A while back I bought a tea cup from the "unemployed philosophers' guild." It lists our Bill of Rights in small print, and when filled with hot water, those we've recently lost become invisible.
I've enjoyed showing the cup around the office and watching the vanished rights gradually return with temperature equilibrium. Will our right to Habeus Corpus, government information and personal privacy be restored so easily anytime soon? Or are these fresh wounds to the Constitution permanent casualties of the war against "terra."
In his new book The Assault on Reason, Al Gore presents a potent analysis of these Constitutional rights. The book comprehensively examines the crown jewels of American Democracy (reason, access and balance) and the perversion of each with their opposites (fear, secrecy and money). And it begins with a comparison of fear and reason. As we saw in the 2004 election, when some Americans were too afraid of what they didn't know to actually change course, fear can paralyze the human ability to reason in the face of the most obvious facts.
That is, in a contest between fear and reason, fear is most likely to win. And, although many of our Founding Fathers warned against it, today fear is a major campaign strategy.
Gore sees the voice of the citizenry silenced by television, which appears to give access to power while actually providing only some carefully edited information. Until We the People create or receive a new forum for public debate, our Constitutional rights may continue to gradually disappear, just like those on my teacup. Gore's book, in short, is a passionate call for us to take responsibility for creating that change.
Several of our founders and statesmen accurately predicted that the love of money would corrupt and destroy our carefully designed system. Both Lincoln and Jefferson foresaw it. While reading the draft from James Madison, Jefferson wrote that he would "insist" on attaching a Bill of Rights stating, "(1) Religion shall be free; (2) Printing presses free; (3) Trials by jury preserved in all cases; (4) No monopolies in commerce; (5) No standing army."
President Lincoln later made allowances to companies in order to manage the Civil War. With slavery the target and emancipation the goal, he loosened restrictions against monopoly for industries that transported soldiers, manufactured their uniforms, and supplied their munitions. "We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end," Lincoln said. "But I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country." According to Gore, by 1900 corporations were "crushing competition from smaller businesses, bleeding farmers with higher shipping costs, and buying politicians at every level of government."
If all are created equal in a Democracy, I ask you, how can a corporation be equal with a person? TV advertising overode the importance of TV news in the late 1950s during Edward R. Murrow's legendary work and added yet another layer of separation between us and our elected representatives.
So where do we start? How can we fix this monumental problem? Term limits for Congress? That would be a good place to start. especially considering we probably will not see any effective campaign finance reform until the executive branch teams up with one of the other two. I'm not holding my breath.
As Lockheed Martin and Halliburton thrive, will the prisoners in Guantanamo-along with those in undisclosed foreign prisons around the world and those who were in Abu Ghraib-receive reparations and apologies from our government one day? Do the billions in sole-source, no-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton violate American free enterprise values? Does Halliburton present any conflict of interest with the sitting vice president on the company's payroll up until 2005? Of course not. As he so astutely pointed out, Dick Cheney is not a member of the Executive Branch! Certainly the first sitting vice president to be so uniquely set apart from his job.
The rot at the root of our Republic is the love of money. For today, only those who have
it can influence legislation and policy or even run for office. Meanwhile, We the People sit and watch all this happening on television, or perhaps we read about it in books.
Last night, ready for another cup of chai, I opened the dishwasher to find that my
Bill of Rights completely disappeared. Again, modern technology like the TV entertains in the short term but ultimately disappoints.
My Bill of Rights are down the drain.
Chrystal Stefani is assistant to the director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Physics. Her column runs every other Tuesday.
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