Why Do Few"Ordinary" Citizens Contact Elected Officials, Go to Their Open Decision-Making Sessions, Speak Up in Meetings etc.?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nano on October 19, 2009 at 10:29am

I have noticed the lack of participation as well...

Everyone has so much going on, or so they think, that there is no time to participate in the discussion or the events. We all have to do day to day chores (laundry, take the trash out, lawn mowing, etc.), nurture and watch the kids, do homework, etc. The bottom line is that we all have stuff to do.

Stuff that is very important and stuff that is really not that important, however if we don't make time for our community and our country, we will loose our democracy and will end up with people in charge that we don't want, making decisions that we don't want or like.

I agree that having a democratic form of government requires participation by all - education, morals, principles and development of each citizen to the best of his/her ability is the only way to get smart / good decisions that are made capably and - that have a chance of really being "for the common good"

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Permalink Reply by Matthew - NC on October 19, 2009 at 11:56am

I guess the real question is "who is more likely to win a campaign, a 'good' candidate who is responsive to his/her constituents with little money, or a 'sleazeball' candidate who is responsive to his/her cronies with a lot of money?"

I think the vast majority of times, the money advantage means far more than how 'good' a representative you are when it comes to winning elections, as it affords you more opportunities to explain away questions, derail your opponent's campaign and define your image to voters. And politicians want to win elections, not make voters happy (a subtle but critical distinction).

Think of it this way. If you have a McDonald's on one side of the street, and a mystery restaurant (Call it McMatt's) across the street, where do people go? Even if McMatt's has better burgers at a better price? Brand familiarity is powerful, and money for advertising builds a powerful brand.

Under those constraints, politicians are always going to be more concerned with issues that are important to individual, high octane donors than issues that are important to even large numbers of their constituents. Voters understand that implicitly and their level of participation suffers accordingly. I think a reform is possible, but I must confess that on my darkest days I truly wonder if anything can be done to fix this cronyist oligarchy clothing itself in democracy and freedom.

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Permalink Reply by Winifred Beam Kessler on October 19, 2009 at 4:41pm

Matthew,
Your last two sentences describes the challenge and the task wonderfully well. How do we get to enough people--especially those who acknowledge the challenge and the task and/or have resources of intellect, speaking and writing ability, time, desire and maybe even money--to get the reform movement going? Bill and Melissa Gates, among other so-called powerful people, have expressed interest in reform and so, too, has Oprah and, of course, Obama. His supporters need to focus more on what they can do to extend and help him and his messages of change than demanding things from him as president. The forces that want to destroy, deny and discredit him ARE the status quo advocates, those who are benefiting by all the forces, falsehoods, deceptions and practices that Obama and you and I and people like us are describing as destructive and must be changed. It is the age old struggle between progress and decay, "good and evil," change and stagnation. Each era of life has its own particular brand and what we are discussing now is the one that those of us who care about progress, in the U.S. in particular, had better put any time, skill and other resources available into the process of bringing that change about. Do you agree? What would be the most strategic actions to take?

Matthew - NC said:

I guess the real question is "who is more likely to win a campaign, a 'good' candidate who is responsive to his/her constituents with little money, or a 'sleazeball' candidate who is responsive to his/her cronies with a lot of money?"

I think the vast majority of times, the money advantage means far more than how 'good' a representative you are when it comes to winning elections, as it affords you more opportunities to explain away questions, derail your opponent's campaign and define your image to voters. And politicians want to win elections, not make voters happy (a subtle but critical distinction).

Think of it this way. If you have a McDonald's on one side of the street, and a mystery restaurant (Call it McMatt's) across the street, where do people go? Even if McMatt's has better burgers at a better price? Brand familiarity is powerful, and money for advertising builds a powerful brand.

Under those constraints, politicians are always going to be more concerned with issues that are important to individual, high octane donors than issues that are important to even large numbers of their constituents. Voters understand that implicitly and their level of participation suffers accordingly. I think a reform is possible, but I must confess that on my darkest days I truly wonder if anything can be done to fix this cronyist oligarchy clothing itself in democracy and freedom.

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Permalink Reply by Winifred Beam Kessler on October 19, 2009 at 10:38pm

Nano, You said it best: "IF WE DON'T MAKE TIME FOR OUR COMMUNITY AND OUR COUNTRY, WE WILL LOSE OUR DEMOCRACY [totally, I would add, because we already have lost most of it] and will end up with people in charge that we don't want, making decisions that we don't want or like." What do you think of citizens in every community in the country lobbying their local school boards for both their usual students and adults to be given courses in principles of democracy, decision-making skills, conflict resolution, ethics (personal, professional, business, etc.), principles of politics and government, health, child-rearing (not only for parents, but also for grandparents, relatives and even childless people, because it takes a whole healthy community to raise a healthy young citizen). The courses could be required as a yearly obligation, "continuing education tax credits for voters," or/and perhaps generate credits to be redeemed along the same lines as the EIC (Earned Income Credit). You would receive a payback in proportion to the number of courses you took and the grade you achieved.

Nano said:

I have noticed the lack of participation as well...
Everyone has so much going on, or so they think, that there is no time to participate in the discussion or the events. We all have to do day to day chores (laundry, take the trash out, lawn mowing, etc.), nurture and watch the kids, do homework, etc. The bottom line is that we all have stuff to do.


Stuff that is very important and stuff that is really not that important, however if we don't make time for our community and our country, we will loose our democracy and will end up with people in charge that we don't want, making decisions that we don't want or like.

I agree that having a democratic form of government requires participation by all - education, morals, principles and development of each citizen to the best of his/her ability is the only way to get smart / good decisions that are made capably and - that have a chance of really being "for the common good"

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Hewitt Rose on October 20, 2009 at 1:47pm

The answer to your question is contained in your post. Why do ordinary citizens not get involved in politics? Because, in our American Oligarchy (I prefer Plutocracy), their voices do not count, and they know it. The monied interests rule. Democracy lost. It has become an empty shell, all flag-waving symbol and no practical substance.

I have vigorously got involved in the past at the federal, state, and local levels in issues ranging from energy policy to special education. Some of the lessons I learned are:

* The scientific propaganda techniques used in advertising, public relations, and campaigning have become so well developed in the last 30 years that candidates for public office without significant money behind them cannot get elected or stay elected and that major issues without the backing of a PR campaign cannot succeed. All that money buys more than access; it determines what issues even make it to the table for discussion.

* Instead of fending off government, which is what big business says it wants, what they actually do is to use their money to capture government in order to garner ever-higher government subsidies at taxpayer expense, generate industry-captured regulation, and secure anti-trust license. This predatory politics makes them more money, which feeds the process.

* The Supreme Court protects money as speech. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976) is the source case for the court's view that monied speech, which drives out ordinary citizens' speech, is constitutionally preferred and protected speech. Thus, all the well-meaning campaign reform laws must leave holes through which the monied interests drive their trucks.

* People are unreasonably disappointed at how little impact that Obama, someone with the right frame of mind, actually has on the money train. Congress, which holds the constitutional appropriation power, runs the money train. They are not going to let a little thing like the Jack Abramoff scandal derail a system that has been so good to them. Republican congressmen openly bath in the money, Democratic congressmen close the bathroom door in shame, but a corrupt Congressional system guarantees that money rules. At the state and local level, political party matters less, and money matters more.

Good Government Liberals, like I used to be, respond to these developments in the only way they know how. They try to do democracy, only harder. When they get stoned by the system, they pick themselves up and hurl themselves at it again and get stoned again. Like the Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon, one can have a certain grudging respect for the persistence, but what they are doing is futile. They lack the money.

Our founding fathers rightly feared creating a government that would grow too powerful and oppress its citizens. They divided government against itself and guaranteed a fundamental set of citizen liberties against government. At a time of kings and mercantilism, they never thought of the possibility that private interests would seize the government, turn democracy into a sick joke, and use government as a feedstock at citizen expense. So, we have no constitutional protection against it.

Aside from impossible fantasies of rioting peasants and busy guillotines on the Mall, I don't have any solutions. Despair and cynicism seem eminently rational.

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Permalink Reply by Winifred Beam Kessler on October 21, 2009 at 6:37pm

Hewitt,

Remember, it was ONE PERSON, Mahatma Ghandi, who sparked and led the movement for independence in India. He read Thoreau while in prison in South Africa and got his inspiration. Then, he "walked his talk" in every way possible.

The same with Martin L. King and Rosa Parks. She had gone to years of training meetings given by the NAACP and endured years of disrespect on the segregated buses going to her job as a maid. She was READY before she took her stand by sitting down and refusing to get up. Later, King read both Thoreau and Ghandi in prison in Montgomery, arrested after becoming the inspirational leader of the boycott she had begun. And you know what he got started.

Joan of Arc, a peasant woman, overturned a kingship and put one who had promise of being more just on the throne, even though in her teens and not trained as a warrior. She had strong spiritual beliefs and followed what her visions from Mary, the Mother of Jesus, told her to do.

Any one or all of us could be a spark for something better than we have in our country, IF we stay ready. The greed for power, control and money of Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and too many of the founding fathers led them to ignore the wisdom of the founding mothers who told them that the denial of full citizenship rights to women and the continuation of slavery would be the foundation for power misuse by arrogant, unscrupulous males and might bring down our ideals. (Have you read the correspondence between John and Abigail Adams or Cokie Roberts' books, Ladies of Liberty and Founding Mothers?)

I am in my elder years now and yet I refuse to give a corner even to the processes of destruction. M. Scott Peck (THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED) writes in his PEOPLE OF THE LIE that he considers "sin" to be "sloth," laziness. I am still heading for the Pearly Gates or whatever they represent and I am not going to slack up now. My disappointments, mistreatment and grievances go back to the age of 18 and my first encounter with the power structure of racism in Mississippi in the 1950's. "Ain't goin' to let them turn me around!"

One by one we DO make a difference and we mostly will not know to whom, what or where. "To LIVE life is not an easy task," is the maxim that I live by and suggest for consideration. The first time that I heard a variation of that saying, I was a 21 years old in Berkeley, a student at the U of CA. I had seen the play, "Auntie Mame" for the first time. Mame became one of my role models for life when I heard: "Life is a banquet and too many &*$#^%@'s are starving." Now, she might say, "Life is a banquet and no one should be starving, but, if someone has to, it should be the &^#@#@'s who don't get to eat, not the other way around."

What do you think? Is the one-person-at-a-time revolution a movement that you are willing to join?


Hewitt Rose said:

The answer to your question is contained in your post. Why do ordinary citizens not get involved in politics? Because, in our American Oligarchy (I prefer Plutocracy), their voices do not count, and they know it. The monied interests rule. Democracy lost. It has become an empty shell, all flag-waving symbol and no practical substance.
I have vigorously got involved in the past at the federal, state, and local levels in issues ranging from energy policy to special education. Some of the lessons I learned are: * The scientific propaganda techniques used in advertising, public relations, and campaigning have become so well developed in the last 30 years that candidates for public office without significant money behind them cannot get elected or stay elected and that major issues without the backing of a PR campaign cannot succeed. All that money buys more than access; it determines what issues even make it to the table for discussion.

* Instead of fending off government, which is what big business says it wants, what they actually do is to use their money to capture government in order to garner ever-higher government subsidies at taxpayer expense, generate industry-captured regulation, and secure anti-trust license. This predatory politics makes them more money, which feeds the process.

* The Supreme Court protects money as speech. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976) is the source case for the court's view that monied speech, which drives out ordinary citizens' speech, is constitutionally preferred and protected speech. Thus, all the well-meaning campaign reform laws must leave holes through which the monied interests drive their trucks.

* People are unreasonably disappointed at how little impact that Obama, someone with the right frame of mind, actually has on the money train. Congress, which holds the constitutional appropriation power, runs the money train. They are not going to let a little thing like the Jack Abramoff scandal derail a system that has been so good to them. Republican congressmen openly bath in the money, Democratic congressmen close the bathroom door in shame, but a corrupt Congressional system guarantees that money rules. At the state and local level, political party matters less, and money matters more.

Good Government Liberals, like I used to be, respond to these developments in the only way they know how. They try to do democracy, only harder. When they get stoned by the system, they pick themselves up and hurl themselves at it again and get stoned again. Like the Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon, one can have a certain grudging respect for the persistence, but what they are doing is futile. They lack the money.

Our founding fathers rightly feared creating a government that would grow too powerful and oppress its citizens. They divided government against itself and guaranteed a fundamental set of citizen liberties against government. At a time of kings and mercantilism, they never thought of the possibility that private interests would seize the government, turn democracy into a sick joke, and use government as a feedstock at citizen expense. So, we have no constitutional protection against it.

Aside from impossible fantasies of rioting peasants and busy guillotines on the Mall, I don't have any solutions. Despair and cynicism seem eminently rational.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Hewitt Rose on October 22, 2009 at 4:37pm

Yes, I could be the next Mahatma Ghandi or Martin L. King or be one who gives that final essential push. Life is full of surprises, with the success of the civil rights movement being a major example. But, by the same logic, I should gamble continuously at Las Vegas. I could strike it rich, if only I stay inspired, faithful, positive, and ready. Or, perhaps, I should realize that to continue playing in a rigged game is to be a chump.

The Romans had a problem with motivating their gladiators to fight. Punishment and death threats did not work so well in motivating the slaves to risk likely death or severe injury. So the Romans offered the gladiators hope. Successful gladiators could win their freedom along with a considerable sum of money. There were only a few of them, much celebrated, and the odds of being such a successful gladiator were vanishingly small. But the offer of hope was enough to get them to fight.

That is what our government does for the ordinary citizen. It sells hope for success so that people will not focus on how the system is so heavily rigged against them. If they would understand how the system works and what the odds really are, then they would become so outraged that they would storm the coliseum seats and slaughter the people who design and maintain the system.

Some gladiators tried that. They all died before they got to the seats. The Romans were careful about that sort of thing. Sometimes there is nothing you can do.

Winifred Beam Kessler said:

Hewitt,

Remember, it was ONE PERSON, Mahatma Ghandi, who sparked and led the movement for independence in India. He read Thoreau while in prison in South Africa and got his inspiration. Then, he "walked his talk" in every way possible.

The same with Martin L. King and Rosa Parks. She had gone to years of training meetings given by the NAACP and endured years of disrespect on the segregated buses going to her job as a maid. She was READY before she took her stand by sitting down and refusing to get up. Later, King read both Thoreau and Ghandi in prison in Montgomery, arrested after becoming the inspirational leader of the boycott she had begun. And you know what he got started.

Joan of Arc, a peasant woman, overturned a kingship and put one who had promise of being more just on the throne, even though in her teens and not trained as a warrior. She had strong spiritual beliefs and followed what her visions from Mary, the Mother of Jesus, told her to do.

Any one or all of us could be a spark for something better than we have in our country, IF we stay ready. The greed for power, control and money of Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and too many of the founding fathers led them to ignore the wisdom of the founding mothers who told them that the denial of full citizenship rights to women and the continuation of slavery would be the foundation for power misuse by arrogant, unscrupulous males and might bring down our ideals. (Have you read the correspondence between John and Abigail Adams or Cokie Roberts' books, Ladies of Liberty and Founding Mothers?)

I am in my elder years now and yet I refuse to give a corner even to the processes of destruction. M. Scott Peck (THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED) writes in his PEOPLE OF THE LIE that he considers "sin" to be "sloth," laziness. I am still heading for the Pearly Gates or whatever they represent and I am not going to slack up now. My disappointments, mistreatment and grievances go back to the age of 18 and my first encounter with the power structure of racism in Mississippi in the 1950's. "Ain't goin' to let them turn me around!"

One by one we DO make a difference and we mostly will not know to whom, what or where. "To LIVE life is not an easy task," is the maxim that I live by and suggest for consideration. The first time that I heard a variation of that saying, I was a 21 years old in Berkeley, a student at the U of CA. I had seen the play, "Auntie Mame" for the first time. Mame became one of my role models for life when I heard: "Life is a banquet and too many &*$#^%@'s are starving." Now, she might say, "Life is a banquet and no one should be starving, but, if someone has to, it should be the &^#@#@'s who don't get to eat, not the other way around."

What do you think? Is the one-person-at-a-time revolution a movement that you are willing to join?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Winifred Beam Kessler on November 7, 2009 at 12:56am

Ok, let's think this through: The Romans used similar tactics to the ones that we use now to keep the ordinary citizens pre-occupied. Our "gladiators" play and spectators watch, in person or on t v. football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, boxing, ice hockey, careening around in all-country, gigantic trucks and monster vehicles, riding bucking horses and bulls--live or mechanical--golf, etc., etc. pre-occupy the majority of our adult male population and keep them in a kind of perpetual adolescence. Fast food, the promotion of steak and bar b q, chili, and "macho, 'tailgate' food, beer, too, of course, is pushed everywhere I have ever been in the U.S. For women, and many men, too, the shopping malls are other types of coliseums of fun and games as are the gambling emporiums, prostitution rings-houses-escort services-porn dvd's, media, etc. "Bread and circuses" the Romans called the feed-and-divert strategy and we have imitated the basic process.

I do not now, and have not ever, believed that a "system," which is an abstract entity, a concept, can be "rigged." INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE CAN ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE "RIGGED," meaning duped and diverted. THEN, BECAUSE LIKE SEEKS LIKE and, particularly when younger, most humans want to be in groups, they join the Society of the Rigged/Duped/Diverted in order to be "accepted/popular." I believe that if enough people refuse to be anesthetized because they have become educated to awareness of the captive status that they have allowed themselves to be in, by parents, teachers, any person in authority whom they respect or trusted colleagues, each aware person seeks out other aware persons, endeavors to make converts and this is how revolutionary change comes about. We had so much of this going in the 1960's and 1970's that very powerful people made successful efforts to stop the momentum by giving abundant access to mind-numbing substances and undercut the momentum. I remember becoming clear about what was happening in San Francisco in the 1970's, thanks to some enlightening experiences that I had at a conference of the American Humanistic Psychology Association, juxtaposed with a conference of the more staid and powerful American Psychological Association the next week. I was part of panels in both conferences, experienced and celebrated the freedoms being espoused by the AHP while bemoaning their hedonistic excesses, after a week of being intellectually imprisoned in the stultifying seminars of the APA. The two groups were antagonistic, each determined to do away with the other's perceived negatives and couldn't learn from each others' insights or strengths--youth vs.age, creativity vs. experience forever struggling while power mongers flourish.


Hewitt Rose said:

Yes, I could be the next Mahatma Ghandi or Martin L. King or be one who gives that final essential push. Life is full of surprises, with the success of the civil rights movement being a major example. But, by the same logic, I should gamble continuously at Las Vegas. I could strike it rich, if only I stay inspired, faithful, positive, and ready. Or, perhaps, I should realize that to continue playing in a rigged game is to be a chump.

The Romans had a problem with motivating their gladiators to fight. Punishment and death threats did not work so well in motivating the slaves to risk likely death or severe injury. So the Romans offered the gladiators hope. Successful gladiators could win their freedom along with a considerable sum of money. There were only a few of them, much celebrated, and the odds of being such a successful gladiator were vanishingly small. But the offer of hope was enough to get them to fight.

That is what our government does for the ordinary citizen. It sells hope for success so that people will not focus on how the system is so heavily rigged against them. If they would understand how the system works and what the odds really are, then they would become so outraged that they would storm the coliseum seats and slaughter the people who design and maintain the system.

Some gladiators tried that. They all died before they got to the seats. The Romans were careful about that sort of thing. Sometimes there is nothing you can do.

Winifred Beam Kessler said:

Hewitt,

Remember, it was ONE PERSON, Mahatma Ghandi, who sparked and led the movement for independence in India. He read Thoreau while in prison in South Africa and got his inspiration. Then, he "walked his talk" in every way possible.

The same with Martin L. King and Rosa Parks. She had gone to years of training meetings given by the NAACP and endured years of disrespect on the segregated buses going to her job as a maid. She was READY before she took her stand by sitting down and refusing to get up. Later, King read both Thoreau and Ghandi in prison in Montgomery, arrested after becoming the inspirational leader of the boycott she had begun. And you know what he got started.

Joan of Arc, a peasant woman, overturned a kingship and put one who had promise of being more just on the throne, even though in her teens and not trained as a warrior. She had strong spiritual beliefs and followed what her visions from Mary, the Mother of Jesus, told her to do.

Any one or all of us could be a spark for something better than we have in our country, IF we stay ready. The greed for power, control and money of Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and too many of the founding fathers led them to ignore the wisdom of the founding mothers who told them that the denial of full citizenship rights to women and the continuation of slavery would be the foundation for power misuse by arrogant, unscrupulous males and might bring down our ideals. (Have you read the correspondence between John and Abigail Adams or Cokie Roberts' books, Ladies of Liberty and Founding Mothers?)

I am in my elder years now and yet I refuse to give a corner even to the processes of destruction. M. Scott Peck (THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED) writes in his PEOPLE OF THE LIE that he considers "sin" to be "sloth," laziness. I am still heading for the Pearly Gates or whatever they represent and I am not going to slack up now. My disappointments, mistreatment and grievances go back to the age of 18 and my first encounter with the power structure of racism in Mississippi in the 1950's. "Ain't goin' to let them turn me around!"

One by one we DO make a difference and we mostly will not know to whom, what or where. "To LIVE life is not an easy task," is the maxim that I live by and suggest for consideration. The first time that I heard a variation of that saying, I was a 21 years old in Berkeley, a student at the U of CA. I had seen the play, "Auntie Mame" for the first time. Mame became one of my role models for life when I heard: "Life is a banquet and too many &*$#^%@'s are starving." Now, she might say, "Life is a banquet and no one should be starving, but, if someone has to, it should be the &^#@#@'s who don't get to eat, not the other way around."

What do you think? Is the one-person-at-a-time revolution a movement that you are willing to join?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Hewitt Rose on November 9, 2009 at 10:58am

You are saying that people can always organize and always overcome a corrupt system. That is not my experience, nor is it the lesson from history. Sometimes people succeed in throwing off their oppressors, and sometimes they get crushed. A lot of people feel like Roman gladiators; they are in an impossible situation with only the sliver of hope that their oppressors allow them.

Winifred Beam Kessler said:

Ok, let's think this through: The Romans used similar tactics to the ones that we use now to keep the ordinary citizens pre-occupied. Our "gladiators" play and spectators watch, in person or on t v. football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, boxing, ice hockey, careening around in all-country, gigantic trucks and monster vehicles, riding bucking horses and bulls--live or mechanical--golf, etc., etc. pre-occupy the majority of our adult male population and keep them in a kind of perpetual adolescence. Fast food, the promotion of steak and bar b q, chili, and "macho, 'tailgate' food, beer, too, of course, is pushed everywhere I have ever been in the U.S. For women, and many men, too, the shopping malls are other types of coliseums of fun and games as are the gambling emporiums, prostitution rings-houses-escort services-porn dvd's, media, etc. "Bread and circuses" the Romans called the feed-and-divert strategy and we have imitated the basic process.

I do not now, and have not ever, believed that a "system," which is an abstract entity, a concept, can be "rigged." INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE CAN ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE "RIGGED," meaning duped and diverted. THEN, BECAUSE LIKE SEEKS LIKE and, particularly when younger, most humans want to be in groups, they join the Society of the Rigged/Duped/Diverted in order to be "accepted/popular." I believe that if enough people refuse to be anesthetized because they have become educated to awareness of the captive status that they have allowed themselves to be in, by parents, teachers, any person in authority whom they respect or trusted colleagues, each aware person seeks out other aware persons, endeavors to make converts and this is how revolutionary change comes about. We had so much of this going in the 1960's and 1970's that very powerful people made successful efforts to stop the momentum by giving abundant access to mind-numbing substances and undercut the momentum. I remember becoming clear about what was happening in San Francisco in the 1970's, thanks to some enlightening experiences that I had at a conference of the American Humanistic Psychology Association, juxtaposed with a conference of the more staid and powerful American Psychological Association the next week. I was part of panels in both conferences, experienced and celebrated the freedoms being espoused by the AHP while bemoaning their hedonistic excesses, after a week of being intellectually imprisoned in the stultifying seminars of the APA. The two groups were antagonistic, each determined to do away with the other's perceived negatives and couldn't learn from each others' insights or strengths--youth vs.age, creativity vs. experience forever struggling while power mongers flourish.


Hewitt Rose said:

Yes, I could be the next Mahatma Ghandi or Martin L. King or be one who gives that final essential push. Life is full of surprises, with the success of the civil rights movement being a major example. But, by the same logic, I should gamble continuously at Las Vegas. I could strike it rich, if only I stay inspired, faithful, positive, and ready. Or, perhaps, I should realize that to continue playing in a rigged game is to be a chump.

The Romans had a problem with motivating their gladiators to fight. Punishment and death threats did not work so well in motivating the slaves to risk likely death or severe injury. So the Romans offered the gladiators hope. Successful gladiators could win their freedom along with a considerable sum of money. There were only a few of them, much celebrated, and the odds of being such a successful gladiator were vanishingly small. But the offer of hope was enough to get them to fight.

That is what our government does for the ordinary citizen. It sells hope for success so that people will not focus on how the system is so heavily rigged against them. If they would understand how the system works and what the odds really are, then they would become so outraged that they would storm the coliseum seats and slaughter the people who design and maintain the system.

Some gladiators tried that. They all died before they got to the seats. The Romans were careful about that sort of thing. Sometimes there is nothing you can do.

Winifred Beam Kessler said:

Hewitt,

Remember, it was ONE PERSON, Mahatma Ghandi, who sparked and led the movement for independence in India. He read Thoreau while in prison in South Africa and got his inspiration. Then, he "walked his talk" in every way possible.

The same with Martin L. King and Rosa Parks. She had gone to years of training meetings given by the NAACP and endured years of disrespect on the segregated buses going to her job as a maid. She was READY before she took her stand by sitting down and refusing to get up. Later, King read both Thoreau and Ghandi in prison in Montgomery, arrested after becoming the inspirational leader of the boycott she had begun. And you know what he got started.

Joan of Arc, a peasant woman, overturned a kingship and put one who had promise of being more just on the throne, even though in her teens and not trained as a warrior. She had strong spiritual beliefs and followed what her visions from Mary, the Mother of Jesus, told her to do.

Any one or all of us could be a spark for something better than we have in our country, IF we stay ready. The greed for power, control and money of Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and too many of the founding fathers led them to ignore the wisdom of the founding mothers who told them that the denial of full citizenship rights to women and the continuation of slavery would be the foundation for power misuse by arrogant, unscrupulous males and might bring down our ideals. (Have you read the correspondence between John and Abigail Adams or Cokie Roberts' books, Ladies of Liberty and Founding Mothers?)

I am in my elder years now and yet I refuse to give a corner even to the processes of destruction. M. Scott Peck (THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED) writes in his PEOPLE OF THE LIE that he considers "sin" to be "sloth," laziness. I am still heading for the Pearly Gates or whatever they represent and I am not going to slack up now. My disappointments, mistreatment and grievances go back to the age of 18 and my first encounter with the power structure of racism in Mississippi in the 1950's. "Ain't goin' to let them turn me around!"

One by one we DO make a difference and we mostly will not know to whom, what or where. "To LIVE life is not an easy task," is the maxim that I live by and suggest for consideration. The first time that I heard a variation of that saying, I was a 21 years old in Berkeley, a student at the U of CA. I had seen the play, "Auntie Mame" for the first time. Mame became one of my role models for life when I heard: "Life is a banquet and too many &*$#^%@'s are starving." Now, she might say, "Life is a banquet and no one should be starving, but, if someone has to, it should be the &^#@#@'s who don't get to eat, not the other way around."

What do you think? Is the one-person-at-a-time revolution a movement that you are willing to join?

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Permalink Reply by Anna Gardiner on November 12, 2009 at 8:30pm

I'm joining this conversation a bit late, but felt compelled to respond anyway because of how fervent you all are in your convictions. As much of a cop-out this sounds, I have to say I agree with all who responded. Each respondent expressed the various conflicting views with which I struggle most days. I want to believe that a "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" type politician would have a chance of surviving political reality. And I do believe that such a character could survive, even thrive, with the right staff experienced in digging up the proverbial dirt needed to coerce cooperation, IF money wasn't the driving force for success. I say this having had peripheral involvement in the 1984 presidential campaign. I even made it to the state Democratic convention as an alternate, then delegate. I saw firsthand how many hard working campaigners' hearts and pocketbooks were broken by the power brokers of a system whose major concern seemed to revolve around getting more and more contributions. I believe this same disregard of and disconnectedness from the concerns of constituency is the reason that the Republicans won the top three posts in the recent Virginia election. The incumbent Democrats failed to give voters a compelling reason to turn out to vote. I even wrote a blog post "Reflections on Virginia's Recent Election Results" at http://www.doctorblue.wordpress.com.

In the post, I recount a personal interaction with one of my elected official's staff members that demonstrates how insensitive our politicians are to the concerns of those without the funds to merit attention. It's part of my overall single-handed campaign to shed light on the need for better regulation of our health insurers among other health reform related issues. The fact that I continue to press for improvement is testimony to Winifred's belief that one person can make a difference as well as Hewitt's belief that persistence in the face of defeat after defeat is masochistic and idiotic. It's the one thing that keeps me going after having been made disabled unnecessarily by a system whose doctors' best efforts amounted to little more than a referral to other doctors.

My journey searching for competent medical care opened my eyes to the devastating number of other patients in the same boat. With an aging boomer population whose maladies are often chronic and complicated, this trend of delegating responsibility for medical care under our current health care system is bound to become much worse regardless of access to health insurance.

I digressed a bit from the more general question of consumer community accountability to divulge what might be considered a bland Post Secret -- a thought lingering on the back burner of my mind. And that is to raise the funds I need to attempt a run for political office myself through a medical malpractice suit against various doctors and hospitals within the INOVA Healthcare System. Now on SSDI and Medicare, in addition to continuing my search for a doctor with the knowledge and will to help me get well, I'm seeking legal advice on setting up a cyber begging site to raise the $25,000+ to cover the expenses of a medical malpractice suit, required in order for me to retain a medical malpractice attorney on a contingency basis. Luckily, the Virginia Supreme Court saw fit to tailor the state's two-year statute of limitations to exclude cases in which care for the same conditions are continuing. In these cases, the statute of limitations tolls until treatment ends.

I'm even thinking that the trial itself would make a very interesting documentary about quality and standards of medical care. It's the medical error story no one is talking about because the data on outpatient care is highly anectodal. The 98,000 annual deaths we hear about from medical mistakes only includes statistics from those hospitals who volunteer such information. But I digress...

I have no idea if there is anything I can do with the rest of my life to help others have a voice. Even if successful, the effort could amount to little more than a crushing blow not only for myself but for any who may help me along the way. There's just something inside of me that compels me to have to try. Having already lost everything I worked my whole life for -- including my health -- I have little to risk.

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Permalink Reply by Winifred Beam Kessler on November 12, 2009 at 9:19pm

Anna,

Feeling unsettled, attacked and rather down, I happened to go to this conversation tonight and found your addition to the conversation about the political system here in the U.S. at present. Thank you for your open-hearted sharing. You elicited from me feelings of compassion, understanding and a renewed desire to "try until I die" to bring about change. Your trials, tribulations, scars and pain are all to familiar to me. I don't think that there is a denigrating word, phrase or insult that I have not had thrown in my direction ever since I became an "uppity woman."

All it takes to earn denigration and attack, by other women even more than by men, is to speak up, which women have been taught for thousands of years not to do. [Doubters? Please refer to MAKING SILENCE SPEAK: Women's Voices in Greek Literature and Society edited by Andre Lardinois and Laura McClure as well as a book by Betty De Shong Meador translating the writings of Enheduanna, High Priestess of Inanna and daughter of Sargon in Sumeria (modern Iraq) from @ 2,500 BC, LADY OF LARGEST HEART. Enheduanna's candor and lyricism about sexuality is the most incredible writing, from a woman or a man, about sex-love-eroticism that I have ever read and her powerful fury about being raped and vilified by the invaders of Sumeria is awesome. She wrote at the time that many scholars have pointed to as the probable beginning of the overthrow of the Great Mother and Goddesses by those who wanted to establish the top-down power system of patriarchy and the Gods, first Jehova/Ra/God and, later, Buddha/Mohammed, etc. Silencing women by enslavement (in domestic or sexual bondage) and exclusion from education and full citizenship is, of course, still being vigorously practiced and hushed up.]

Tonight, I feel very clear about what has to be done and very fatigued from many battles through many years of struggle. In addition to consolation, I wish that there was more that I could do to help you and your situation, Anna. Perhaps that will be possible. For now, please accept my gratitude for your writing and for your courage. You will be in my thoughts and prayers as I do some things that I know will tax me to the fullest during the next few weeks and months. I know only too well what you mean about "something inside... that compels me to have to try.." and losing, in my case, almost everything material and my health as I "worked my whole life for" a different kind of life for myself, my daughters and sons, and anyone or everyone who is walking this way, too. May we all, in the words of one of the Goddess spiritual groups, "Blessed Be."


Anna Gardiner said:

I'm joining this conversation a bit late, but felt compelled to respond anyway because of how fervent you all are in your convictions. As much of a cop-out this sounds, I have to say I agree with all who responded. Each respondent expressed the various conflicting views with which I struggle most days. I want to believe that a "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" type politician would have a chance of surviving political reality. And I do believe that such a character could survive, even thrive, with the right staff experienced in digging up the proverbial dirt needed to coerce cooperation, IF money wasn't the driving force for success. I say this having had peripheral involvement in the 1984 presidential campaign. I even made it to the state Democratic convention as an alternate, then delegate. I saw firsthand how many hard working campaigners' hearts and pocketbooks were broken by the power brokers of a system whose major concern seemed to revolve around getting more and more contributions. I believe this same disregard of and disconnectedness from the concerns of constituency is the reason that the Republicans won the top three posts in the recent Virginia election. The incumbent Democrats failed to give voters a compelling reason to turn out to vote. I even wrote a blog post "Reflections on Virginia's Recent Election Results" at http://www.doctorblue.wordpress.com.
In the post, I recount a personal interaction with one of my elected official's staff members that demonstrates how insensitive our politicians are to the concerns of those without the funds to merit attention. It's part of my overall single-handed campaign to shed light on the need for better regulation of our health insurers among other health reform related issues. The fact that I continue to press for improvement is testimony to Winifred's belief that one person can make a difference as well as Hewitt's belief that persistence in the face of defeat after defeat is masochistic and idiotic. It's the one thing that keeps me going after having been made disabled unnecessarily by a system whose doctors' best efforts amounted to little more than a referral to other doctors. My journey searching for competent medical care opened my eyes to the devastating number of other patients in the same boat. With an aging boomer population whose maladies are often chronic and complicated, this trend of delegating responsibility for medical care under our current health care system is bound to become much worse regardless of access to health insurance.

I digressed a bit from the more general question of consumer community accountability to divulge what might be considered a bland Post Secret -- a thought lingering on the back burner of my mind. And that is to raise the funds I need to attempt a run for political office myself through a medical malpractice suit against various doctors and hospitals within the INOVA Healthcare System. Now on SSDI and Medicare, in addition to continuing my search for a doctor with the knowledge and will to help me get well, I'm seeking legal advice on setting up a cyber begging site to raise the $25,000+ to cover the expenses of a medical malpractice suit, required in order for me to retain a medical malpractice attorney on a contingency basis. Luckily, the Virginia Supreme Court saw fit to tailor the state's two-year statute of limitations to exclude cases in which care for the same conditions are continuing. In these cases, the statute of limitations tolls until treatment ends.

I'm even thinking that the trial itself would make a very interesting documentary about quality and standards of medical care. It's the medical error story no one is talking about because the data on outpatient care is highly anectodal. The 98,000 annual deaths we hear about from medical mistakes only includes statistics from those hospitals who volunteer such information. But I digress...

I have no idea if there is anything I can do with the rest of my life to help others have a voice. Even if successful, the effort could amount to little more than a crushing blow not only for myself but for any who may help me along the way. There's just something inside of me that compels me to have to try. Having already lost everything I worked my whole life for -- including my health -- I have little to risk.

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