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Vote _and Organize_ or Die |
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by Sean Gonsalves
(No verified email address) |
03 Nov 2004
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Depending on the outcome of [yester]day's presidential election, and if I didn't have such deep family roots in this land that I love, I'd seriously consider moving to the Dominican Republic, where the weather is warm and baseball is played all year round.
Having said that, one of the unfortunate aspects of American politics is this fetish we have with presidential elections as if the office of the presidency were some omnipotent seat of power.
One thing I've learned from studying history: No politician is ever on the cutting edge of change. Politicians will only go so far. So if their perceived constituents don't create the moral and political climate for certain policies or positions, guess what? They ain't ever gonna see the light of day.
Think about it. Name one meaningfully momentous change in American history that was brought on behalf of the people because a president or his administration pioneered it.
The 40-hour work week? Paid vacations? Overtime pay? We can thank those who shed blood, sweat and tears in the labor movement for creating the social pressures that established those work rules we have come to take for granted.
You don't seriously think that one fine morning a politician woke up and said: "To hell with the captains of industry who have undue and disproportionate political access and influence. I'm going to do what's right on behalf of workers."
Hell no. Granted, labor laws in America are weak and definitely favor corporate chieftains, but the labor laws we do have came to fruition because people organized outside of the conventional political process and coerced unwilling leaders to compromise.
What about desegregation and the Voting Rights Act of 1965? You don't honestly believe that President Johnson and Congress were moved to tears by Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech and then, out of the goodness of their hearts, decided it was time that blacks were no longer treated as second-class citizens.
No. The courage and convictions of hundreds of thousands of people willing to put their necks on the line is what inspired democracy to expand in the 1950s and 1960s.
What about the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam? It certainly wasn't presidential politics or "the best and brightest" at the forefront of that call. We got out of Vietnam because years after the anti-war movement was in full-swing, the business class finally came around to the notion that the financial and moral costs of the war outweighed the alleged benefits, which forced the hand of the politicians.
Women's suffrage? Again, it was an active and engaged citizenry that initiated the first step to liberate women in America from the manacles of patriarchal oppression. It wasn't the work of a compassionate conservative or a bleeding heart liberal president.
Democracy isn't something you do every four years at the polls. The life of democracy depends on critical thinking and active participants in and outside of the political process, willing to organize and join democracy-building movements in between election cycles.
It seems a large segment of the population has confused consumerism with citizenship. Democracy is not a spectator sport and having liberty as consumers to choose between a variety of products doesn't have a thing to do with freedom in any meaningful sense of the term.
From whence came this idea that if only we elect the right person, the complex and seemingly intractable social ills plaguing our world will get the attention they deserve?
No matter who gets elected at the end of day, you, me, we, will never see the kind of change this experiment in democracy needs to survive, unless we do more than vote.
One of the many narrowly focused political slogans of this election season among young people is "Vote or Die!" The fascist implications of that slogan aside, I say vote and organize or die. If you just vote, the death of democracy isn't far behind.
What Gandhi said of Christianity could also be said of democracy. It's a good idea. Somebody ought to try it sometime.
Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and a syndicated columnist.
© 2003 Cape Cod Times
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