Imagine Democracy

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/52638/imagine-democracy

Imagine Democracy
by Dave Johnson | November 12, 2013 - 8:51am

“We the People.” How many of us have really thought through the implications of these three words? Can people today even imagine a government that is on the side of We the People, instead of being rigged to benefit the already-wealthy and crush the hopes and efforts of the rest of us?

Since the early 1970s corporate/conservative-funded interests have pounded the public 24/7/365 with unceasing propaganda promoting the idea that government can’t do anything right, business always does everything better and more “efficiently,” market solutions (one-dollar-one-vote) are better than public (one-person-one-vote) solutions, etc. Meanwhile democracy does not have a marketing budget and for so long now so many people have not even heard that there can be another side, another approach to solving our problems and making our lives better. People just hear over and over that “government is bad, efforts to do things for each other are bad, but private business for profit is good.”

It has been almost 33 years since Ronald Reagan took office. Reagan turned government away from being on the side of We, the People and to being on the side of the wealthy and corporations against the rest of us — “the 99%.”

Under Reagan the government cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations, and cut social programs while dramatically increasing military spending. Reagan said we need “market solutions” to social problems (privatization) and used his “bully pulpit” to amplify this message the idea that government is bad and its functions should be turned over to businesses for profit. To that end his administration cut regulation of businesses, and cut protections for consumers and working people. Reagan appointed anti-union people to the NLRB and Labor Department, fired the air traffic controllers and ushered in the union-breaking beginnings of the destruction of the middle class. Similarly, he appointed people opposed to environmental protections to head agencies that were supposed to protect the environment, people opposed to worker protections to head agencies supposed to protect workers, people opposed to consumer protections to run agencies that were supposed to protect consumers and people opposed to regulating businesses to agencies that were supposed to regulate businesses. He dismantled efforts to wean the country from fossil fuels so the oil and coal companies could have more power. (Also 138 appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned for various ethics violations and/or were criminally indicted.)