More than 70 percent of eligible voters don’t bother to cast their ballots on Election Day.
Ask one of them about this curious decision to become proactively inactive, and more likely than not you’ll get a speech about how it doesn’t matter if you vote because all politicians are corrupt anyway; or that the fix is already in so the act of voting is just a hollow formality; or that there are no consequences for not voting, only for voting for the wrong candidate or the wrong party.
If the unfolding events both locally and nationally this week don’t offer them a clear insight as to just how backwardly erroneous this thinking is, nothing will.
A few hours down Interstate 95 in Washington, D.C., we were forced to watch as President Barack Obama caved in to the interests of Big Money when he extended his predecessor’s tax cuts for the richest Americans in exchange for a few more months of unemployment benefits for the poorest Americans.
It was a sad display, and not because Obama chose to chastise his progressive base, who he knew would howl and scream at his administration’s spineless capitulation – but because by couching the decision as “compromise”, he demonstrated that he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say what lies at the root of his political about-face.
The fact is that this compromise would not have been necessary had the Democrats not lost 63 seats in the House last month. That shifting of the balance of power serves not only to strengthen the Republican agenda - but to effectively water down, if not completely wash away, many of those progressive “Yes, we can!” initiatives in the legislative pipeline.
And those seats would not have been lost if the rank and file Democrats in those districts had seen this week’s surrender – and whatever right-wing horrors are next to come - as a natural consequence of their not voting.
A good part of the blame for both the unconcerned apathy of the Left and the wild-eyed anger of the Right belongs squarely at the feet of the Democratic Party, which has proven lately that when it comes to sleaze, corruption, and looking out for greedy personal interests, it takes a back seat to no one.
And nowhere in America has this proven more true, and for more consecutive decades, than here in Philadelphia.
We’ve become so accustomed to viewing corruption and graft as the way things get done, we can scarcely imagine an alternative. Before you even consider running for office in this town, you have to first seek the approval of party bosses, kiss up to connected ward leaders, grease the right committee people, staffers, and friends of friends; and shake hands with the Devil while begging for financial backing from the fat cats who always, always want something in return.
Last month Deputy City Commissioner Renee Tartaglione Matos resigned, four days after the Board of Ethics found probable cause that she violated the city charter. Renee Tartaglione Matos is the daughter of longtime City Commissioner Marge Tartagione, sister of State Senator Christine Tartaglione, and the wife of 19th ward leader Carlos Matos, recently released from prison after doing time for bribery.
She admitted to nine violations of the charter involving political activity, including accepting checks for street money, and actively campaigning against State Rep. Angel Cruz, a political enemy seen as a threat to her sister’s Senate seat. Cruz, by the way, has enough problems of his own, with the Pennsylvania Attorney General breathing down his neck for alleged violations involving improprieties with his nominating petitions.
The City Commissioner’s Office is the taxpayer-funded entity charged with overseeing Philadelphia’s election process, and making sure our elections are fair, legal, and unsullied by corruption. (I tried to type that sentence with a straight face. I really did try.)
For me, though, here’s the worst part: we, the voters and taxpayers, barely bat an eye when we hear these things. State liquor store warehouse employees selling booze off the loading dock; clerks at Licenses and Inspections giving trade licenses to whoever comes up with enough bribe money; agency heads fixing parking tickets in exchange for free food – and we just shake our heads, sigh, and turn to the sports page.
Our political system – corrupt, venal, and self-serving as it may be, is wholly dependent upon our sense of right and wrong to keep it running or to trade it in for a new model.
For what we end up with, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
1 comment:
Compromise is giving something up you don't like. What did the Republicans actually give up? the deepening deficit?- if Reagan didn't care ("the deficit is big enough to take care of itself" he touted, as if it was a teenager) why would any lesser Republican?
Our society is temperamental and bereft of patience and foresight. While the Reps want to talk about how the millionaires and billionaires can invest the money with the tax breaks, the Dems should have dared that they will invest and create new businesses with American employees on American soil.
While the Reps talk about the growing deficit from the TARP money, the Dems should have included in their campaign how the Reps applied for TARP.
Reps want to keep the lower rate of taxes to the investors who pay less for those whose incomes are mostly from interest and dividends from banks. Dems should have pushed a Consumer Tax Benefit proposal that would allow consumers to deduct all finance charges that banks and credit cards get. Reps have it that if a business' property loses value, and he sells it, the price difference is a deduction. Dems should have proposed a Home Value Act that would help a person if he sells his primary residence at a loss, the difference (and the interests incurred) would be deducted from his income.
So many things could have been done, so little imagination to fathom creative, helpful ideas were in place. We should have real working people who know true ups-and-downs, not a few people who know mostly success, and think in ways of a highly successful mind. They need an average person on their staff.
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