The Democrats' Winter of Discontent
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SICK YELLOW DOG Pg. 7• A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES NOVEMBER 25, 1994 • $1.75 ©1992 ALAN POGUE THE DEMOCRATS' WINTER OF DISCONTENT OBSERVATIONS Wellfleet, Massachusetts racy and the just community. Slovenly citi- zenship has no excuse, but the misleading, LL, PROGRESSIVES have never manipulation and exploitation of public been more needed. opinion has become a technical art form in The American democracy has reached its which the controlling value is winning the nadir of disorder and confusion. The elec- election. The "political consultants" are in tion of 1994 was a deep and broad disaster fact the new class of facilitative parasites for the people of the United States and the who have scurried to collect the tolls at the future of democracy here and elsewhere. gates of Win and Prison as democratic poli- Illusions, once the stuff of mere slogans, tics has become a game of Monopoly. A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the are finally washed away. The bund of the As if that is not enough betrayal of the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are ded- large corporations and the very rich governs people, there is also a rupture (is it beyond icated to the whole truth, to human values above all in- terests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation of now quite openly; nearly all politicians are correcting?) between the owners and con- democracy: we will take orders from none but our own puppets and the state and local governments trollers of the large and mass media and the conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater are their stages. The Republican and the people, we who own the airways and who to the ignoble in the human spirit. Democratic parties are no longer rivals, but are supposed to benefit from a system of Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in are colleagues in choreography for the corpo- competitive daily newspapers. publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we rations and the rich because the corporations `The free marketplace of ideas," John agree with them, because this is a journal offree voices. and the rich are the sources of the decisive Stuart Mill named the idea of a people sort- SINCE 1954 political money. There is a deep and deepen- ing out the truth by their own lights and val- ing rupture between the people out here and ues. Instead this year political advertising Founding Editor: Ronnie Dugger the corporations and government that rule in provided the TV stations one-third of a bil- Editor: Louis Dubose there. The connection is broken even though lion dollars in gross revenue, an all-time Associate Editor: James Cullen Production: Peter Szymczak this is still in form democracy. The govern- record even though this was an off-year. Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka ment is not the people's any more. "Negative ads" is just a shorthand reference Editorial Interns: Todd Basch, Mike Daecher, Ophelia The losers are blaming the people, just as for what has now been imposed upon the Richter, Darvyn Spagnolly. Governor Ann Richards and other leaders of people: a culture of lies and a politics of Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Barbara Belejack, Betty Brink, Warren Burnett, Brett Campbell, Peter the Democratic Party in Texas, the likes of smokescreens and pumped-up fears. The Cassidy, Jo Clifton, Carol Countryman, Terry Fitz- Slagle, Bentsen and Shipley, blamed "voter TV and radio corporations and the newspa- Patrick, James Harrington, Bill Helmer, Jim Hightower, apathy" when money's marble Bob Krueger per corporations are now the most effective Ellen Hosmer, Molly lvins, Steven Kellman, Michael King, Deborah Lutterbeck, Tom McClellan, Bryce Mil- lost for the U.S. Senate again. From many single sector of the governing bund. ligan, Debbie Nathan. James McCarty Yeager. different kinds of people in despair one Ergo, the prophetic distortions of this his- Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; hears the people blamed and thus implicitly toric election of 1994. Not a single Republi- Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Cambridge, Mass; dismissed as worthy of affection and re- can incumbent governor or U.S. senator or Bob Eckhardt, Austin; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; spect, even though they are the very and the representative lost. Despite the fact that a Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- only basis and source of the hope for democ- poll showed the health issue was the major bridge. Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; issue in people's minds as they voted, the Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., its ogeolomIth party which killed even Clinton's save-the- San Antonio; Willie Morris, Jackson, Miss.; Kaye '001 Sea insurance-companies system prospered. Yet Northcott, Fort Worth; James Presley, Texarkana; Harrison Wofford, elected U.S. senator from Susan Reid, Austin; Geoffrey Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) 0- Horse Schwartz, Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. • Pennsylvania in an upset on the strength, in Poetry Consultant: Thomas B. Whitbread • Inn good part, of his advocacy of national health Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hin- insurance, was defeated and Democrats lost terlang, Alan Pogue. Kitchcneites Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, TV both the House and the Senate. As an AFL- Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth I l e alcd CIO spokesman said, the voters expressed Epstein, Valerie Fowler, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin their disgust by throwing the rascals in. The bcsitle Gull Hexic() Syr Kreneck, Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Gary Oliver, Ben people's confusion is beyond belief because Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail Woods, Matt Wuerker. on Huston:4 [shwa j that is what the corporations want. When i A\ ',Iiiabic 1(11 Pri \ atc Pullic 4111) Business Manager: Cliff Olofson Pak / 0 there is no vision the people perish and there Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom l '// i(///(' /.../ trOPC(/// ( 1/(1/1// 0 is no vision and the people are perishing. Development Consultant: Frances Barton I ;kin/OA/there 0 Unless the two-party system now finally SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $32, two years $59, three years $84. Full-time f [conoinik:al Spring anti Siiinincr kat,....4 breaks up, and the people's interests find students $18 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and j bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Micro- Pets Welcome Pr ways back into government, we are looking films Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current sub- Mr scriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no at unrelieved greed-first rule of the United one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the east. 1423 11th Street 1110 INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The Supplementary States. Much worse, as the multinationals Index to Periodicals; Texas Index and, for the years 1954 through 1981:The de facto replace governments as the ruling Texas Observer Index. iii0' Port Aransas, TX 78373 1 THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-4519/USPS 541300), entire contents institutions we are looking at the end of the copyrighted, 1) 1994, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval cLiii (512) 749-5221 between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Democ- democratic system as the world's hope for racy Foundation, 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) 477-0746. E-mail: [email protected]. fill' Rcscrva 1 i(ni s Ai just social order. Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Well, it is better to light a candle than to POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, •...„.._grim 307 West 7th Street, Austin, 'texas 78701. :010...aki% A" , ,...4164 - curse the darkness. Light a candle. Wait for 44. 00 Ir ....... friends to come. —RD 2 • NOVEMBER 25, 1994 bT HE TEXAS EDITORIALS server NOVEMBER 25, 1994 Who Will Tell The Party? VOLUME 86, No. 23 REPUBLICAN POLITICAL consultant nelly in her summary of the Times poll. e Atwater understood that his party At a time when 59 percent of the subjects FEATURES never really owned the Democratic voters of one poll believe the country is still in a The End of the Democrats recession and Jim Hightower's rhetorical who left Jimmy Carter to follow Ronald By James K. Galbraith 5 Reagan in 1980. Those Democrats, Atwater "A Boom for Whom?" is set in large type said, "are always looking for a reason to on the cover of Time magazine, it is evident Sick Yellow Dog come home ... If they could maintain, that, that the mild economic expansion under- By James M. Cullen 7 well, you know, here's a Democrat, not a way since just before Bill Clinton took of- lot of difference between him and Bush, fice has not measurably improved the lives DEPARTMENTS they could say: 'We get to vote Democratic of most working people. ` "That's the way it again.' So we felt like, if we didn't get out is because that's the way they see it," said Observation and draw the differences, we'd lose." Re- University of Texas government professor Democracy and Despair publicans, in other words, had to give Walter Dean Burnham. By Ronnie Dugger 2 Democrats a reason to vote for Republican candidates. CORDING TO BURNHAM, the Editorial During the 1994 midterm election cam- Klection was a "mega-event," and Who Will Tell the Party? paign it was Democrats who couldn't give could represent a permanent partisan re- Molly Ivins Democratic voters a reason to vote for alignment.