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Last night, I forwarded on the news from the Mike Gravel for President campaign that Gravel has switched from Democrat to Libertarian, and will be running as a Libertarian Party candidate. Gravel justified his transformation by writing, “I have been repeatedly marginalized in both national debates and in media exposure by the Democratic leadership, which works in tandem with the corporate interests that control what we read and hear in the media.”

One of our most solid readers, Tom, provoked further consideration on my part of Gravel’s move to the Libertarian Party, commenting, “He did poorly, yes, but he speaks truth in the quote you posted (at least the part about the Democratic party, like the Republican party, having gone over to the corporate sector).”

Tom’s right, I think. As much as I believe that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would make a much better President than John McCain, there can be no denying that Obama and Clinton are relying heavily on contributions associated with extremely powerful corporations that exert a dangerous degree of influence over the federal government in Washington D.C.

However, I can’t help but think what would happen if the Libertarian Party actually became popular. I suspect that its leaders would come under corporate influence too, or that it would obtain new leaders, backed by corporate power. Consider that Ron Paul, in his own little petty way, was bought off by the shrimp industry in his district, abandoning all his supposed libertarian ideals to push for big earmarks of government spending to boost their profits. Whatever ideology is in power, it will attract corporate control, as long as power is given to corporations by the American people.

The problem that Mike Gravel didn’t address in his statement is that, when it comes to giving power to corporations, there is as much problem with the Democratic voter as there is with the Democratic Party leadership. We little people have become much too dependent upon the big corporations, and we feed them the power they wield over the political system. We choose corporate power over our democracy every time we buy corporate products.

Of course, a politician who acknowledged this truth might make a lot of voters feel insulted. Politicians are loathe to do that. However, a politician who did acknowledge that responsibility for corrupt corporate dominance over American democracy lies in large part with the American people certainly would be distinguished from other candidates. A politician who would confront the American people with their role in the corporate corruption of American democracy, and challenge them to reduce that role, would become a true leader.

Will Mike Gravel have the courage to make such a stand?

If we want to see real change, we need to wean ourselves away from consumption of corporate products and services. We may not be able to eliminate, but we can drastically reduce.

The first, easy step in this process ought to be canceling your subscription to cable television. I know. It’s your love, your own, your precious. You don’t need it, though. It’s not doing you any good. It’s taking money out of your pocket every month, and having you sit down for hours at a time when you could be enjoying life.

More than that, cable television is a huge funnel through which corporations shove information into your home. Think about it - when was the last time that you saw something on cable television that wasn’t produced or distributed by a corporation? Even public television is now mostly corporate controlled. The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and Washington Week in Review have corporate sponsors. Masterpiece Theater has been bought out by big oil. Victory Garden is sponsored by Scotts, a corporation that produces all sorts of nasty chemicals for the garden. The Victory Garden people don’t confront the serious issues of pollution and dirty energy consumption in the garden, of course. They wouldn’t want to upset the corporate sponsor, or the big commercial nurseries they work with.

Corporate influence over PBS, however, is mild in comparison to what you see on the rest of cable television. The worst of it is in the commercials, and it’s the role of television commercials that is in large part to blame for corporate influence over elections. Political candidates spend huge amounts of money on advertisements, and they do so for good reason: The American people are strongly influenced by advertising.

Whenever I hear someone start a political conversation by saying, “Did you see the latest commercial by John McCain [or another one of the presidential candidates],” I wince. I wince because I’m reminded that a lot of voters judge the candidates according to their advertisements, supplemented by little bits of coverage, often just seconds long, provided by corporate-owned television news shows.

Cancel your corporate cable television subscription, and after about a year you’ll notice something remarkable happen. You’ll realize that you don’t know what the latest laundry detergent is, or what new flavor of Pepsi has been released this year. You’ll realize that you know a lot less about the developments in the lives of make believe characters on the screen, but you do know a little bit more about the developments in the lives of people in the real world. You’ll realize that you haven’t sat obediently and watched a commercial for ages.

A friend will come to you, and start a conversation about something they saw on television, and you won’t have a clue what they’re talking about, and it won’t matter.

Will you have less information about what’s going on in politics? There’s no reason to think so. There’s plenty of information online, after all, much more than what’s available in the corporate-owned newspapers, and often available directly from the source, rather than filtered through a news editor’s opinions. In fact, you’ll have more time to pursue the information you think is relevant, because you won’t be watching the same advertisement for Dancing With the Stars over and over and over again.

You will have stepped out of the great American corporate megaphone.

You’ll be one more voter who can’t be reached by television. You will have reduced the power of corporate donations to campaigns to pay for TV advertising, and you won’t be sending a check every month to maintain the corporate media system.

There are many ways to reduce the political power of corporations in our democracy, other than canceling your TV service, but I can’t think of one that is so easy to do and yet so comprehensive in its effects.

Imagine an America in which large numbers of households pulled the plug on cable. Imagine no television.

You have the power to join the world with no television, today. Call your cable company, and tell them that you don’t belong to them any more.