Congress yesterday defied the President, both of the men who may replace him, the Secretary of the Treasury, their own party leaderships, and essentially every concentration of unelected monied interest in every civil society of the entire world.
Was this a cynical and venal refusal to save their nation from economic calamity in the name of ideological purity? Or was this, finally, real democracy in action? Perhaps both, but only the latter matters.
There is a tension that exists among all holders of governmental power; they must ask themselves, "Am I here to do what my constituents tell me, or am I here to do what I think is best?" Henry Paulson and George W. Bush clearly believe in the latter, a belief made easier due to the fact that these men are either unelected or are elected on a basis other than one man, one vote.
The House of Representatives yesterday did what their constituents wanted them to do. For better or for worse, they followed the explicit orders of those who they represent. The elites instantly condemned this course of action as an abdication of responsibility, but what does that reaction say about the elite's view of democracy?
Let's consider how "democratic" this country, which deigns to impose democracy via violence on others, really is: What members of the federal government are elected on the basis of one man, one vote? There is precisely one office in this country that is democratically assigned, and that is the House of Representatives.
All other members of the federal government, from Senators to Presidents to cabinet secretaries to CIA directors to IRS paramilitary agents, are either unelected or are elected by votes which carry vastly different weights (e.g. the Electoral College, or the "equal" voting power granted to a Wyoming Senator representing 300,000 citizens and a California Senator representing 30,000,000).
This is simply to make the point that the United States is NOT a democracy; it is (or was) a representative republic, in which few decision makers are democratically elected and the most powerful men are subjected to no vote at all. The House of Representatives, then, is the only democratic institution in the federal government. We should keep this in mind while we interpret the elite's disgust at this body.
I don't subscribe to the idea that Representatives should necessarily take marching orders from their constituents. There are occasions when they are (hopefully) better informed about a pressing issue than those they represent, and it is incumbent upon them to make the tough decision and then defend that decision to their constituents every two years.
With this specific situation, however, I find myself trusting the decision of the House by default. The simple reason is that I have no rational reason to trust any member of the Bush administration. I have no choice, therefore, but to trust in democracy, even if that democratic decision is misguided. (It happens; remember, segregation was democratically protected.)
But consider what we would have to believe in order to take the position of the elites in this country. We would have to believe that the President and his advisers are a) competent and b) trustworthy. This element of trust is of nearly divine importance in any functional society, and I have lived without it for most of my life.
We MUST be able to trust the President and his men because the Presidency has evolved (or degenerated?) into the most powerful office in the world and is responsible for decisions that most Americans simply could not make an educated choice on.
For example, the invasion of Iraq. Remember that one? Remember how no average American citizens were clamoring for war in 2002, because Iraq hadn't done anything to us? It was the Bush administration that introduced the idea of starting a war against Iraq and sold it on the premise that they alone were privy to information that made it clear that a failure to act, and the peoples' failure to give them a blank check, would bring catastrophe to America's shores.
I am always disconcerted when someone dismisses the utter abuse of trust that got us into Iraq as nitpicking and irrelevant Monday morning quarterbacking. That attitude shows either a profound ignorance or a profound disregard for the sinews that hold a "democracy" together: Trust.
No rational person would trust George W. Bush. So when his appointees come to me and say, "Your failure to give me a trillion dollars of your money would bring catastrophe to America's shores", I say, well, I say, "How fucking stupid do I look to you?"
The tragedy, of course, is that they might be right; how would I know? I don't understand for a moment the intricacies and balances and speculations and contradictions of the global money markets. I don't. Since I don't, I'd like to be able to defer to administration "experts". But since I have no rational reason to trust these men, my only remaining option is to defer to the only national democratic institution, the House of Representatives.
The men who were in charge of regulating and monitoring these markets for the American people told us that the fundamentals of their purview were secure. Trust us, they said. We got this. A week later, the same men told us that the fundamentals of their purview were so endangered that only the biggest expropriation of wealth in the history of the universe could save them, and that said expropriation must be done NOW. Trust us, they say. We got this.
Well, I don't trust them, and perhaps people should consider the cost of a people who doesn't trust its government then next time a member of that government says "we KNOW where the weapons of mass destruction are." If my refusal to trust those men ruins my nation's economy, that's on them. Believe me, I'd love a reason to trust these guys.
The House's rejection of the bailout plan may well have been a catastrophic mistake. I acknowledge that possibility. But you know what? Everyone dies of something, so it may as well be democracy that kills us.
Was this a cynical and venal refusal to save their nation from economic calamity in the name of ideological purity? Or was this, finally, real democracy in action? Perhaps both, but only the latter matters.
There is a tension that exists among all holders of governmental power; they must ask themselves, "Am I here to do what my constituents tell me, or am I here to do what I think is best?" Henry Paulson and George W. Bush clearly believe in the latter, a belief made easier due to the fact that these men are either unelected or are elected on a basis other than one man, one vote.
The House of Representatives yesterday did what their constituents wanted them to do. For better or for worse, they followed the explicit orders of those who they represent. The elites instantly condemned this course of action as an abdication of responsibility, but what does that reaction say about the elite's view of democracy?
Let's consider how "democratic" this country, which deigns to impose democracy via violence on others, really is: What members of the federal government are elected on the basis of one man, one vote? There is precisely one office in this country that is democratically assigned, and that is the House of Representatives.
All other members of the federal government, from Senators to Presidents to cabinet secretaries to CIA directors to IRS paramilitary agents, are either unelected or are elected by votes which carry vastly different weights (e.g. the Electoral College, or the "equal" voting power granted to a Wyoming Senator representing 300,000 citizens and a California Senator representing 30,000,000).
This is simply to make the point that the United States is NOT a democracy; it is (or was) a representative republic, in which few decision makers are democratically elected and the most powerful men are subjected to no vote at all. The House of Representatives, then, is the only democratic institution in the federal government. We should keep this in mind while we interpret the elite's disgust at this body.
I don't subscribe to the idea that Representatives should necessarily take marching orders from their constituents. There are occasions when they are (hopefully) better informed about a pressing issue than those they represent, and it is incumbent upon them to make the tough decision and then defend that decision to their constituents every two years.
With this specific situation, however, I find myself trusting the decision of the House by default. The simple reason is that I have no rational reason to trust any member of the Bush administration. I have no choice, therefore, but to trust in democracy, even if that democratic decision is misguided. (It happens; remember, segregation was democratically protected.)
But consider what we would have to believe in order to take the position of the elites in this country. We would have to believe that the President and his advisers are a) competent and b) trustworthy. This element of trust is of nearly divine importance in any functional society, and I have lived without it for most of my life.
We MUST be able to trust the President and his men because the Presidency has evolved (or degenerated?) into the most powerful office in the world and is responsible for decisions that most Americans simply could not make an educated choice on.
For example, the invasion of Iraq. Remember that one? Remember how no average American citizens were clamoring for war in 2002, because Iraq hadn't done anything to us? It was the Bush administration that introduced the idea of starting a war against Iraq and sold it on the premise that they alone were privy to information that made it clear that a failure to act, and the peoples' failure to give them a blank check, would bring catastrophe to America's shores.
I am always disconcerted when someone dismisses the utter abuse of trust that got us into Iraq as nitpicking and irrelevant Monday morning quarterbacking. That attitude shows either a profound ignorance or a profound disregard for the sinews that hold a "democracy" together: Trust.
No rational person would trust George W. Bush. So when his appointees come to me and say, "Your failure to give me a trillion dollars of your money would bring catastrophe to America's shores", I say, well, I say, "How fucking stupid do I look to you?"
The tragedy, of course, is that they might be right; how would I know? I don't understand for a moment the intricacies and balances and speculations and contradictions of the global money markets. I don't. Since I don't, I'd like to be able to defer to administration "experts". But since I have no rational reason to trust these men, my only remaining option is to defer to the only national democratic institution, the House of Representatives.
The men who were in charge of regulating and monitoring these markets for the American people told us that the fundamentals of their purview were secure. Trust us, they said. We got this. A week later, the same men told us that the fundamentals of their purview were so endangered that only the biggest expropriation of wealth in the history of the universe could save them, and that said expropriation must be done NOW. Trust us, they say. We got this.
Well, I don't trust them, and perhaps people should consider the cost of a people who doesn't trust its government then next time a member of that government says "we KNOW where the weapons of mass destruction are." If my refusal to trust those men ruins my nation's economy, that's on them. Believe me, I'd love a reason to trust these guys.
The House's rejection of the bailout plan may well have been a catastrophic mistake. I acknowledge that possibility. But you know what? Everyone dies of something, so it may as well be democracy that kills us.
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