At some point over the past 50 years, the term gov’ment became a cuss word among the common citizenry. I think most of us, including the media pundits, spend a fair amount of time talking about all the things that are broken in our country. I think that maybe the break-down of basic good sense accounts for people’s unhappy views of their governing bodies. It may also explain some of the roiling party-based rhetoric that keeps us mired in bad policies. Let’s take a recent Supreme Court decision and compare that with some country critter conflicts.
We have 30 turkeys and 40 roosters at our farm. We use corn to attract them to nearby roosts within pre-dawn capturing distance for the coming fall harvest. When the sun is hanging low, one of my grandsons grabs a bucket of whole corn and scatters it on the driveway. The roosters and turkeys battle each other for the kernels. But the battle is not fair or balanced. The turkeys are larger and their beaks longer and sharper. Sometimes a brave (or really hungry) rooster will stand up to a turkey, and the two will go all out dueling with flying feathers while slightly calmer members of both species snap up the kernels. It’s entertaining to watch. But then, when it’s over, they now find their way to the right roosts.
Our current Supreme Court reminds me of these quarreling birds. It is dividing the country again. Five justices are Republican. Four are democrat. All nine spout that their opinions are fully founded upon fealty to the first amendment of our constitution. But look. The five Republican appointees, alluding to their evolving new interpretation of that document, celebrate the concentration of money and power wrought by granting access to our public platforms commensurate with dollars instead of votes. As a result, the power of government we have learned to disdain is no longer vested in all of us, of the people, by the people, for the people. It has become government of, by, and for an elite few at the top.
Away from Washington D.C. many of us are becoming more bipartisan. Some 70% of us normal American citizens, regardless of political party, are fed up. We no longer support Citizens United. In spite of the patriotic sound of the phrase, Washington insiders, mostly Republican and some Democrats, are leading to the most demonstrably undemocratic outcomes since those cherished by King George before our 1st amendment became our law.
The writers of our constitution desired freedom from the yoke of British kings and corporations. Freedom to speak, practice ones own religion, and assemble freely as citizens were hallmarks of our new American democracy. It gave voice to the voiceless, protecting rights to address abuses by the powerful and wealthy British elite. Citizens United has dismantled already many of these freedoms, while using the language of citizen’ rights. Their priorities for corporate domination remove the natural restraint of “one citizen one vote.” In a government ruled by common sense, big money would not be allowed to drown out the voice of American citizens, those real human beings who were once endowed with inalienable rights.
In my hometown, there used to be the town square and fairground commons, where anyone with a yen to yell could do so. I remember mostly sellers of snake oil being the yellers. They could jump on their wagon or soapbox (height regulated) and shout out their message for a little money or attention. But since amplifiers were either forbidden or not yet available, every citizen's one voice attained fairly equal modulation from the Creator's own provision of vocal chords.
It’s time our supreme court reviews their history and uses a little common sense. Meantime, we the people need to stop tolerating these turkeys telling us money can talk with the biggest megaphone it can buy (and that it needs 1st amendment protection to do so). It’s not hard to figure out that what the elitists really want is to make permanent their absconding of our American form of government, replacing it with an aristocratic republic.
Unfortunately, money first and votes only secondly, make politicians successful. Without that money, votes simply won’t happen. Since the old “truth and fairness” and “equal time” policing of the media is long gone, moneyed interests have taken over the soapbox and grabbed all the corn.
I’m hopeful that it’s still possible to restore some of the good common wisdom of ordinary people into our government, if we can figure out a way to ignore the clamoring and sleight of hand tactics used to “inform” us today. There are lots of grassroots efforts evolving around issues of importance to us commoners. In the meantime, my grandson has orders not to let our turkeys rule the corn. He is to scatter the kernels as widely as he can, so everyone has a chance, and no one-percent turkeys can abscond with over half and squawk they have a constitutional right to that corn.
David Graber
Hardin, MT
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