HomeHomeNovember 2000
Greetings! It's hard to believe that the month of November has finally arrived. Although the year 2000 is gradually winding down, it's a very eventful time here in Minnesota, as elsewhere in America. On November 7th, we'll send a new President to the White House and elect or re-elect several members of our Congress and state legislatures. Many of us will be observing Veteran's Day the weekend of the 11th, and celebrating Thanksgiving on November 23rd, the kick-off of the holiday season.
With Election Day rapidly approaching, we are being inundated with political advertisements on the television, radio, and on various web sites. We're receiving voting reminders from various parties on our telephone voicemail systems, and even finding direct mail pieces on various candidates in our mailboxes. In ads, the candidates' smiling faces assure us that they are pro-family, pro-America, and they will save not only Social Security but our entire health care system as well!
If the candidates are running for public office for the first time, they list the alleged "sins" of their opponents, who have been in Washington or the state legislature too long. If they are incumbents, they defend their records against the "lies" of the inexperienced interlopers who are attempting to boot them out of office. In television ads, we are also subjected to the most unflattering videos and photographs possible of the candidates' opponents--a not-so-subtle attempt to paint the opposition as untrustworthy, shifty, inherently selfish or just plain uncommitted to the common good. To many Americans, the election process seems like a pathetic, tiresome game, one in which we are reluctant to participate. It sometimes seems like a choice between the "lesser of two evils."
As we mentioned last August, voter apathy is a major concern in this country. It isn't just that voter turnouts are lower with each successive election year, but there have been major shifts in our views on public life and in civic participation in general. And those shifts are generational. Americans over 65, the generation that experienced the Great Depression and lived through World War II, are the most likely to vote, and to be civic-minded, which is why so many broadcast and print campaign ads are geared toward their interests.
Young voters, aged 18-34, don't hear candidates discussing issues that affect them. Journalist Lisa Ling, one of the co-hosts of the popular daytime television program, "The View" discussed the problem in a recent editorial in USA Weekend magazine:
"As we embark on the first presidential election for the 21st century, my concern over gun control, abortion and free trade has hardly waned. But something else has: my faith in our political system to do anything meaningful about those issues.
Perhaps it's that I've grown up and become cynical about the way our government is run. Or maybe I'm disgusted by the hypocrisy and lies that pervade politics. Either way, there's one thing I'm certain of: My friends and fellow young people are just not interested in this election. We're all fed up.This attempt to appeal to young voters by the two major candidates for president seems lukewarm at best. The campaigns have recruited family offspring--Karenna Gore, 27, and George P. Bush, 24--to reach out to young voters. My question is: Who relates to these attractive young people? Don't politicians realize that young people don't necessarily attract young voters, especially when they don formal attire and make themselves available primarily for fund-raising events where the average attendee is in his or her 40's?"
Meanwhile, in an attempt to capture the youth vote and to prove themselves likable and even humorous to television audiences, Presidential candidates Al Gore, George W. Bush and even Ralph Nader have made the rounds on the late night TV circuit, appearing on programs such as "The Tonight Show" and "David Letterman." A few years ago, such attempts to reach the mainstream were virtually unheard of and rarely attempted by candidates...until Bill Clinton came along.
In 1992, Clinton understood fully how to reach young voters in a new way (using an "old" medium) when he appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show playing "Heartbreak Hotel" on the saxophone and wearing shades. He was cool, and his win proved that the era of the "World War II generation President" was over. The torch had finally been passed to the Baby Boomers.
Eight years later, after Clinton's impeachment, Americans are tired and bored with politics as usual. Yet we're facing the challenge of a rapidly changing world, thanks in part to new technology and globalization of the economy. We work very hard, and on the surface, it would appear that we don't care about much else. But that's not true at all. Americans care very deeply about the present, and particularly about our collective future. It's just the game of politics that has made us cynical. We desperately want leadership that reflects our changing life and times. And we're all wondering where our country is headed.
As Journalist Ling poignantly states in her editorial about American youth:
"It's not that we don't care. I've found that people of my generation are incredibly socially conscious and deeply passionate about a great many issues---just not the ones the candidates are touting."Many issues that affect the lives of all Americans need to be addressed, and women, in particular, need to pay careful attention. According to an October 12th article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune written by Bob Von Sternberg, gender may be the deciding factor in this election. The issues of Social Security and health care reform are not just critical to the elderly, but to women of all ages, because an overwhelming number of women will make it to old age without enough money to live on. And that is a frightening concept.
However, we mustn't lose hope about our future. According to Robert D. Putnam, Harvard Professor, and author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, our ancestors faced significant challenges at the turn of the 19th century, too:
"Almost exactly a century ago America had also just experienced a period of dramatic technological, economic, and social change that rendered obsolete a significant stock of social capital. In the three or four decades after the Civil War the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and massive waves of immigration transformed American communities. Millions of Americans left family and friends behind on the farm when they moved to Chicago or Milwaukee or Pittsburgh, and millions more left community institutions behind in a Polish shtetl or an Italian village when they moved to the Lower East Side or the North End. America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century suffered from classic symptoms of a social-capital deficit--crime waves, degradation in the cities, inadequate education, a widening gap between rich and poor, what one contemporary called a "Saturnalia" of political corruption.
But even as these problems were erupting, Americans were beginning to fix them. Within a few decades around the turn of the century, a quickening sense of crisis, coupled with inspired grassroots and national leadership, produced an extraordinary burst of social inventiveness and political reform. In fact, most of the major community institutions in American life today were invented or refurbished in that most fecund period of civic innovation in American history."
In his fascinating book, Putnam chronicles in great detail some of the reasons for our "civic disengagement" over the last fifty years: the pressures of time and money, particularly on two-career families, suburbanization, the effect of electronic entertainment (mostly television) on our leisure time, and the slow and steady replacement of our American elders, our most "civic" generation, with their less involved children and grandchildren.
While recognizing that addressing these critical issues is only the beginning, he states:
"Naming our problem, however--and even gauging its dimensions, diagnosing its origins, and assessing its implications...is but a preliminary to the tougher challenge. In a world irrevocably changed, a world in which most women are employed, markets global, individuals and firms mobile, entertainment electronic, technology accelerating, and major war (thankfully) absent, how can we nevertheless replenish our stocks of social capital?"
Professor Putnam challenges us to change our world:
"...Leaders and activists in every sphere of American life must seek innovative ways to respond to the eroding effectiveness of the civic institutions and practices that we inherited. At the same time we need to fortify our resolve as individuals to reconnect, for we must overcome a familiar paradox of collective action. Even if I privately would prefer a more vibrant community, I cannot accomplish that goal on my own--it's not a meeting, after all, if only I show up and it's not a club if I'm the only member. It is tempting to retreat to private pleasures that I can achieve on my own. But in so doing, I make it even harder for you to solve your version of the same problem. Actions by individuals are not sufficient to restore community, but they are necessary.
So, our challenge is to restore American community for the twenty-first century through both collective and individual initiative."
Where do we begin when the tasks at hand seem overwhelming? Take a peek at the current issue of the Utne Reader for an inspiring series of essays called, "Five Signs of the Coming Revolution." Throughout the months of November and December, Utne will host discussions with several of the visionary authors who contributed to their "Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century" segment. The schedule can be found at http://cafe.utne.com.
Another excellent resource is The Quickening of America: Rebuilding Our Nation, Remaking Our Lives (Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CA, 1994) by Frances Moore Lappe and Paul Martin DuBois. The authors provide a "toolkit" for learning how to take charge, and they provide much-needed inspiration by showing us that "democracy as a way of life that involves us every day" can indeed work--not just the concept of democracy as a set of formal institutions. They also ask us to re-think the idea of public life. In our entertainment-driven culture, we tend to view Hollywood stars, sports figures, and, yes, even politicians, as our examples of those living "public" lives of fame, fortune, and notoriety. Yet, we can live a public life by the roles we choose to take on in our work and in our communities. We can make a world of difference in our so-called "ordinary" lives, right here, right now.
And we can begin with the simple act of voting. And let's be thankful that all American citizens over the age of 18 have that right, which our ancestors fought so hard to attain for us.
If you feel discouraged because there's never been a female president, think again. Have you ever heard of Victoria Woodhull? In 1872, this ahead-of-her-time woman had the guts to run for president, well before women won the right to vote in 1920. She didn't give up, even though she didn't have a chance.
Finally, let's remember the words of author Edith Hamilton, (The Greek Way) who studied the life and times of the citizens of the world's first democracy in ancient Greece. Ms. Hamilton once said:
"When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again."
Here are some interesting sites for the upcoming election:
Politics1 is a great place to start if you want to know about all the candidates running for the highest office in the land. Web White and Blue is a "non-partisan consortium of 17 of the largest Internet sites and news organizations who have come together to highlight the potential of the Internet to expand citizen participation in our democracy." Check out their rolling cyber debate.
Women Count is a national non-partisan and Ad Council-endorsed media campaign and educational program that "challenges every woman to exercise her right to vote, to participate in the political process, and to engage in the civic life of her community."
Women Vote has a voting guide which enables you to check out your positions against those of the candidates. They have also compiled a directory of women and politics in the United States.
Project Vote Smart is "a national library of factual information on over 13,000 elected offices and candidates for public office --- President, Governors, Congress and State Legislatures." They offer candidate information in five basic categories: backgrounds, issue positions, voting records, campaign finances and "the performance evaluations made on them by over 100 conservative to liberal special interests."
iVillage.com offers voting records and statements of the candidates. You can also find out information on voting records at the Library of Congress web site. The League of Women Voters site "encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.
Grassroots.com makes the point that few Native American issues have been brought to the forefront during this campaign.We'll see you back here next month.
Teresa
tcallies@hotmail.com
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