Page 14 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • October 31, 2012 Israel to the Third Reich that was not only insulting but evidentially irresponsible. Good-bye advertising. “New Times” became “No Times.” Factions continue to exist even though “Time” is the lone survivor of the slick-paper opinion molders, but nobody can really tell us how to think about the present election, because nobody on either side has anything real to offer us. The other night, I tuned in to Bill Moyers on PBS and listened to Moyers talking with Chrystia Freeland, author of “The Plutocrats,” and Matt Taibbi of “Rolling Stone.” Both of these writers are about as far to the left a sane person can go in 2012, but they raised a very good point: The Democrats are not much more likely than the Republicans to cut off the flow of special-interest money into political campaigns. Freeland, a Ukrainian-Canadian with a degree from Harvard and a Rhodes Scholar, noted that “The Plutocrats” -- the people with a net worth in the multiple millions through investments -- need have no fear of President Barack Obama. “Obama in many ways is one of them,” Freeland said. “He could become an excellent corporate lawyer...He thinks the way they do.” “He’s not an FDR fighting for the down-trodden. I don’t think he feels a genuine class-based rage,” Taibbi added. Freeland and Taibbi agreed that neither Bush nor Obama had done anything to repeal the greatest tax break for the very rich: the “carried-interest tax break.” This staple of hedge funds is said to contribute 31 percent of Mitt Romney’s income, but Taibbi and Freeland noted that even when Obama had both houses of Congress, nothing was done to curtail the cash flow from carried interest. Nor did they expect that Congressional Democrats would do anything about carried interest, while any action by Congressional Republicans was utterly out of the question. “The main issue is so central to their daily lives that it’s just too overwhelming to get them to face the issue,” Taibbi said. It does not matter much to the 47 percent or the 99 percent which talking heads we send to the White House, Senate, or House of Representatives. None of the talking heads care as much about saving the middle class or helping the working poor as they do about getting elected or re-elected with the help of the major financial donors. The Democrats may do a little more for minorities, women, and the environment, but the Republicans will not drastically attack either group. The Republicans may do a little more for “family values,” but anybody who knows Washington, D.C. knows that heterosexual monogamy is a point of departure on both sides of the aisle. While writing this column, I received two wakeup calls. George McGovern died, and Russell Means, a longtime friend of the family, died. I remembered another autumn, 40 years ago, when Means and his American Indian Movement partisans tried to play George McGovern off against Richard Nixon during the last week before an election where the principal issue was the war in Vietnam. I remember that the Indians, who knew McGovern from South Dakota, did not trust him, but they hoped Nixon would fear McGovern enough to grant them an honest investigation of how much taxpayer money intended for Indians was filtered out by white bureaucrats: “The Trail of Broken Treaties.” I remember that the Indians were stiffed not only by Senator McGovern but also by Cesar Chavez, who refused his support. Bill Moyers was also conspicuous by his absence. The only outside supporters who showed up were The Reverend Carl McIntyre, a conservative Vietnam War supporter who liked Indians, and Dr. Benjamin Spock, a liberal’s liberal who loved children and hated to see them starved or killed in wars. Both of these men urged the people not to hurt the Indians, but to listen to them instead. In the end, Nixon threw the random Indian leaders a $60,000 bribe to leave Washington. The worst of the AIM leaders took the money and ran. Means took only $1,000, but was able to commandeer a truck and steal several file cabinets that documented a huge amount of federal corruption. Columnist Jack Anderson published some of them. Most people were not interested. After Means took over a couple of towns out West and his supporters, mostly teenaged girls, burned the public buildings in one of them, and after he staged an armed confrontation with dead or wounded people on both sides, the federal government suddenly got interested and some actual reform took place. Means bounced around prisons for awhile, got shot a couple of times, and later led a Lakota contingent to fight against Daniel Ortega’s anti-Indian leftists in Nicaragua, and finally became a movie actor. The legislative process did not work without violence, which is why we had so many riots in those days. Elections serve one real purpose: They convince many honest people that ordinary Americans still control the government. We do not. The best we can hope for is that the government does not come to control us. Once every November, and especially in presidential years like this one, we assure ourselves that we are still a democracy -- never mind the U.S. Constitution, which made us a republic -- by voting for whichever talking head best fulfills our image of ourselves. After this year, we may have to do so with less newsstand or mailbox advice than before, since “Newsweek” is going out of print, though it will still be available online. “Newsweek” is a prime example of how “democracy” works. The news magazine battle of the 20th century was between “Time” and “Newsweek,” which competed by trying to steal each other’s cover topics, but diverged in the perception of their readers. The “Time” reader was considered someone who believed in strong, forceful solutions, was not impressed by what we might call multi-culturalism, and believed that, while atomic bombing of Switzerland might be extreme, most of the world’s problems could be solved with an expanded version of a punch in the nose. The “Newsweek” reader was assessed as somewhat more tolerant, more interested in the arts, and more open to new ideas. I got some personal insight into the difference when “Time” pilloried the late Dr. Ian Stevenson, MD, PA, and the late Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine, Ph.D., for conducting studies about the possible evidence for life after death and for mind-to-mind communication among the living. Dr. Stevenson, who had written psychiatric textbooks, was juxtaposed against a stage magician and an atheist with no medical credentials who questioned Stevenson’s veracity and perhaps his sanity. Dr. Rhine’s work was cast into would-be disrepute because one of his assistants, near the end of Rhine’s 50-year study, was caught fudging some results. It was Dr. Rhine who caught and dismissed the devious assistant. “Time” did not want evidence for an afterlife or even discussion outside the purview of sectarian religion, because the perceived bias of the “Time” readership was seen as strongly institutional: People should support houses of worship as they support their football teams or (Republican) political candidates. Crudely put, the “Time” person was a literate Republican. “Newsweek” treated the subject and the two experts with a degree of respect, but declined to rule on whether any of their evidence was, or ever might be, conclusive. The “Newsweek” person was a literate urban or suburban Democrat, willing to keep an open mind, unwilling to make any hard conclusions or attempt to evaluate evidence with a firm yes or no answer. “U.S. News and World Report,” which tanked a couple of years ago, represented a worldview more conservative than “Time” for readers not quite ready for Buckley or Buchanan. Various short-lived publications represented the view to the left of “Newsweek.” Most of them folded about the time college kids quit protesting the draft and got interested in women and minorities in traditionally white male jobs. “New Times” attacked racism and political jobbery in the United States to some enthusiasm on the New Left. Then “New Times” drew a hyperbolic comparison of Elections still serve a purpose Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: After contemplating the rhetoric of the Democratic convention and the recent debates, one can only wonder why the Democratic Party retains any credibility in America. What kind of Americans would call their government department heads czars? What kind of political party would nominate a candidate for president whose background is devoid of traditional American mentoring and values? What kind of American party would cast a voice vote three times to omit the mention of God in their platform, and then have their moderator override their desires? When Bill Clinton spoke at the convention, he postulated that the American people were now better off than they were four years ago. His message totally missed the reality target. Every time the president speaks about taxes, the economy, Medicare, jobs, unemployment, national debt, and foreign policy, his messages are full of misrepresentations and lies. The only mystery when he speaks is why his pants don’t go on fire. The American people deserve much better than what they have gotten these last four years. It’s time to fire the current administration in November. George W. Shabet Ridgewood Dear Editor: This is my endorsement of Rob Hermansen for Bergen County Freeholder. As our freeholder, Rob has distinguished himself through leadership, vision, dedication, and hard work on behalf of the residents of my hometown, Mahwah, and every municipality in Bergen County. Americans deserve better Voting for Hermansen He has been a crusader against big government and its associated high costs and ancillary underpinnings such as contractors buying their way into lucrative employment through large political contributions. The Pay to Play legislation he fought diligently to pass established a new paradigm for fairness in procurement in Bergen County. This translated to taxpayer savings for everyone. He had the vision and management acumen to oppose what appeared to be an efficient consolidation of the county police disguised as an ill-fated misguided maneuver to pass costs from the county to the municipal level -- a good concept, without a strategic plan that would have adversely impacted local taxpayers in every municipality. It was stopped because Rob was there for the taxpayer. I served with Rob on the Mahwah Township Council and can attest to his financial diligence, concern, and determination to keep taxes low by challenging every proposed expense. I find it incredible that his competition attempts to criticize his record there pointing to such issues as water rate increases. As chairman of the water rates panel, where Rob served, I have firsthand knowledge of his enormous contributions to helping restructure that utility’s nearly bankrupt finances. He helped preserve the township’s ownership of a vital asset. In doing so he helped to protect residents on fixed incomes such as our seniors while at the same time promoting conservation. And Mahwah’s water rates are still competitive with those in surrounding towns. Rob Hermansen has worked hard and productively for all taxpayers of Bergen when measured against every imaginable management metric and we owe him our support because he has earned it. John F. Roth Mahwah