We as Americans have been an active part of this partisan
politics that has contaminated our leadership and undermines the future of our
Democracy. Our fault is twofold; voter apathy has led to lack of participation
of the majority of voting age citizens and our willingness to succumb to the
strict adherence to ideological extremes by those who do. As fewer American’s
participate in the process it becomes easier to manipulate by those with the
will and means to do so.
Most Americans who do participate now get most of their input
to make voting and policy decisions from the information assimilated from media
outlets such as CNN or Fox news, local news outlets, political blogger or talk
radio. Unfortunately many will only consider one or two outlets that best
paints the picture from their prospective. The problem becomes when Americans
read or listen to these sources and believe their content is political gospel.
ALL Media is reliant on advertising dollars to make money and ratings not the
truth decide the content you hear.
Democracy has long been result of compromise and moderate
heads prevailing, but this does not make for good ratings. Rather what sells is
speaking about extreme viewpoints or adherence to strict ideological beliefs
that bring with it a reliable, predictable audience of hard line supporters and
opposition that can be marketed to successfully. When we as Americans accept these one sided
viewpoints as political truths as many do, combined with a lack of voter
participation we set ourselves up for the disillusioned partisan politics we find
ourselves mired in today.
When all those with the means and will, no matter their
purpose, only have to manipulate the few to guide the course of our democracy
down a single ideological path we all lose. We are all Americans first, rich or
poor, blue collar or white collar, conservative or liberal, Democrat or
Republican, Catholic or Protestants, Muslim or Jew, white or black. We are the
most diverse population a country has ever seen yet our strength comes from our
ability to put our aside our differences and unite under the cause of liberty
and justice and the belief that our rights are not given to us by our
government but rather are unalienable and must be utmost concern in all our
government does. These are powerful beliefs that brought forth a nation like no
other in history of the world but are lessened every day we continue down this
path of narrow-minded, short sided politics we see today.
Somehow we need to separate ourselves from this cycle. We as
Americans must all participate in our political process. Many have died for our
right to do so, and many more continue to die for that opportunity for
themselves all around the world every day. We cheapen their sacrifices when
we don’t exercise our own right to vote. To do this responsibly will require
effort to gather relevant knowledge from multiple sources to avoid being
manipulated by those who wish to do so. We must also be tolerant of others
viewpoints. The tough answers to the
problems that face America today will not all come the left or the right, they
will not all come as a result of an all conservative or all liberal agenda, but
rather will be found through the collective work of us all. Never truer is the
statement “United We Stand Divided we Fall.” Don’t let the powers that chose to
manipulate our system to divide us into two diametrically opposed camps that believe the other is the root of all that is wrong with America for this is just
not true.
History is littered
with the corpses of ideologies that were practiced to exclusion from the
beginning of time to the present. One-sided thinking only ever serves the few,
at the cost of the many every time. With all that our politicians speak about,
talk radio shows rant over, or prime time news agencies report, they give
little heed to this because it serves them well to have us this way. Ratings
are up, advertising dollars are flowing and small voting bases continue to
elect politicians that serve this cycle of division.
We must do what is necessary to end this downward spiraling
cycle of one-sided politics. The great driver of this cycle is the money it
takes to get elected and represent the “people”. For example the cost of the
2008 combined presidential campaigns was over 5 billion dollars by some
estimates and current projections put the current 2012 presidential campaigns
cost at over 8 billion dollars. This kind of fund raising puts our leaders in
financial shackles whose keys are controlled by ideological zealots with little
or no heed to the moderate, silent, majority. The average American has no voice
in this system of leadership by the highest bidder and that must not be allowed
to continue. If we continue to let money dictate who our leaders are we have
thrown off the tyranny of the British crown and replaced with that of the All
Mighty Dollar.
The Citizens United decision continues the trend of one dollar equals one vote over one person one vote. This is a dangerous path we as a country are traveling down. We must bring the accountability of our
leaders back to the people and away from big money interest. I believe that
most people who seek public office at least originally do so with good
intentions of making a difference, but our current system makes our politicians beholding to the money it takes to get elected and often prohibits them from serving the will of the people.
We as a people have overcome much in our history. Starting
out as a small collection of thirteen English colonies we cast aside our
shackles, defeated an empire and rose to become a world superpower. We have
persevered through a civil war that faced brother vs. brother and healed to
become a stronger unified nation. We
have overcome a great economic depression to become the richest nation the
world has ever known. During WWII we
rose to the challenge and led the world to defeat evil and tyranny hell bent on
world domination. We can be better than this. We owe it to all that have come
before us and sacrificed so much for us to enjoy the advantages of being an
American today.
We must and can do this. Our forefathers had the wisdom to
set up a system that can be changed and this one single change could set forth
a foundation on which the numerous issues facing America today could be
addressed. We must remove this cancerous tumor that is killing our political
process. Many believe that their vote no longer counts and refuse to cast one,
insuring that it truly doesn’t. It is
the responsibility of every a citizen of a democracy to vote. We must exercise
our right to vote and we must demand this change.We must ignore one sided media
outlets and politicians who tell us fifty percent of Americans is wrong and
solely to blame for our country's ills.
Only though cooperation by our people and our leaders will be able to
chart a course for America that actually works for Americans and not those who
wish to purchase our destiny as if it was theirs alone to buy.
