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Fog and U.S. Political Revolution
Although Frederick "Fog" Horne has finished his columns, e-mail for him keeps arriving.
Some of it asks about his response to the 9/11 attacks and his political views on things. In a telephone conversation where I summarized his e-mail (he "doesn't do e-mail") he expressed his views on these topics.
As you may know, Fog's has had a long and full life. As a reporter he has witnessed more in his life than most people do in several lifetimes. In the last few years he's had time to reflect on things.
What follows paraphrases his thoughts.
No matter how lofty and well reasoned their original intentions, countries and companies seem to eventually fall victim to some kind of "organizational dry rot."
Given today's competitive environment, companies burdened by dry rot who don't institute major reform are soon replaced by companies that can do the job, faster, cheaper and (occasionally) better.
With countries it's a different matter. They are geared to perpetuate themselves by means of their laws and their militia, and in a sense they have no real competition.
But, after a while even democratic societies with built-in checks and balances cannot survive the efforts of forces that judiciously work within their systems to manipulate things to their own benefit.
In the case of the United States this "benefit" is political control and increased profits for the few.
Thus, the concept of a true democracy is undermined—generally in a very legal fashion through a quagmire of complex laws that must be interpreted by lawyers (who, given 90 days and a few million dollars, could legally turn each of the Ten Commandments around 180 degrees).
What we are left with in 2002 in the United States is a government that, although democratic in name, is actually run by big money. This money comes from the corporations that contribute the millions of dollars needed to elect their candidates—candidates, who, in order to get elected and reelected must quietly serve the interests of their "sponsors."
In short, politicians must play the game in order to stay in the game.
Attempts at "reform" are subtly blocked by business interests who don't want to lose control. Any politician who tries to wrestle control away from the corporate interests finds himself hamstrung by fellow lawmakers with an eye on their own futures. Subsequently the candidates are defeated in the next election. Examples abound.
At this point the whole U.S. political process is hopelessly mired in the quagmire of special interests. Even the politicians couldn't rescue it now, assuming they were motivated to.
The majority of the voting public seldom gets beyond super-condensed TV news accounts of the issues. This makes it easy for candidates who have the money to hire savvy campaign managers and pay for expertly designed, empty promise TV commercials that end up putting their candidates in office.
In the final analysis, big money controls the government, and any attempt at election reform is sabotaged or watered down the point of being mostly empty rhetoric designed to placate the electorate.
Although all this is an oversimplification, it's hard to dispute the end result: the U.S. public has lost control of its government.
It might be a tolerable situation if what's in the best interest of corporations was also in the best interests of the public. But, corporations are primarily interested in short-term profits—often at the expense of the public's welfare.
The effect of this self-serving supercommercialism is also behind much of the anti-American feelings around the world, not to mention giving fundamentalist fanatics fuel for their warped religious causes.
But, given the way our economic system has evolved with its focus on short-term profits there is little we can do to change this.
So, is the situation hopeless?
There is one ray of hope, but it's strongly opposed by Republican forces with ties to big business. It's the Clean Elections approach, now being tried in Arizona and two other states. After a number of major scandals in Arizona, the population voted for the clean elections initiative, which virtually eliminates big business control of the election process. Opposition forces are not attempting to have the Supreme Court rule against the Clean Elections approach.
Given big money's opposition to returning democracy to the people, the only real answer might be—which is a real long shot—is for some type of bloodless revolution to take place.
At the same time the laws must be rewritten to put impenetrable "firewalls" around the election process to keep it from being hijacked again. (We thought we originally had that in place, but obviously it hasn't worked.)
This internal revolution would probably take a charismatic leader with the ability to work outside the system, crash through the barriers of public apathy, and steamroll needed reform.
Of course, this has been attempted in many countries with unfortunate consequences when the "knight in shinning armor" was corrupt, was corrupted, or just proved to be crazy. We only need to remember that Alolf Hitler was seen as the savior of Germany.
This is treacherous territory; but, then again, nothing that's this far-reaching and consequential would come easily.
Thanks to this country's opportunities, I've enjoyed a pretty full life. It would be nice if all that I've enjoyed would continue to be available to the young people just starting out.
I worry about that.
-Frederick (Fog) Horne, February 2002.
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