Posted by Before I continue the analysis of the Agriculture authorization/appropriation knowledge requirements from my last post, The Citizen’s Dilemma, I want to focus on Walter Lippman’s observation that the citizen must seize catchwords and headlines or nothing.
Using today’s campaign propaganda, which is designed for character assassination of the opponent, the catchwords and headlines will make it clear that neither major political power is interested in providing leaders for election. The only interest is “winning” the vote to maintain ‘schoolyard’ power. (We run the schoolyard and if you want to play, you have to do what we say. Damn I remember those schoolyard bully days.) Here are some samples.
From the NRCC ( National Republican Congressional Committee)
| 1) “As a Visalia school board member, Villegas voted for an $8 million settlement with a victim of sexual abuse to ‘keep the community in the dark forever.’’ |
| 2) Randy Villegas’s radical agenda will lead to one thing: higher costs and higher taxes. |
| 3) She skipped her medicine because she couldn’t afford it. Yet Randy Villegas supports raising her cost of living even more. |
Paid for by the NRCC and Authorized by Valadao for Congress.
From the California Democratic Party.
| 1) Valadao voted to gut Medi-Cal and strip our healthcare |
| 2) Washington is full of politicians who put special interests over working families. Valadao received over $1.5 million from PACs, gas and electric utility companies, the health sector and big pharma companies. |
Paid for by the California Democratic Party and authorized by Villegas for Congress
These samples were chosen to make it clear that the political parties are endorsing negative campaign material to discredit each candidate’s opponent. Positive campaign brochures for Valadao came from the Congressman’s Washington office, the Congressional Leadership Fund, and a couple of other PACs. Positive campaign brochures for Villegas came from the California Democratic Party. However, negative brochures clearly exceeded positive brochures about 4 to 1. The bulk of negative brochures were distributed by PACs who stated their statement were not authorized by the candidates.
The fact that the volume of negative brochures is so high indicates that knowledge and skills are not considered very important to voters by organizations supporting those candidates. In fact, the congressional job doesn’t seem to factor into campaign considerations. Are voters really this shallow?
I’ll recommend a great book to place this in perspective. Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy, by Tom Nichols. The book will challenge you to look at how you live and question your priorities. For instance if entertainment is a way of life and participation in governing is reduced to checking boxes on election day, your priorities need to be adjusted.
Democracies die without serious reflection on the issues. That means, in my view, your responsibilities begin after you vote and continue until your next vote. Is your representative doing the job you elected him/her to do? The only way you can ask, and answer, that question is if you have clearly defined expectations based on your knowledge of the issues which are on your priority list.
An issue that is high on my priority list is the candidate’s knowledge and skills to do the job he/she is elected to do. To determine that, I need to know the job requirements of the elected office. This gets me back to where I was in The Citizen’s Dilemma. My next post will continue an analysis based on the authorization and appropriation process for the agriculture bill.
But in closing I will reiterate the point of this post: No Ds, no Rs, None Above. Neither major political party has provided candidates who are interested in anything other than winning a popularity vote. If you can’t submit None Above in a designated blank space, leave it empty. Don’t vote a party line because you ‘believe’ the party will do the right thing. At the age of 72 I can confidently state: neither party knows the right thing to do.
Although it goes without saying, I’ll say it anyway, “Good night and good luck” [Edward R. Murrow]
