a little essay

from cousin greg---

With all the emails flying around lately about presidential candidates, I thought I’d throw in my two cents as well. I know no one really cares what I think (at least probably shouldn’t anyway), and your minds are probably made up (as is mine) but just in case anyone’s interested, I’ll say my bit once and then sit down.

I should begin with “full disclosure” of my basic point of view. I’m a registered independent, but I don’t think I’ve ever voted Republican. It’s not that I’m one of those who thinks Republicans are always wrong and Democrats are always right. Rather, I think Republicans are always wrong and Democrats are almost always wrong. In principle, I hold with those who, in 2000, insisted there was no essential difference between Bush and Gore (though the last 8 years have provided a stark example of how big a difference a small difference can make, given the right circumstances). If I had to label myself, the label would be democratic socialist. [Don’t gasp – remember: Socialism, capitalism, communism, etc. are economic systems. Democracy, autocracy, monarchy, etc. are forms of government. One economic system is not necessarily tied to a particular form of government – they can be freely mixed and matched – with no system necessarily purely one “ism” or the other. And none of the above has any exclusive claim on religion, or vice-versa.] I believe that society should tend to the basic needs of all its members before protecting the riches of the wealthy, and that it should not allow its environment to be degraded for the benefit of business, since everything that fuels “the economy” ultimately comes from “the environment”, and since, to one degree or another, individuals’ health depends on it. I believe that government should not influence individuals’ choices with regard to lifestyle any more than necessary for the functioning of society. Now that my bias has been disclosed, I’ll focus on why it is that I support Democrats rather than Republicans, paying less attention to the particular individuals involved for now.

Both Democrats and Republicans hold that most property should be privately owned, and that most human needs should be met by private industry, with the differences between the parties being a matter of degree and of how they measure what they regard as freedom (more on this later). Although I strongly believe in free and fair enterprise and in the right to own reasonable property for one’s own use, my view of what should constitute “the commons” is much larger than that of either party. My view of the commons stems from the idea that humans are a part of the earth. This statement standing alone may sound a bit airy at first, but with just a moment’s reflection, it’s easy to see that the concept is an integral part, in some form and degree or another, of most varieties of both scientific and religious thought. This recognition, taken to its logical philosophical conclusion, might require an extensive overhaul of the whole concept of ownership (how can you “own” something when you have no control whatsoever over either its origin or its ultimate fate?), but that’s another discussion. For now, it just explains why I believe that no person should deprive another of essential needs for the sake of profit, and that no person is entitled to a larger share of resources than another until essential needs have been met. But what is essential?

Obviously, from a biological standpoint, the essentials are air, water, food and (in most climates) some degree of clothing and/or shelter. Clearly, there was a time when the average human, or at least a member of the average human family, could provide those things with nothing more than sticks or rocks as tools. Even a couple hundred years ago, some people could provide for themselves with little more than a knife and rope and the clothes on their backs as a head start. Today such persons are rare, to say the least. With the ceding of much responsibility for society’s needs to an ever smaller set of technologically educated persons, the circle of things that are essential has expanded. In some locales, this means a change from growing and hunting one’s own food to buying it. In today’s U.S., it means this and a lot more. For better or for worse, most Americans’ survival (literally) depends not only on food and water, but on electricity (or other remotely supplied energy) for heat and light; transportation; communication; police protection; and health care. Even if one would like to opt out of the current situation, doing so would require an enormous sum of money to begin with. One can’t simply walk into the woods and stake a claim anymore. With this in mind, I believe the afore-mentioned services (food, water, energy, emergency services, basic transportation and communication, and health care) should be provided as commonwealth. This is not to say that everyone is entitled to satellite TV and a car free of charge, or indeed that any of it would be “free”. After all, early man did not sit around and wait for cave service; he had to go get food, water, fire for himself. But it is to say that these things should be provided first, without regard to whether or not someone can profit from the provision of them, and that no one can prevent, for sake of profit, someone else from honestly acquiring those essentials. While many people would agree with this idea, such deprivation happens all the time with the permission, if not encouragement, of government. Remember back to last year, when American pharmaceutical companies tried to prevent, through the WTO, African governments from developing generic anti-AIDS drugs. These corporations clearly believed that their patent rights were more important than the lives of millions of Africans who would certainly die without the drugs, and who could in no way afford to pay for them. And consider the actions of seed companies in recent years. The development of genetically modified plants has led to the patenting (or attempted patenting) of many strains of plants. This has led to situations in which farmers (sometimes subsistence farmers) have been sued by manufacturers for saving seed, a practice which (by definition!) is as old as agriculture itself, or even for having (often unwanted) “patented” plants in their fields, the pollen having been delivered by wind.

In summary of this topic, I think it is not an exaggeration to say that the core of today’s Republican party believes that all human needs except for air (so far) should be provided by for-profit businesses, and those who cannot afford them should do without. It is willing to provide scant assistance only when the situation is such that so few people can afford the service in question that the survival of the providing businesses is in question. The Democrats, by (slight) contrast, are more willing to provide more than desperation-level assistance, although it is still not clear that the concern is for the welfare of the people rather than the “providers”. An example is the case of health care. When the Clinton administration made attempts (spearheaded by the then-hated Hillary) to expand health care coverage in the early 90s, the Republican response was a simple NO. Employer-provided health insurance was a nice idea, they said, and it’d be great if everyone could have it. If your job doesn’t provide it, then get a better job. Now, with fewer and fewer full-time employees covered by health insurance, both parties are offering “solutions”. While the Democratic plan is a bit more inclusive and extensive, I think they’re both barking up the wrong tree. Both view the problem as inability to afford insurance, whereas I view it as the necessity of insurance to begin with. Health care can be provided without health insurance – several countries do it at lower per capita cost than the U.S. – but neither party will go there. While coverage may be expanded by these plans, no plan will go forward unless insurance companies benefit first. So, lame as their position is, I’ll side with the Democrats.

There are a couple of economic myths, usually held as gospel by Republicans and rarely argued with by Democrats, that I’d like to debunk. One is the idea that “the market” always has the best solution – that private industry can always do something better, faster and cheaper than government. This may often be true as long as someone can profit from a situation, but opportunity to profit does not always match need. Health care and housing provide two current examples: There are many situations in which there are great needs, but no profitability, so what happens? Needs go unmet. And, to boot, the gospel is not always adhered to by those who preach it. An example of this is digital TV. I don’t own a TV, so I’m not too up on this one, but it appears digital TV has been around for a few years, and simply hasn’t caught on. Consumers were decidedly uninterested. So what happens? Government forces it on us by doing away with analog broadcasts. Why not let “the market” decide? (I guess TV is something too important to take chances with, unlike housing or health care.)

A second myth is so-called supply-side economics. The trickle-down theory. The idea that “a rising tide lifts all boats”. Cut taxes for the wealthy and they’ll invest it to the benefit of us all. It is astonishing to me how many people across the political spectrum still swallow this bogus theory when there is so much evidence (both current and historical) to the contrary. From the 1880s to the 1920s, such policies brought tremendous increases in stock values, greatly expanded use of credit, an explosion of wealth in the financial industry…and the Great Depression. In recent times, this theory was implemented by Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr. and only lightly tampered with by the Clinton administration. In chapter 3 of Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips tracks income trends for the period from the early eighties to the late nineties. During this period, average wealth (in inflation-adjusted dollars) of those in the top 1% of earners approximately doubled. For those in the top 20% it increased by an average of about 50%. Those in the 20^th – 80^th percentiles had slight losses on average, and those in the bottom 20% lost about 9%. (The average wealth of the thirty richest people in the country increased by a factor of more than ten during this period.) So much for the rising tide. The “New Deal” in the 1930s brought with it, among other things, a top marginal tax rate of 90%, but somehow the period from then through the 1950s (presided over largely by Democrats, incidentally) brought the emergence of the modern middle class, and the largest economic expansion the country has ever seen. I believe very high taxes for the wealthy are easily justifiable. They do not make their money in a vacuum; they make it from the rest of us. Without the society and infrastructure that government provides the nuts and bolts for, no doctor, lawyer, CEO or plumber would have any basis for becoming wealthy. I realize many wealthy people have worked hard for their money, often earning it through very useful work, and sometimes using their wealth beneficently. This should not be optional. The more they make from society, the more they owe it.

What about issues other than economic ones? In the 2000 and 2004 elections, many voters cited “moral values” or “family values” (whatever those are) as reasons for voting the way they did. So what has happened on that front since then? Have we become more “moral” as a nation? Have we even come to any more agreement on what that means? Is church attendance up? Are abortion rates down? Divorce rates down? High school graduation rates up? Are parents spending more time with kids? I don’t know stats right offhand, but I’d be willing to bet (and willing to bet you’d be willing to bet) the answers are “no”. Take a look at the issue of abortion, for example. The Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in the early 1970s. People who opposed the decision immediately began fighting to reverse it. They may well succeed at some point, at which time those who oppose that decision will immediately began fighting to overturn it, and they will at some point succeed. Unless the country unexpectedly comes to some sort of consensus on the issue, the only way out of this cycle is for those who oppose abortion (which is to say nearly everyone, including most of those who believe in the right to choose one if necessary) to work together from all angles with the goal of eliminating the need for abortions. What I’m suggesting is that these issues don’t have legislative solutions, and so are poor ones on which to base a choice of elected officials. Since we currently face economic, environmental and foreign policy problems which are each enough individually, let alone collectively, to sink us if not handled properly, voting for competence in these matters seems more prudent. Still, I have to point out a couple of oddities on “moral” issues.

The Republican party opposes abortion choice. It also supports capital punishment. Although I’m sure they exist, I don’t think I’ve ever personally met an individual who opposes both of the above. It strikes me that those who oppose abortion choice would be much harder to argue with if, as a whole, they extended the same reverence for life to fully-formed, thinking, living, breathing persons (however guilty or wretched) that they do to fertilized eggs.

Another odd issue is the question of same-sex marriage. When the Republican party came into power in 1980, its overarching theme was that government intruded too much into the personal lives of citizens. Hence I find it odd that Republicans want to define marriage as existing only between one man and one woman. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the choice of a life partner is a pretty personal decision, and I fail to see that the government should have any say in it at all. Marriage is primarily a social and religious institution that predates government as we know it; thus I don’t believe the government should be in the marriage business period. I believe that civil unions, and civil unions only, should be extended to all couples. All couples – men, women, one of each, brothers & sisters, best buddies, whatever – who, for whatever reason, want the legal, economic and domestic benefits that now are available only to married couples should be able to enter into such arrangements. The only requirements should be that its intent be permanence, and its dissolution be difficult. If such a couple also wishes to be married, that’s another issue which should be decided by the couple’s social customs and religious affiliations. Religious institutions would be free to determine their own positions on questions of marriage.

Of course, neither party’s positions on the above issues really matches my own, but despite the Republican flying of the government-off-your-back banner, I find the Democratic position on both much more honest.

So far I have spoken only about parties and not about candidates. Despite common expressions such as “I vote for the person, not the party”, and the popular disparaging of “party politics”, the party a candidate belongs to is usually the single best indicator of his/her views. After all, candidates choose parties, they are not assigned to them by lottery. And no politician can accomplish much without the support of his/her party. Also, how does one really judge an individual that one knows only filtered, both intentionally and otherwise (and by both detractors and admirers), through multiple layers of media? If there were many viable parties in this country it might be a different story, but given that we have only two, it makes good sense that party affiliation should play a major role in voting choices. Beyond that, one can examine (deeper than sound-bite level) a candidate’s stated positions on issues, and examine his/her voting record. Few people do this, however. After all, it is universal for Americans to complain bitterly about Congress, yet to send their own incumbents back again and again. It’s never “our” representative that casts those “bad” votes. So who does? If people actually knew, Congress might look different.

A year or so ago, when the presidential race was just beginning to gel, I thought I would wind up voting in the Republican primary for McCain, because I believed a Republican would win the election, and that he was the most acceptable of the bunch. My view has changed. I believe that John McCain is one of those well-known but unknown politicians. He has cultivated an image as a “maverick”, one who votes his own mind without regard to party loyalty, and who “crosses the aisle” when necessary. He has also gained a reputation as a “green” Republican. How did he get his reputation, and is it deserved? McCain often points to legislation he has co-sponsored with Democrats as evidence of his independent nature. I’ll point out three fairly recent examples and describe why I believe each bill is an example of legislation designed to maintain the status quo, while giving the appearance that something was being done.

The McCain-Feingold bill clearly has failed in its stated intent to remove big corporate and union money from political races. The bill, in effect, has meant that a politician can’t take a dollar from a CEO’s hand anymore; rather it must be laid on the table where the candidate picks it up. The PACs which sprung up in its wake (MoveOn, Swiftboat Veterans, and on and on) were far from an unforeseen consequence of the bill, as McCain has described them. These groups were ready to go before the ink dried, and all politicians knew it.
The failed McCain-Lieberman climate protection bill would have brought a similar shell game to the climate crisis, had it passed. It raised fuel economy standards for passenger cars by a token amount, but retained loopholes for the worst problem vehicles – vans, pickups and SUVs. It would have implemented a “cap and trade” system for power plant emissions whereby newer, cleaner plants could sell pollution “credits” to older, dirtier plants, perhaps moving pollution around, but not reducing it. And it gave the nod to that potentially most polluting of power plants, nuclear.
The failed immigration bill sponsored with Edward Kennedy was quite a puzzle. It would have created in law, for the first time since reconstruction, an underclass of lower-privileged residents, and would no doubt have dragged down both the wages and the social position of those Americans already on the lowest rungs of the economy. I can only see it as an attempt to present a gift to business interests (primarily agriculture and “hospitality”) that thrive on cheap labor before the minimum-wage bill came up for debate.
The question of McCain’s “greenness” is easy to clear up. He’s a very brownish-yellow shade of green. The League of Conservation Voters is an organization whose purpose is to put pressure on politicians to vote in favor of pro-environment legislation. To this end they compile a voting score for every legislator. This is based only on votes on bills that affect environmental issues – no social, economic, or foreign policy issues are considered. John McCain’s lifetime score is 26 (out of a possible 100). McCain is an ardent supporter of nuclear power, and while environmentalists are not unanimous in their opposition to nuclear, the fact remains that the waste is a deadly issue which has yet to be solved, a fact that McCain continues to deny. McCain continues to advocate greatly expanded oil drilling, even though most experts, from geologists to economists, have said it will have a negligible impact on price or supply. [It must be said here that Obama is far from Greenpeace’s ideal candidate, the difference between his and McCain’s positions being mostly matters of degree, not principle. For a comparison, see http://www.grist.org/candidate_chart_08.html . Obama’s League of Conservation Voters lifetime score, incidentally, is 96, though this may be a function of a relatively short record.]
Obviously, there are many more issues I haven’t even touched on, but I don’t have unlimited time to write, and you don’t have unlimited time to read. (If you’re still reading, it calls your judgment into question, and you should probably find something better to do. But thanks anyway.) Responses are not solicited, but are welcome.
[Income numbers cited above are from Kevin Phillips’ book Wealth and Democracy, published in 2002 by Broadway Books. Kevin Phillips was a statistician for the Gallup Organization for a number of years, then briefly worked as a Republican strategist, and now is primarily an author and commentator.]