American Democracy?

As an outsider watching the lead-up to the American elections, with no concern about who I am going to vote for or if it will help me get a job or keep my house, I suspect I may have a bit clearer view than those in the thick of things. And two thoughts keep running through my mind: “I’m glad we don’t have their system” followed by “Is this the country that brags about their democracy?”

Because, of course, the United States is no longer a democracy, and hasn’t been for some time. It is, quite simply, a corporatocracy.

The fact that the political positions of the two main parties are so similar on most vital issues is not a coincidence. Both are owned by the major corporations that provide their funding, and both must therefore govern not for the people, but for the companies.

Well, then, you say, why don’t people vote for other candidates? They do exist, and represent a variety of different positions. However, in this country where corporations are legally people and can donate millions of dollars to the Republicans or Democrats, other parties have no chance to be heard. The last “third-party” candidate to get any notice at all was Ross Perot, a billionaire who used his own funds to make noise.

So if an American citizen is concerned about a good public education system, or universal health care, or ending the eternal “war on terror”, or protecting the environment from massive climate change, who can he or she vote for that has even a minimal chance of getting elected? No one.

This is not the greatest democracy in the world. This is not democracy at all. It is the autocracy of the corporation, forced on people who believe they are making a choice.