Taking our medicine

[Guest guest]

http://www.grannyd.com/newhampshire.htm

 

 

Doris Haddock's remarks at a New Hampshire town hall, October, 1999

 

 

 

Taking our medicine

 

Each day of my walk --and there have been 300 days-- I have met Americans who

are frustrated to tears --sometimes real tears-- over the condition of our

democracy. Some have nearly given up hope.

 

But we can solve this problem if we will take time to understand it. The

campaign finance reform problem is a problem of scale. The question before us

is: How do we return politics to the human scale? How do we remove from

democracy's meeting room the rude and over-scaled monstrosities that

increasingly --with their unlimited cash and power-- shout down the voices of

individuals?

 

If we are to be a self-governing nation, we must remove from our politics the

synthetic, self-serving voice of the corporation. This is not my idea. It is a

Republican idea, and I happen to agree with it. Here is what that happy

Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, said in 1910:

 

" Our government, national and state, must be freed from the sinister influence

or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and

slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the

great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and

methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests

out of politics. That is one of our tasks today...The citizens of the United

States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have

themselves called into being. There can be no effective control of corporations

while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a

short nor an easy task, but it can be done. "

 

So said Teddy Roosevelt. He did, in fact, push corporations out of politics and

they stayed out for three-quarters of a century. Now they have wormed their way

back, and America needs to take a few worm pills. Here is what I think those

pills must be:

 

First, we do need to get soft money out of our elections with a federal law. A

minority of senators didn't want to take their medicine last week when they

killed the McCain-Feingold bill in Washington. So we will have to make them take

their pill when they come home for reelection. If they won't get soft money out

of the system --and they have turned down opportunities to do so for four years

in a row-- then it is simply time for us to get them out of the system.

 

There is no question but that the soft money ban is moving toward passage. Each

year, a few more votes come our way. We will see victory in 2000 or 2001 if we

keep at it, which we will. We will " get the $100,000 check out of politics, " to

use Senator McCain's phrase.

 

In the short term, I think continuous, forceful action is needed in the Senate.

The McCain-Feingold bill needs to be attached to every big bill until it gets to

the floor, where it does have the votes.

 

The second great pill that we must take is to enact the public financing of our

elections, beginning with local and state elections, and working our way up to

federal elections.

 

When I was a young girl, the townspeople would gather around to hear speeches in

the park. No one minded if the town paid for the stage or the refreshments. The

running of a democracy requires that we all find out everything we can about

each candidate. If today's public speaking platforms are the television and the

radio, then let's use them as public platforms indeed. The sooner we enable

candidates to approach the public directly, without the necessity of

ingratiating themselves to the monied interests, then the sooner we will return

politics to the human scale where it belongs.

 

As to major reforms that can be achieved by activists, there is no question that

the public financing of campaigns is a movement that will revolutionize state

and local elections over the first two decades of the coming century. By

mid-century, most Members of Congress will have cut their teeth in

publically-financed campaigns, and will be ready to vot for public financing at

the federal level. We need to move all that along as quickly as possible. Four

states have public funding, and I think we will start adding more with each

election cycle.

 

There is a third pill which, if we take first, may make the second pill easier

to take. We need to reassert the public's rights of ownership over the airwaves,

and convert that right to free political advertising. Candidates who want to use

the free ads need to agree to keep their campaigns short and inexpensive on

other fronts. The National Association of Broadcasters hates this idea and has

killed it in Congress time and again, but I think we can do it, and I think the

Members of Congress will like it, if we can keep the broadcasters off their

backs. We can do that with local action attacking on a number of fronts.

 

We also need to make campaign finance reform an issue in the presidential

campaigns, which Senator Bradley and Senator McCain are properly doing.

 

Now, I have a fourth pill I think we need to take to get the worms of big money

out of our democracy. It is this: The press, present company excluded, needs to

do a much better job of covering campaigns. We need more debates, with proper

promotion so people will watch. We need issue-oriented coverage. We need to let

the human beings who run for office have the privacy of their personal lives and

we must stop taking up valuable news time with tidbits about their bedroom

habits instead of their public issues. Pretending that we must know everything

so we may judge their characters is a phony pretext for the worst kind of

salacious, yellow journalism. It is covered because it is easier for downsized

news organizations to cover, not because it is useful information in a

democracy. The fact is, the people who have enough energy to run for high public

office have enough energy for a lot of other activities, and there is no sense

in trying to keep up with them. Let them enjoy life. If it

will keep them from starting wars, lets get them all girlfriends or boyfriends

or whatever they need. Repressed leaders are much more dangerous to world peace

than playful leaders.

 

It will of course be hard to get the press to behave. News organizations are

being merged, and newsrooms and stories are being dumbed-down and shortened to

almost worthless summaries. There are some excellent newspapers left in America,

but they are fewer all the time. There are almost no good local television news

departments. They have become an embarrassment to our nation.

 

The Internet, of course, is a brand new medium for news, and it has great

promise. Stories can be written as long as you like, and coverage can be

provided for the small scale, small town items that get pushed out of the larger

papers and TV broadcasts. This medium holds real promise for a democracy, and it

may flourish as the television stations and newspapers cut their own throats

with poor quality and cheap-shot coverage of celebrity non-news.

 

And finally, we Americans have take the fifth pill ourselves. We have to do a

better job individually of taking time for our communities, and taking

responsibility for our self-governance --including making small contributions to

the leaders we respect. We must not be content to go home and watch television

when there is a democracy to run, or to spend all our money on ourselves and our

children. Right now, many young people will tell you to " get a life " if you

suggest that they get involved in community issues. But that IS a life. That is

the life of free people in a democracy.

 

Maybe it will take a close call before more Americans take responsibility for

their government. Corporations, after all, could indeed take over our democracy.

People could be so overworked --so brainwashed into spending themselves into the

slavery of debt-- that they become like soulless robots. But I don't think it

will happen. As a nation, we are genetically self-selected as rebels and

adventurers. We will not strain under the yoke of oppression very long.

 

But we have work ahead of us. We have some medicine to take, and to give. But

what is life for, if not to spend in the worthy battles --the great issues? We

live in a land where each person's voice matters. We call all do something.

Sometimes, we have to make sacrifices to be heard. But it is still our free land

and, my, how we all do love it.

 

Thank you.