Bill Ayers

Not even kinda sorta.

From the beginning – we had slavery. We didn’t have a democracy.

Only propertied people could vote. We didn’t have a democracy.

We had a constant war against indigenous people. We didn’t have a democracy.

We did not allow women to vote. We didn’t have a democracy.

Then we had Jim Crow laws, poll tax. We didn’t have a democracy.

Now we have massive gerrymandering. We still don’t have a democracy.

Voter intimidation. We still don’t have a democracy.

If we had democracy, Mississippi and Arizona would be some of our most progressive states – because Black and Brown people would be able to lead. We don’t have a democracy.

When we get to vote, it is once every four years to see which multimillionaire bought the most effective ads. We don’t have a democracy.

The myth is that capitalism and democracy go together. But capitalism is all about controlling wealth – wealth that is socially produced is privately appropriated. We don’t have a democracy.

Capitalism desecrates words like “freedom” by redefining freedom to mean only the right of rich people to grab and steal everything in sight. We don’t have a democracy.

The West cheered when the Soviet Union fell: capitalism and democracy at last! Nope. Capitalism and oligarchy, the natural development. We don’t have a democracy.

The new tax bill reveals capitalism at its bare-teethed exquisiteness. Just taking and taking and taking. We don’t have a democracy.

Bourgeois democracy exists to allow the masses just enough participation to feel like maybe, somehow, we have some input to the system. We are pacified to the extent that we are compromised with the game. But these latest moves may remind us: We don’t have a democracy.

Can it get worse? It will. We are looking at massive tent cities, world refugee migrations, climate disasters, and we don’t know what to do. We don’t have a democracy.

We may find ourselves in nuclear war and wonder why we were simply wringing our hands while it was being prepared. We don’t have a democracy.

We can be mad at the over-fed white men, the ones with blood and oil leaking from their pores, for this latest atrocity. But we need to look to ourselves, our illusions, our passivity. We don’t have a democracy.

Keep the dream alive – participatory democracy, genuine freedom, rich fulfilling lives, socially shared resources, an end to wars. We can do nothing less than to fight for these.