Many Americans have fought hard in this century simply to achieve the
right to vote. Today there is universal suffrage. But is there universal
and equal participation in governance? A look at the current election
shows that the people are completely excluded from the right to
themselves be elected and elect representatives from their peers. When
campaigns require tens of millions of dollars, when winning requires the
backing of the rich, is the democratic right to vote really being
exercised?
Voting, when it is a part of governance, is a mechanism to provide the
electorate with a decision-making role. Voting should be the exercise of
real power by the individual--to decide what society should do and how
society should organize itself to solve the problems it faces. A majority
vote of the electorate should then carry weight and be translated into
definite action on the part of government to solve problems.
But what happens in US elections? The electorate has no
decision-making role. The candidates, both for the primaries and the
general election, are chosen by the rich. The campaigns are organized
mainly as mud-slinging events and dominated by promises made to be broken.
The "issues" are decided by the candidates and their parties and promoted
by the media. Right now the question of tax cuts is getting center stage.
How is this policy issue fundamental to solving the problems faced by
society?
With today's democracy of the rich, what is the electorate deciding
with their vote? Basically which representatives of the rich will govern
for the next few years. People are used as voting cattle for different
sections of the rich. The right to vote loses its meaning, as it is
robbed of its essential content of the right to decide. Instead, an
illusion is created. The right to vote gives the appearance of the right
to decide. But the reality is absent.
If we are to honor those who have fought for the equal right to vote,
this struggle must be carried through to conclusion. This means rejecting
the false democracy of elections of, by and for the rich--which deny power
to the people. It means rejecting the framework of the existing
institutions and electoral process as old and outdated. We cannot be
content with trying to find candidates who are a little less evil.
The needs of society demand new institutions that establish modern
democracy of, by and for the people. Now is the time to organize to
discuss just what the character of these new institutions should be. How
can they be organized to insure it is the people themselves who hold
supreme power in their hands? What mechanisms are needed to give the right
to vote its democratic content of participation in decision making? How
can elections serve to enable ordinary people to themselves run for office
and to select their representatives from their peers--from among those who
can actually represent them?
The work for democracy today is a profound and urgent task, which
requires rejecting the old and fighting for the new.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
