WHAT A DIFFERENCE A CENTURY MAKES!
You may not realize it, but 2012 is the centennial anniversary of what many consider to be the healthiest American election ever held, which was the United States Presidential Election of 1912.
Yep. It was one hundred years ago this year American voters were fed up with our morbidly obese, incumbent president, William Howard Taft, who was re-nominated by the Republican Party, with the party’s ultra-conservative wing (Tea Party?) blocking the former moderate U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, from claiming the nomination for himself. (Mitt Romney?)
But, that didn’t stop our Rough Rider, Teddy. After his unsuccessful challenge to Taft’s nomination at the Republican convention, maverick that he was, Teddy called
his own convention and created the Progressive Party, (aka: the Bull Moose Party) who nominated T.R. for President, along with many other candidates for other
offices in several major states. (Ron Paul?)
And yes, Virginia….there really were Progressive Republicans back in 1912!
The Democratic convention was gridlocked that year, too. Perennial presidential wannabe, William Jennings Bryan, the oft-nominated former Democratic Party candidate, finally threw his support behind New Jersey governor, Woodrow Wilson,
and thus, resolved one of the most contentious Democratic Conventions in
history. Wilson didn’t secure the nomination until the 46th ballot of the delegates!
The term “Socialism” was not bantered about as though it was a dirty word back then and The Socialist Party of America was a major player on the American
ballot for many decades in the early 20th century. Back then, millions of Americans were Socialists and proud of it.
In 1912, the Socialist Party easily nominated their best man, Eugene Debs,
absent the infighting and party-splitting that the Democrats and Republicans
were experiencing at their conventions.
Why would our having four major candidates for president be considered healthy for the American electorate?
Because a century ago, no matter where you stood in our political spectrum; Left
(Socialists), Center-Left (Bull Moose Progressives), Center-Right (Democrats),
or Right (Republicans)….voters had solid choices…and with four candidates, chances were overwhelming that at least one of them matched your own personal point of view politically.
Democracy thrives on clear, distinctive choices…something we really don’t have today in 2012.
In 1912, all of the presidential candidates had a specific vision for our nation as we fully entered the totally amazing, occasionally-frightening and yet unchartered 20th century.
Not only were all four candidates rooted in clearly-defined party platforms, but each also had major appeal to large sections of the American populous, even though women didn’t even have the right to vote at that time!
And most importantly of all…each candidate had a real shot at winning the office of U.S. president because the voters were totally fed up with corporate rule—just like
today! The Presidency was truly up for grabs!
Now…compare this to our situation today, exactly one century later in 2012. What are the similarities? What are the differences?
Like it or not, there are duties and obligations that we, as individual citizens, simply must fulfill if we are to avoid the disasters, both economic and otherwise, that our nation has experienced in the past 100 years….and even more importantly, to avoid the new calamities that are headed our way.
Can we return to the wealth of political choices from a century ago? That’s the sort of topic we’ll be talking about in this blog.
My personal mission is to get our Valley communities and all of our Valley voters engaged in our democracy. That’s why I’m out there at Farmer’s Markets, Libraries and events registering voters of all political stripes. That’s the first step to becoming an engaged citizen…registering to vote!
We’ve learned the hard way that living in a democracy is not a spectator sport. One must participate and get in the game.
And in 2012, everyone will need to be on board for the bumpy ride of our next presidential election.
And…maybe even join a political party like it’s 1912.
© 2012 –
Michael McCue
What scares me most about the bailout is the fact that we may have prevented the most influential segment of our society from feeling the true pain of our actions and fully learning from the event and I fear that will doom us to a repeat.
I tried to post this on the blog but don't know my password and the password reset didn't work.
As the U.S. Supreme Court in Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party had the wisdom and foresight to observe, "the States' interest in screening out frivolous candidates must be considered in light of the significant role that third parties have played in the political development of the Nation. Abolitionists, Progressives, and Populists have undeniably had influence, if not always electoral success. As the records of such parties demonstrate, an election campaign is a means of disseminating ideas as well as attaining political office. [Citations.] Overbroad restrictions on ballot access jeopardize this form of political expression." Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 185-186, 99 S.Ct. 983, 990 (1979)
Willim H. Taft also was not a far right candidate. Perhaps to a member of the Green Party today he appears as "far right", but he really he was a centrist. He in fact considered himself a Progressive; Teddy Roosevelt didn't think he was Progressive "enough". Taft was more of a Constitutionalist then Roosevelt, often causing the two to diverge, but Taft didn't always toe the party line. Hello... he instituted Corporate Income Tax! Anyway, appreciate your article and comments. Danielle
Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.
There's a parallel to the state's treatment of the Pullman strikers that Debs struggled alongside, and the brutal fashion Villaraigosa, Bloomberg, Quan, et al have treated the Occupy! movements. Here's Debs' words on his experience: "In the gleam of every bayonet and flash of every rifle the class struggle was revealed. This was my first practical lesson in socialism, though wholly unaware that it was called by that name." When we see how the bipartisan consensus treats those standing up for social justice, perhaps we too can see class struggle revealed.
In any of your political wanderings, does anyone discuss the destructive influence of the bond market on our national, political and economic balance? We tend to think of the bond market as investing in America, but isn't it more accurate to think of it as the government borrowing money (...necessarily from those who have more than they need)? The bond market has become an alternative to taxation as a source of short-term governmental revenue, but unlike taxes it must be paid back ...with interest! As such, it is pretty much a national credit card, which our government has over-used to pay for "entitlements" that we can't really afford. The truly destructive part of all this is that we have been seduced into thinking that our relatively modest tax burden is high - even though it is grossly insufficient to pay for all the services we all need and want. In this way, the money party holds us hostage. They subsidize our social benefits, (...for profit, which only adds to our long term tax burden), while at the same time fighting for lower taxes, which in turn keeps us even more dependent on their subsidy-for-profit scheme. We are like spoiled rich kids who feel entitled to all the things our parent pay for us to have, and then wonder why those parents try to dictate our choices. The irony is that more realistic taxes would free us from the credit card debt that weighs us down, AND keep us more aware of the actual cost of the benefits we think we need.
Just as large shareholders "own" a corporation, bondholders quite literally own America ...and clearly are not above dictating policy. Just as a corporation will often feel more obligation to its shareholders than to its customer base, so does our government end up owing more allegiance to its bondholders than to its citizenry. By whittling down the bond market, or at least returning it to its historical status as a short-term stop gap in times of exceptional need, we would go a long way toward returning the nation to its citizens. It would also serve to enforce upon our spoiled generations a realistic awareness of the cost of our "entitlements", and how much we really need them.
I was "enlightened" recently by reading Niel Stephenson's trilogy "The Baroque Cycle". In addition to being an entertaining romp through the 17th century, it painted a wonderful picture of the emergence of modern finance. When royalty ruled the world, they would periodically call in financial support from the lords who owed them fealty ...to fight a war, etc. According to Stephenson, this was the birth of the bond market. I believe it survived as just this sort of temporary stopgap all the way through WWII when we were all encouraged to "buy bonds". It has since degenerated into yet one more table at the Wall Street casino, for speculators who see the our government as a sure thing, backed by the American taxpayer. It worked well while the overall growth of our economy was sufficient to mask our increasing debt to the bondholders. Now that times are tough, the debt weighs heavily upon us. This is made absurdly obvious by what is happening in Greece. They are owned by bondholders to the extent that any bailout will go to the bondholders before any of it reaches the Greeks. On top of that, the hedge funds have the audacity to sue the Greek government for putting Greece before them. I would welcome any further education your bloggers might have to offer about the history of the bond market.
In the Eighties when banking regulation on the part of the federal government was effectively withdrawn and restrictions on interstate banking and the merging of multiple financial functions in the same institution in the name of efficiency presented a nightmare of conflict of interest, all the banks in the little New England town where I lived were bought by larger institutions. Eventually these institutions were bought by larger ones, those larger ones were bought or merged with others and about a dozen or fewer super-national banks emerged to create roughly the structure under whose fiscal sway we live today. So back in those days a bunch of the businesspeople in town got together and, as they had a hundred or two hundred years earlier, founded a new local bank. I didn't puty all my business there right away but I did buy a couple of blocks of shares - really more to support a community intiative than to make an investment. My thought at the time was that two scenarios were likely: (1) the bank could fail and all I was out was the money I put into the initial stock or (2) the bank could conceivably be successful and one of these dys I could sell the stock to help with my kids' college fund. At the time my son was a toddler and my daughter was a leer in my eye ...
When we moved to California we used the conventional commercial banks for a long while but they continued to disappear or chnge their names. Finally about two years ago we all opened accounts in a local credit union where the tellers say hi and smile - much as they did in that tiny northern town - and the owners of the institution are its depositors. They have a cooperative network with credit unions all over the country andf you can make withdrawals and deposits for free at other credit unions and thousands of retail stores from here to Houlton Maine. I recommend it highly. Maybe someday the little bank in the woods will need a few bucks and will be forced to ask the outside world to determine a real market value for its stock and I'll be able to kick in something for the grandchildren's college. Maybe not.
"Decentralization of Power" is very important for a healthier democracy, and is also one of the 10 Key Values of the Green Party.