[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 6 (Tuesday, February 1, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS

                                 ______


                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 1, 1994

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I recently wrote an article for the Los 
Angeles Times concerning the serious crisis of our country's democracy. 
I would like to submit this article for the Congressional Record.

              [From the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 1994]

                      Whither American Democracy?

                          (By Bernard Sanders)

       As the only Independent in Congress, I have the 
     responsibility to raise issues that my Democratic and 
     Republican colleagues choose not to deal with. Let me briefly 
     touch upon three issues of enormous consequence that, while 
     ignored in Congress, must be addressed by the American 
     people.
       The United States is, increasingly, an oligarchy. The 
     richest 1% of our population now owns 37% of the wealth, more 
     than the bottom 90% of the people. The chief executive 
     officers of the Forbes 500 corporations earn 157 times more 
     than their average worker. The gap between the rich and the 
     poor is wider than at any time since the 1920s. From 1983 to 
     1989, 55% of the increase in family wealth accrued to the 
     richest half of 1% of families, while the lower-middle and 
     lower classes lost more than $250 billion of wealth.
       Oligarchy refers not just to the unfair distribution of 
     wealth, but to the fact that the decisions that shape our 
     consciousness and affect our lives are made by a very small 
     and powerful group of people.
       The mass media (television, radio newspapers, magazines, 
     publishers, movie and video companies), for example, are 
     largely controlled by a few multinational corporations that 
     determine the news and programming we see, hear and read--
     and, ultimately, what we believe. While violence, scandal, 
     horror, sports and Rush Limbaugh are given much attention, we 
     are provided with virtually no in-depth analysis of the 
     problems facing working people or their possible solutions.
       Economic decisions that wreck the lives of millions of 
     American families are made by a handful of CEOs. While these 
     corporate leaders bemoan the breakdown of ``morality'' and 
     ``law and order,'' they close down profitable companies, cut 
     wages and benefits, deny retired workers their pensions and 
     transport our jobs to Third World countries. American 
     workers, who have often given decades of their lives to these 
     companies, have absolutely no say as to what happens to them 
     on the job. They are powerless and expendable, which is what 
     oligarchy is all about.
       The United States is becoming a Third World economy. The 
     standard of living of the average American worker continues 
     to decline. The real wages of American production workers 
     have dropped by 20% during the past 20 years, as millions of 
     decent-paying jobs have disappeared. The new jobs that are 
     being created are largely temporary, part-time, low-wage and 
     with few benefits.
       Twenty years ago, the United States led the world in terms 
     of the wages and benefits our workers received. Today, we are 
     in 12th place. Our wages, health care, vacation time, 
     parental leave and educational opportunity lag behind much of 
     the industrialized world. Much of our economic and social 
     life is more and more resembling that of the desperate Third 
     World.
       Twenty-two percent of our children live in poverty. Five 
     million kids go hungry. About 2 million Americans now lack 
     permanent shelter or sleep out on the streets--many of them 
     mentally ill. One in every 10 American families now put food 
     on the table only with the aid of food stamps. Tens of 
     millions more survive, on bare subsistence, from paycheck to 
     paycheck.
       In more and more abandoned neighborhoods in America, a lack 
     of jobs, income, education and hope has created an 
     extraordinary climate of savagery and violence surpassing 
     that of many communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
       The suffering and desperation in the Third World that we 
     have distantly observed is now coming home, as we become a 
     Third World economy.
       The United States is fast becoming a non-democratic 
     country. We have the lowest voter turnout of any major 
     industrialized country--55% in the 1992 presidential 
     election. It is expected that the 1994 off-year election 
     turnout will be about 36%. In local elections, the turnout is 
     often far lower.
       The simple fact is that the majority of Americans, and the 
     vast majority of poor and working people, no longer believe 
     that their government is relevant to their lives. They 
     understand very clearly that real power rests with a wealthy 
     elite and that voting for Tweedle-dee or Tweedle-dum is not 
     going to change that reality or improve their lives.
       If democracy is going to survive in this country, tens of 
     millions of poor and working people are going to have to see 
     the connection between their economic condition and the 
     political process. They must vote not for the lesser of two 
     evils, but for jobs, income, health care and the dignity to 
     which they, as human beings, are entitled. Only when that 
     occurs will American democracy become revitalized.

                          ____________________