current reality, and now our task turns to getting out from underneath its crushing presence.
I believe there is a way out. It involves direct action against the corporate polluters, not their elected henchman and women. When a corporation wants to introduce a toxic substance into the marketplace, let's make the company pay in the marketplace for its foolishness.
When corporate executives make decisions that threaten the lives of their neighbors, let's tell their neighbors about it. And when a corporation demands that people must die in order to increase its profits, let's demand that they identify those people, get to know those people, explain to those people, look into the eyes of those people, and do the killing directly - not from a cushy office far removed from the pain and suffering caused by their acts.
Put simply: if you believe, as I do, that it is the corporation that is truly in charge, then it is the corporation that must begin to feel the righteous anger of the citizens who care. Otherwise, we'll just keep tinkering, keep missing the bulls-eye, and keep hearing the false promises about "change" from politicians who have no power to change anything.
Puppeteers, beware: the people are coming. And we're coming for real change.
[This article was reprinted with permission from Wild Forest Review, The Journal For Public Lands Reform, Vol. 2, No. 4, P.O. Box 86373, Portland, OR 97286, 503-657-1994. Permission to reprint was also granted by the article's author, Michael Colby, who is the director of Food & Water at RR1 Box 114, Marshfield, VT 05658, 802-426-3700.]
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1995