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Today's
Stories
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A Journey to Rafah
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
March 27 / 28, 2004
The Poverty of American Democracy
Of
Spoilers and Electability
By MATT VIDAL
Is American democracy so bankrupt that pundits
and politicians actively and openly encourage people not
to vote for the candidate that most closely represents their
interests? Indeed. One would think that in a democracy candidates
with diverse political programs would be welcomed--perhaps offering
distinct choices on substantive issues. Yet progressives and
other leftists are discouraged from voting for their preferred
candidates.
In the primaries it was "electability"
(which surely the skinny little vegan Kucinich doesn't have,
despite consistently offering the most direct and articulate
answers in the debates) that should be the key criterion; in
the general election it will be the "spoiler" vote--rather
than substantive positions--which will be the common refrain
against Nader.
But this song is not just the lefty's
blues. It concerns everyone who is dissatisfied with the direction
of our country, the increasing consolidation of wealth and power
at home, and imperialism abroad. Here are two reasons why.
US electoral institutions are atypical
among industrial democracies
First, the problems of spoiler votes
and electability are not unique to recent election cycles or
individual candidates. While these issues have been thrown into
sharp relief thanks to polarizing effects of the compassionate
conservatism of Bush-the-uniter, they are merely symptoms of
a broken system. Maybe rigged is a better adjective, since it
works very well for the two parties who crafted it to inoculate
themselves from third-party competition. In this case "the
system" refers to a very specific set of institutions largely
peculiar among industrial democracies to the United States.
The two party system, and the winner-take-all
voting system (formally called a plurality voting with single
member districts) on which it is based, are not mentioned in
the constitution. Rather, the institutions of our electoral system
take their current form due to concerted action by the two parties
and the capitalist interests they both represent.[1] In the presidential
election of 1896, William McKinley constructed a vast machine
of wealth backed by Northern Industrialists, easily defeating
the populist William Jennings Bryan. The populist movement,
with roots in the South and West, was effectively crushed. Students
of US political history agree that this election was pivotal
moment in American politics, laying the foundation for the modern
system of electoral politics by ushering in the dominance of
wealth in the political system, the growth of non-competitive
legislative districts and substantial decreases in voter participation
(dropping about 30% in a single generation). A series of reforms
ensued--including requirements for periodic registration, voter
qualifications, poll taxes, and literacy tests--assuring that
poor whites and all blacks would be effectively excluded from
participation in the electoral system. Many of these discouraged
potential voters never came back to the ballot box. Today, in
terms of PACs, business contributes seven times as much as labor,
and ten times as much as all other special interest groups.
The results have been stupendous. In
the contemporary US, less than half of the eligible population
votes in presidential elections and 95% of the population generally
does not make significant political contributions. In federal
elections, less than one percent of the population contributes
more than 80% of contributions over $200.
In effect, there is a "wealth primary"
solidly in place, meaning that only those who are able to raise
enough money can run--basically, those who will serve the interests
of the wealthy. In cases where those who actually oppose the
interests of corporate America and neoliberal globalization,
and instead represent the interests of working families and global
integration with labor and environmental standards, are able
to enter the system, such as Nader and Kucinich, then we hear
more about electability and spoiler votes than we do of the alternative
political programs.
Buy must we settle for the candidate
we dislike least, rather than vote for the one we like most?
No. It could be otherwise, as it has been in the United States,
and as it is in most other industrial democracies today.
Currently the two major parties receive
massive government subsidies, while third parties receive nothing
but obstacles. At the legislative level, in a plurality voting
single member district (PV-SMD) system like ours each legislative
district has only one seat that is won by the candidate who wins
the plurality (simply the most, not the majority) of votes.
The two parties have the advantage (over third parties) in terms
of their entrenched institutionalization in the system, ballot
access, nominating procedures, et cetera. In a PV-SMD system,
with only one seat per district, the two parties are the only
game in town, hence the "spoiler" problem.
In Western European democracies and nearly
every other industrialized democracy in the world, electoral
rules are based not on PV-SMD but on proportional representation
(PR). In the latter, districts have multiple seats and a party
gets seats in proportion to the amount of votes it received.
If, for instance, a party received 10 percent of the vote in
a district with 10 seats, it gets one seat. No wasted votes,
no spoiling. This applies, of course, to legislative bodies,
not presidential races. But having PR provides an institutional
basis for multiple parties, which in turn helps to mitigate the
spoiler problem even for presidential races. In the US, nearly
all congressional districts were multi-member before the 1840s
and many state legislative districts were up to the 1950s. Unfortunately
for democracy, the two parties have succeeded destroying multi-member
districts and consolidating their duopoly through many other
rules and forms of exclusion.
One prominent example of such other forms
of exclusion is anti-fusion laws. "Fusion candidacies,"
formally called plural nomination, allow alliances between parties,
and hence would go a long way toward mitigating the problem of
"electability" by allowing progressive voices to be
heard. Joel Rogers, democratic theorist and legal scholar, explains:
An important fact of American history
is that the Constitution also does not limit alliances between
parties, of a sort that could, even in a PV-SMD system, provide
some equivalent to that which in others is typically provided
by proportional representation æ to wit, some serious
weighting of minority electoral sentiment. Until the end of the
19th century, "fusion" candidacies were universally
permitted and very widely practiced. Under their terms, a minor
party could nominate the same candidate or slate of candidates
as a major one, with votes cast on its line counting toward those
candidate(s)' total vis-à-vis rivals. This permitted minor
party supporters to vote their values without wasting their votes.
By voting on their own line, they could declare their real political
identity. By combining their votes with those cast on major party
lines, they could stay in the main game. [2]
After populist defeat in 1896, Republican
controlled state legislatures began passing anti-fusion laws
as efforts to institutionally solidify the two-party duopoly
began in earnest. Over forty states now have anti-fusion laws
and only New York routinely uses fusion.
It should also be noted that a PR system
allows the political expression of a much wider range of interests.
They have also been shown, relative to PV-SMD systems, to increase
voter turnout and provide better representation minorities. In
a PV-SMD system, when candidates must join either one or the
other party to win, there ends up being as much variation within
the parties as there is between them. Ultimately, parties become
candidate-centered and non-programmatic, which means parties
do not have any basic program for which they can be held accountable.
Inevitably the distinctions between them become blurred as they
compete for the middle. In contrast, a PR system generates parties
that have strong programs (and hence are accountable), with a
wider range of choices, leading to a truly competitive political
system, allowing a diversity of interests to be expressed and
represented.
Democracy doesn't
start and stop at the polls
I promised one other reason why anyone
who is concerned with the direction our country is taking should
read on, even it they don't necessarily support the leftist candidates.
Second, then. Anybody but Bush? How about
Cheney, or perhaps Rummy, in 2008? The more general point is
that we are setting ourselves up for defeat if we focus only
on this election. Contrary to what the two-party duopoly would
have us believe, democracy is more than the electoral system
and its going to take a lot more than regime change at home--though
surely necessary and good place to start--to turn the country
around.
Our democracy is impoverished not simply
because of the electoral institutions discussed above. We should
remember that in this, "the oldest democracy in the world,"
full democracy is in its infancy. Women gained the right to vote
in steps in various states, and finally by federal constitutional
amendment only in 1920; and blacks were effectively disenfranchised
through various mechanisms--such as literacy tests, poll taxes,
vouchers of "good character,"--until at least the voting
rights act of 1965. The democratization of the US over the 19th
and 20th centuries, as with increased racial, gender and economic
equality more generally, happened only through sustained, organized
resistance and struggle. Long, hard battles were fought in places
from the streets to the courts, but all largely outside the electoral
institutions.
The lesson here is that it takes organization,
resistance, and, indeed, social movements to make significant
progressive change. All of these are behind the real victories
realized at the ballot box or through legislation. The Bush regime
has skewed the terms of the debate so far to the right that even
neoliberals like Kerry look progressive. I'm not discounting
a tactical choice at the ballot box to help transfer state power
away from the maniacs who currently have control. But behind
these scoundrels and predators are powerful, powerful interests
who are not going away. The connections from those in the White
House to conservative think tanks like Project for the New American
Century to global corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel run
much deeper than Cheney and Wolfowitz. The disregard for democracy
among many US administrations serving their capitalist class
interests, from Chile in 1973 to the US in 2000 and Venezuela
in 2003, is clear.
It is in the interests not just of hard
working families the world over, but of our own democracy, that
we continue to build and support social movements to create a
rich and vibrant democracy, not simply settle for the occasional
opportunity to vote; let alone settle for anybody but Bush.
Matt Vidal
is pursuing his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
He can be reached at: mvidal@ssc.wisc.edu.
Notes
[1] For a detailed discussion of the
historical evolution of US electoral institutions, the peculiarities
of and problems with the current system, and the issues and obstacles
involved in reforming it, see Joel Rogers, "Pull the Plug,"
Administrative Law Review 52,2 (Spring 2000). My
discussion of electoral institutions draws heavily from Rogers.
A version of this articles is available online at http://www.nmef.org/pulltheplug.htm.
[2] Ibid., p. 748.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
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