My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 4 #6, August 10, 1998

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

You know, one of the difficulties with having only two political parties big enough, rich enough, and organized enough to have a serious chance of winning is that they each have to be extremely broad-based. This means that by their very breadth, both parties are constantly on a collision course with themselves.

They say politics make for strange bedfellows, and the Democratic party certainly has a mixed lot in its bed--unions, feminists, teachers, blacks, tort lawyers, and such. (It used to have even deeper conflicts before southern whites turned Republican en masse.) Diehard old-time liberals vie with economic conservatives (read: social liberals who can get donations from stockbrokers) to set the party's policy agenda.

But the Republican Party, self-declared defender of family values and unrestrained free enterprise, is the all-time Odd Couple. You see, the two cannot coexist together for any length of time, because, though it can be practiced ethically by honorable people, free enterprise has no inherent values except return on investment. Its loyalty is not to values, not to party, not to country, but to whatever sells.

This means it doesn't much care what the product is, or what its effects are, as long as it makes money. Think about the manufacturers of guns, alcohol, and tobacco--the industries Christopher Buckley parodies as the "Merchants of Death," in his wonderfully funny book Thank You for Smoking. Gunmakers would rather rely on the second amendment than make their products safer. The booze merchants preach responsible drinking, but know their core customers are guys who drink two or three six-packs in a night, and advertise accordingly. The tobacco merchants know they need "replacement smokers" and that most smokers start when they are kids, so they advertise accordingly. For any of these industries, the job is not to make a safer product or promote responsible use, but to change the subject. That's why they spend their marketing money convincing people that the real issue is people's right to choose and use these products, and that this matters much more than diseased smokers, maimed victims of drunk drivers, or little kids with bullets in them.

Because the gaming industry has offered Republicans and Democrats alike a way to finance government without raising taxes, legal gambling is now available in 48 states. Even Iowa, a state so wholesome that hardly anybody wanted to visit it until it offered riverboat gambling, now has slots, horse racing, Indian casinos and a state lottery readily available as well. Politicians are now encouraging us to gamble, because once they've come to rely on lottery money, they have to keep it rolling in. That's a pity, because few things are more inimical to middle-class values than the gaming industry, which makes its enormous revenues by telling people to rely on luck, not work and careful money management, for a comfortable living and security in their old age. And when we spend $420 billion on gambling, that's $420 billion that is not going to buying homes, saving for our kids' education, or contributing to charities.

Don't you think the values people are bound to be offended by businesses and advertisers who relentlessly bombard their children with the message that you CAN buy happiness, and if you don't have the money, a revolving line of credit, and a second mortgage on your house can keep you shopping 'til you drop? People who are trying to teach their children to be honest and trustworthy cannot coexist all that peacefully with those whose ethical principle is "Never give a sucker an even break."

The values people also hate drugs with a passion. As our war on drugs has clearly and expensively failed, policy analysts in both party are beginning to recommend the legalization of drugs. But if that happened, is there any doubt in your mind that the free enterprise system would imediately spawn an entire industry of legal drug peddlers, complete with lobbyists and sophisticated marketing campaigns designed to convince kids that one brand of dope is cooler than another? Want to take any bets on how many months it would take before the sexy heroes of TV and movies would be seen freebasing?

Which brings us to the biggest underminers of values of all, the entertainment industry, the people who famously said, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." They just want to sell tickets, and anything that generates buzz, anything that radiates hipness, anything that generates return on investment is fine with them. If along with the popcorn they are selling promiscuous sex, casual violence, and paranoid rage, they do not care.

They ARE sending a message, you see, and this is it: the only value that matters is colored green.

The religious right may be more than a little scary to us true-blue first amendment types, but at least it recognizes there is a contradiction between values and free enterprise. That's why the Southern Baptists are boycotting Disney.

Ultimately, I think, the Republicans are going to have to choose one or the other, free enterprise or values (that is to say, the people who fund their campaigns, or the people who vote them into office). A party that houses media tycoons and casino executives can no more continue to house the religious right than the Democratic Party could continue to house southern Democrats and blacks who wanted full civil rights.

Our moribund self-contradicting big-tent parties are making the small splinter parties look better all the time. Think it might be time to give libertarians and greens and other parties a chance to compete on a level playing field? Shall we celebrate the new century by turning one or both of these big crumbling heaps of contradictions into the modern day version of the Whigs?

NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.

I'll write columns here whenever I really want to share an idea with you and can find time to write them . If you want to be notified when a new one is up, send me an e-mail and include "My Word's Worth" in the subject line.