Opening the Closed Political Culture

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/28/opening-closed-political-culture

This is serious. The political culture has been in the process of closing throughout my lifetime, locking the American empire into place. Dabashi writes: “At the heart of this imperial republic that effectively rules the world with its military might (not with any moral courage or political legitimacy), we have an electoral process that systematically bars any critical judgment of its own citizens to disrupt its mindless militarism. American citizens are as much trapped inside this corrupt system as people around the globe are at the mercy of its fighter jets and drone attacks.”

Money and militarism rule and the American experiment in democracy, at least as defined by the mainstream media, shrugs in acquiescence. The game of meaningless winning and losing is pretty much all that’s left of it. The military budget is not up for discussion, let alone debate. Neither is the political budget.

“At their core,” writes Geoff Gilbert at Truthout, “political parties are fundraising and marketing mechanisms. Over the years, the Democrats and Republicans have achieved fundraising economies of scale that have effectively barred the entry of any would-be competitors. Their collective fundraising monopoly — combined, they spent $7 billion during the 2012 election cycle — has allowed them to dominate the political discourse by financing campaigns, reaping brand recognition from the political advertising that accompanies campaigns, and thereby establishing their legitimacy as the parties who run candidates and do the governing of our country.”

Gilbert goes on to make an extraordinary suggestion. The Sanders campaign has been called a revolution. Maybe there’s a less amorphous term for what it really is, whether he wins or loses the 2016 presidential nomination: the foundation of a new political party, which would bring a progressive voice back into American politics at every level and, at the same time, help unify “our currently fragmented movement cultures.”

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Small money, flowing from millions of sources, may be the way to force open a closed and cynical political culture. This is the value of Bernie’s ongoing campaign. And it’s why the corporate status quo and its media spokespeople are so scared of it and keep announcing that it’s over.