Democracy measured in America, 2016

In 1971, Howard Zinn measured our government against the harshest of all standards, the ideal of Democracy. Against any ideal standard, man's achievements, measured in 1971 or 2016, although worthy of praise, fall short of ideal.

Zinn measured our shortages against 10 categories. As we close Election Day 2016, perhaps the most trivial election of our lifetimes and also the most important as is every election, Zinn's mythical 10, or at least three of them deserve another measurement, access to the ballot, freedom of individuality, and the opportunity to protest. Like Zinn, I choose to test my 3 against the ideals, not just the present versus the past, nor a scale of good, better, and best.

Zinn's 1971 opinion found the ballot, or political activity in general, favored the weathy, as measured in health, social-economic status, and education. I agree in 2016 with Zinn. Given the amounts of money needed to place a name or an issue on a ballot, the our election process differs little from a dictatorship. The sick need not apply to democratic methods just as the Irish were told. The corporate person, the highest social-economic status, offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner to willing political actors. And, the least educated suffer under a crushing burden of misinformation and information overload without a trained mind.

Voters, in Zinn's time, like today's voters, faced voter suppression efforts.The 1966 state poll taxes being similar to the 2016 purchase of a state validated voter ID card or photo ID. The white men under the white hoods, openly racist in the 1960's, resemble today's open carry thugs patrolling political rallies as self appointed 'candidate security.' I offer no Zinn equivalent to the 21st Century closing of inner city polling locations for budgetary reasons. The US electoral system denies a right to vote, freedom to vote, and perhaps a place to vote. There is no Democracy in that.

By measuring the present versus the past, freedom of individuality, measured by a woman's access to birth control without a husband's consent, the availability of same sex marriage, or discrimination against minorities in housing and employment, grew larger since Zinn's time. Yet, some call to end immigration, shout for the building of walls, and cry for mass expulsions based on religious beliefs. There is no democracy in that.

Just prior to Zinn's time, Chicago's Democratic Convention protesters found themselves beaten by police, four college students in Ohio were shot to death by the National Guard seeking to end campus protests, and the nation saw pictures of Martin Luther King dead on a Memphis balcony.

This week, pipeline protesters in at Standing Rock, ND, were assaulted with noise cannons and rubber bullets by enforcers wearing riot gear supported by military vehicles. The city of Miami, in preparation for FTAA protests, developed what is called, the Miami Model, based on City of Miami Ordinance 54-6.1,included a ban of 8 people meeting in public, and defining a parade as two or more people, and a ban on weapons, a 2nd Amendment right. All the signs of a democracy under challenge or the actions of dictatorship.

We must choose, in 2016 and beyond, a striving towards ideals and the path of pragmatism. Elections must have a time, a place, and faithful rules for access. The route to Individualism needs a Main street, many side roads, and the safety of reflective pastures to nurture and advance. The protests of one against many or the many against one requires the willingness and cooperation of more than one side without the government enforced passivity similar to slavery.

America fails my measurements and standards for Democracy. The 2016, in ways, a referendum on emails and vulgarity, tests whether the willingness or ability exists, in my time and yours, to seek more than trivial issues in deciding a Presidential Election.