Democratic Accountability in the US

Three profoundly depressing stories from the USA over the last month seem to me to have a common link, that of the dilution of democratic accountability.

First we have police violence, with Ferguson and Staten Island as examples. This story has generally been labeled a race issue, and indeed it raises profound questions about race relations. But for me the accountability issue is even more significant.

On this one The Economist hit the nail on the head. The police in the USA in some districts appear to have lost sight of their primary purpose, which is to serve their community. To achieve this they have to balance the need to maintain law and order with building a trust and respect.

The scale of police overreaction in the US is disgraceful, and in Europe would be cause for major public debate and for significant change. True, guns on the street require extra vigilance, and there are districts where I would not wish to serve myself as an officer. But surely every life lost at the hands of the police should count as a serious failure?

There are simple ways to help to achieve this. Simply counting the bodies would be a great start. In business, a well-known saying is that what gets measured gets done. So how come no-one seems to keep a national count of people killed by police? The lack of a count betrays a lack of true concern.

Body cameras would be cheap and effective. Merging some forces to enable them to train and churn officers to more closely resemble their communities would help as well, and save money, as would the reconfiguration tribunals and other procedures to reduce conflicts of interests.

The second example is even more disgraceful. It refers to the senate report of CIA activities in the years immediately following 9/11. This report should make every American ashamed, and is an affront to human decency and the founding fathers.

I guess the pressures were great and mistakes can happen. What I cannot abide is the rush of people who should know better trying to challenge the report. We have heard exactly the same arguments, from similar people, as came up after the Snowden revelations.

Some say that the report is unrepresentative, did not involve direct interviews, and so on. Yet the CIA obstructed the process at every turn and still insists on major redactions, hiding behind some sort of plainly spurious defence that enemies would stand to gain from such revelations.

Others accept that torture occurred (well, never torture, only Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, we wouldn’t want to be sued now, would we?), but claim it was rare and stopped after a period. Some of these same people even claim EIT was a good idea because it worked, though their evidence is woeful. These arguments are the most disgraceful of all.

The US would surely be better served by leaders who acknowledged any mistakes and put steps in place to minimize the chance of a repeat? Only that way can international credibility be restored, and only that way can the US earn even a modicum of legitimacy is criticizing other countries, a role which the world sorely needs. That can only start by beefing up congressional oversight, rather than undermining it.

The third example is a little different, that of the spending bill recently passed by Congress. I took the time to look up its main provisions – not simple since the press and TV did not seem to care much.

A provision reduced regulatory requirements on banks. Campaign finance restrictions were also reduced. The possibility was raised of reducing pensions for federal staff. The department responsible for immigration control was only given a budget for a short period.

Areas with funding cut included school lunches, common core standards, food banks, parts of Obamacare, environmental protection and the tax collecting service. Regulation was reduced on clean water, lower emission light bulbs and permitted working hours of truckers, and increased on abortion and recreational drugs.

Internationally, Israel, Jordan and Egypt (yes Egypt) got more, while restrictions were placed on funding Palestine, Afghanistan and the UN.

There were small victories for those fighting Ebola and carrying out health research, those seeking to reduce sexual offences in the military, reformers of veterans affairs, and for certain mass transit projects.

At least it is a bill and it came from a process of compromise and the country can continue to operate. Furthermore, we can be relieved that most things that matter in the US happen at state level rather than federally.

But what an extraordinary list this is. There is almost nothing that might benefit the typical US family, despite the challenges facing most and the onward march of inequality. Almost all of the provisions seem to reward large funders and lobbyists. The Democrats could just publish this list and use it as the core of their next campaign – if they were not so in hock to the same interest groups and lobbyists themselves.

In this way democratic accountability is lost. There was recently an election campaign. I did not see any of these items campaigned for by anyone or given any coverage in the media. Because of shameless gerrymandering, most congress people from the house side have no need whatsoever to answer to the general public, only to zealots from their own side and the providers of their campaign cash.

In such a situation, we might hope that other groups might rise up to fill the vacuum. Local politics sometimes does a good job of this, especially in big cities like New York. Despite the Staten Island case, it is no coincidence that the NYPD seem to have a greater sense of their role and their community than other forces.

But where are the media? PBS do an excellent job, but few care to tune in. The rest have been infiltrated by the same virus, and are controlled or otherwise in need of big money interest groups.

The judiciary is at least powerful, and not corrupt. But big money plays a growing role there, as seen by the increased polarization in the Supreme Court.

Saddest of all, where is the Church? In Europe, the Churches can sometimes be seen as behind the times, but at least the leaders are occasionally prepared to speak publicly in favour of things like human rights and executive overreach. The Pope does an excellent job in providing some conscience to lawmakers, but he is rather peripheral in the US. Local Church leaders are shamefully silent, focusing solely on issues like abortion and contraception, and, as far as I can tell, local priests are discouraged from advocating any social message outside of safe areas. Why? I fear the same interest groups and donors are dictating to the Churches as well. Truly, the moneychangers have taken over the temple once again.

That only leaves micro action. In the end, this will win, as the society of the individual gradually takes over, and the state finds it progressively harder to control the debate. But this will be slow and fitful. In the meantime, there are only mass protests, of such intensity that authorities must sit up and take note. I have never been such a protester, but I think if I was a US citizen and thirty years younger I would be out on the streets now. How else can any sort of democratic accountability be re-established?

There are reasons to hope. The president can be brave, as witnessed this week over Cuba. Local accountability is alive and well in some big cities. At least in the US there is some freedom to debate, and we should remember that this is not the case everywhere. But the US also needs some mass activism. Go (lawful, peaceful) protesters!