Doug Allen, Professor of Philosophy
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Doug Allen
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During the past year, the most common political question I received from
professors and other members of the university community is the
following: Whom are you supporting for president? The question was
predictable but my answer usually seemed to surprise many of the
questioners: In terms of my research and service activities, as well as
my peace and justice activism, this question was not my highest
priority.
It's not as if it makes no difference who is elected president. If Al
Gore had become president in January 2001, it is possible that the U.S.
would not have invaded and occupied Iraq, would not have the biggest
financial deficit in U.S. history, and the government might not have
been so complicit with big oil corporate interests and might have made
some progress on the climate change crisis. A new president can make
some difference in changing the present cultural climate in which
inequalities between haves and have-nots have grown alarmingly, class
and race and other divisions have been exacerbated and cynically
exploited, and the reputation of the U.S. throughout the world, even in
friendly countries, is certainly at its lowest point during my lifetime.
The most important realities, even during this election year, do not
involve who is elected president, but rather whether we can create a new
political and cultural climate with a change in relations of power. We
can participate in the electoral process but with a different attitude
and political culture. We must get away from the top-down approach in
which we become totally dependent on our president and other elected
officials to solve our political, economic, military, healthcare,
energy, environmental, and other problems. When so dependent, we then
become disappointed, cynical, and feel powerless when elected
politicians disappoint us and represent the interests of the wealthy and
powerful. We have given the president and other politicians too much of
our power.
Instead, we must create and further a culture in which we educate ourselves, raise consciousness, and build a real democratic movement. In
the electoral and other political processes, we must challenge fear
mongering, misinformation, lies, rush to war, false patriotism,
undermining of civil liberties, promoting torture, war-profiteering by
corporations, planned occupation of Iraq with permanent military bases
and control of the oil, undermining of real science, and all of the
other recent policies that are not in our real interests.
It is only a broad-based and diverse movement, not defined by money and
limits of electoral politics and the power status quo, that can support
progressive politicians and put pressure on those complicit with
economic and military power. Without such a political culture we are
left waiting for the superstar politician who will solve our problems
for us, and that is not how history works.
The abolition of slavery, woman's right to vote, the end of child labor,
the 8-hour day, civil rights, the end of the Vietnam War, environmental
legislation, and other really significant cultural and political changes
were opposed by powerful and privileged economic and political forces.
Only when the people educated themselves, organized, resisted,
struggled, and became a powerful political culture did the "leaders" at
the top have to listen. Only through real democratic empowerment can we
support progressive candidates and then hold them accountable.
