Skepticism, hope, and Okies
"I'm going to Chicago as a delegate for the Democratic Party and free-lance muckraker for Mother Jones and I'm pissed off."

by Peter Coyote

From: coyote@motherjones.com
To: mojowire@motherjones.com

The disparity between the country I've left and the territory I'm going to could not be greater. I've been driving and camping with my son the last month, passing through Salmon, Idaho fishing the Lemhi River; crossing vast, deserted spaces in eastern Oregon through Burns to Bend, and then South to the Trinity/Siskyou Wilderness where I lived on a commune years ago. Each August old friends and companions convene there, to trade books, gossip, swim, fish, and best of all, talk politics.

The common denominator of local people observed in all these travels is that they are poor and getting poorer. Pickups are dented and older than they should be. Makeshift repairs are apparent everywhere; clothes are threadbare, and each year I return, the eyes of the men, women and children, express more of the flat, hopeless opaqueness of migrants and Okies photographed by Dorothy Lange and Walker Evans.

The day I returned home President Clinton signed the welfare bill, grinding the poorest, most defenseless citizens in our nation face-first into the dirt. Of course, 40 percent of them are children and can't vote, so he needn't fear political repercussions. In an economy where 5.5 percent unemployment gives Wall Street the jitters, the political oligarchy continues to generate endless rhetoric about getting the poor off welfare and putting them to work.

But where will they work? Will they fight with the 5.5 percent already looking for work? It would be more honest to admit that we are paying the poor a) to stay out of our garbage cans and off the front pages of the foreign press, and b) to fight inflation. If all those folks were working, and there was more money running around, superheating the economy, just think what would be happening to those venerable old family fortunes stashed in the bond market.

So I'm going to Chicago as a delegate for the Democratic Party and free-lance muckraker for Mother Jones and I'm pissed off. I anticipate salad bars and free lunches that could feed an army of schoolchildren; booze enough to fuel a fleet of bulldozers which could clear enough vacant lots in any major metropolitan area to create parks and chess tables, basketball and handball courts, and water fountains where people could mingle convivially. I expect enough shiny silk and mohair to weave blankets for an army of homeless, living under the bushes in Chicago's parks. I'm sure I'll endure bad speeches, halfhearted promises, witness enough earnest looks and double-clasped handshakes to make me think I'm in church. And all the while we're partying and celebrating, making important talk, I'll be feeling like a tuxedoed swell on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

I'm not cynical, I'm outraged. I've watched America metamorphose into the richest and most powerful Third World country imaginable in the interval of twenty years, institutionalizing the same injustices and disparities of opportunity for which we used to ridicule banana republics. The same bland, shining boys I wouldn't have talked to in high school command the helm of State, debating the fine points of détente while they steer us into the rocks. The rhetoric is thinner than treacle, the promises broken so often they're crazed as varnish on an old painting, and the act of the political class is so routinized they don't notice they're playing to empty houses as 60 percent or more of the electorate just stays home on election day.

That's one reason why I'm going to Chicago; to display and demand involvement; to remind peers and friends, that we have a last, tiny, window of opportunity to reclaim this democracy by participating. I hope to make some small contribution by cutting through the rhetoric and bullshit -- reminding people to consider the unintended consequences which always trail behind the best laid plans. And finally, I have an agenda of my own to pursue, hondle, wheedle, cheat, and deal for.

Our national situation is no accident. The political class, like the rest of us, work for the people who pay them. They need our votes occasionally, which is what this particular dumb show is about, but the need for the money is endless. Consequently, the politicians real constituency, despite all protestations to the contrary, is the well- heeled lobbyist and contributor. I would like to return them to the employment of the people. While my ideas for doing so are neither original nor foolproof, there are several things which could be initiated in the election process to return fiscal and therefore political power to the rank and file; the sober, hardworking, generally honest and beleaguered general population who spend their lives in thrall to the splendiferous 5 percent who own most of everything.

My plan calls for the declaration that the most critical business of a democracy is free and fair elections and to that end we should insure:

that all Federal elections be subsidized by the taxpayer, with absolute spending caps. Part of what we want to learn about a candidate is what they can do with what they have. Limits spur creativity, and this limit will also create a level playing field (a term we usually reserve for situations where the oligarchy has lost a previous advantage.)

that in return for using the public airwaves, all TV and cable companies must offer free airtime to qualified candidates, and no paid ads be accepted. The airwaves belong to the public. Why should politicians have to raise money to pay TV stations to transmit their platforms and agendas to that public? Such a change would free politicians et al. from wasteful, inaccurate and disgraceful (and disgracefully expensive) media campaigns.

that in return for that free airtime all qualified candidates must participate in debates and/or question and answer forums on the air. Enough of this hanky-panky crap where teams of partisans meet to determine the rules of debate. Trot 'em the hell out there to meet the public and answer questions and let us get a good look at them.

that citizens and non-profit groups get to enjoy the same tax-deductible advantages for disseminating information (or misinformation) as major corporations. This would be a major transfer of resources and power back to the average citizen. For example, the "forums" sent around the nation by the big Three auto manufacturers, "explaining" the Clean Air Act, disseminated enough falsehoods to generate a blizzard of astro-turf (synthetic grassroots) correspondence, from Boy Scout troops, handicapped groups and Little League mothers informed that passage of the Clean Air Act would preclude cars larger than a Honda on the nation's roads. The costs of the these dog-and-pony, chart-and- pointer carnivals were tax deductible to the Big Three. However if I should choose to send copies of the book Clearcut, which graphically chronicles the rape and dismemberment of the nation's public forests to every legislator in Washington, I would have to foot the bill, despite having paid more taxes last year than ten major corporations.