Jackson on Democracy

Passing federal legislation promoting universal voter registration, as Jackson urges, would leave unaddressed the fundamental problems of our languishing democracy. The problems start with the Democratic and Republican parties, a corrupt set of identical twins which give the electorate a choice between two sets of candidates who ultimately sell out to the same shifting coalition of wealthy interests forming the de facto oligarchy that is the real government of our country. These social parasites are consistently able to subvert public policy to satisfy their unbounded greed while beggaring most of the rest of us.

If, like the Russians, we could cast negative as well as positive votes for our candidates, I am quite sure that many more people would show interest in our elections. Just imagine how nice it would have been to be able to cross off the names of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan or Michael Dukakis and George Bush and have these negative votes offset any positive votes! If this had been possible, I bet none of these candidates would have received anything close to a majority vote, and maybe the ensuing political crisis would have triggered a healthy debate examining the legitimacy of our political institutions.

HARLEIGH KYSON JR.

Los Angeles