(Host)
Recent events here and abroad have inspired commentator Bill Schubart
to think more deeply about the health of the democratic process.
(Schubart)
I recently read an editorial juxtaposing two disparate yet related
visions that have haunted me, as any good op-ed should. The writer
alluded to the crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square clamoring for democracy
and free speech and to the crowds of American shoppers clamoring for
Blu-Rays, Xboxes, and Wii consoles.
The piece made me stop again
and ask myself who and what we are becoming. Was the shopper who
pepper-sprayed her competing shoppers as she charged a display of
x-boxes really a sign of what we’ve become or just another nutcase? If
we invested as much in observing our democratic rights and obligations
as we do in consumption and the accumulation of wealth, would we not be
the better for it?
As the bellwether of democratic freedom,
America has always taught more effectively by example than by
heavy-handed diplomacy or propaganda. Yet our own democracy is corroding
as we consume more and allow finite wealth to concentrate among fewer
and fewer so they can now afford to buy the governing process itself.
Those
same puppeteers who have used their vast wealth to acquire judges and
congressman now support a slate of highly improbable candidates who seem
woefully lacking in presidential stature. They rail against government
but are silent about what their philosophy of governing would be.
They’re silent on democracy’s fundamental mandate to balance the
interests of the middle class, the poor and the wealthy; or between
business, individuals, and the environment. They simply deny the
capacity of government to enhance our lives and communities.
Has
the afterglow of decades of over-consumption brought about a lethargy
in which we happily offer up our democratic rights and obligations to
those for whom real democracy is an impediment to the further
accumulation of wealth?
After Irene, Vermonters again
demonstrated the value of active communities and strong local
government. Much of Irene’s social and economic damage was quickly
mitigated by neighbors helping neighbors, even though much damage
remains.
Even as we try to redesign how they are funded, we value
our state’s quality health care and our community schools. During
Vermont’s "Republican Century" we never lost our belief in a social
safety net that helped those who had fallen by the wayside back onto the
ladder toward prosperity. We still engage one another respectfully in
our towns and in our statehouse in an effort to balance cost-effective
government and economic opportunity and we do so using the democratic
process.
We must pay the same fierce attention nationally.
Vermont can neither secede, nor can we succeed without being part of a
strong democratic nation.
We must work to safeguard the
democracy of the nation itself by being vigilant about the tranquilizing
effects of consumption and constantly challenging those who seek to
spend their vast fortunes buying legislative outcomes, deregulation,
candidates, and elections.
We are a nation predicated on equal
opportunity and, as such, became the light of the world… the same light
that now inspires the Arab Spring.