If the special election last Tuesday taught us anything, it’s this: the people of California don’t care about the future of their state. We failed last week. We not only failed ourselves, we failed democracy as well as our great state. We failed as an electorate and we failed as citizens. We failed because we couldn’t see past the all the lies the special interests were masquerading as truth. We failed because we didn’t care enough to actually read the propositions for what they were, and not what people told us they were. We failed because most precincts had minimal voter turn out.

We failed. We failed. We failed.

But I shouldn’t really be surprised. We have been failing at democracy for some time now.

An informed populace is the lifeblood of democracy. But the American people are becoming less and less informed as the years pass, and it seems to be largely by choice. It just appears as if people don’t care as much as they used to. Politics has become one of those taboo discussion topics that polite people try to avoid.

Maybe that’s why people decided to listen to commercials spouting lies at every turn about the propositions rather than put in the time and effort to actually read them themselves or turn to a nonpartisan group like votesmarter.org to get summaries and arguments for and against the propositions. Maybe people are happier when pundits and spinsters tell them how to think. Maybe people just don’t care about how their state is run. Maybe people are just stupid.

Whatever the reasons, Californians decided that the truth was not important on Tuesday. The truth was propositions 74, 75, 76, and 77 were good for the state. Anyone who took the time to actually research these propositions would have known that. But most people did not do that. Most people saw commercials the Governor’s opposition had been airing since July and believed them. They saw the blatant distortions and out and out lies and accepted them without question. How could they not be true? They were on TV! Right? Right?!?

Wrong.

Politicians count on their constituents being lazy. They know that most people will believe anything they see on TV. The price of the truth is a few million dollars, and they are more than willing to pay it to get you to think what they want you to think. And that is exactly what they did in this special election.

They made people believe the governor was targeting teachers, cops, firefighters, and nurses instead of their unions. They wanted people to think the governor was trying to silence unions. They made people think that three retired judges would not be able to fairly redistrict California even though Prop. 77 had strict provisions that would ultimately make it nearly impossible for it to be unfair. They wanted people to believe the governor’s financial reform plan was merely a means to give the governor new and unchecked powers over our state. They wanted people to believe lies.

You know the sad part? They got what they wanted.

Every single one of the Gov. Schwarzenegger’s reforms was defeated. Every single proposition drafted to make California better was shot down. Why? Because a largely uninformed populace turned out in pathetic numbers to vote on propositions they did not understand. Their laughable grasp of the issues was drawn in large part by the lies spewed by special interests that propagated them for the sole purpose of keeping their cushy seats in Sacramento.

This is not democracy. This is madness. We fight wars to spread democracy around the world, and all the while, that tenet we all hold so dear is slowly dying at our doorstep.

So, what’s next for California? Now that we have failed to adopt any fiscal or educational reforms, what could possibly be next on the agenda for California? The answer is taxes, my friends. California is still spending more revenue than it produces and our budget deficit, although slightly reduced, is still quite large. The governor’s plan to reduce spending was handily defeated by us, the voters, but the problem remains. And now, on the heels of his defeat at the polls, the L.A. Times reports that the governor is looking to revamp his image by sponsoring a bi-partisan statewide public works program. This program may be financed by the largest bond sale in our state’s history – $50 billion dollars. A bond sale is a loan the state takes out to finance programs it needs immediately and pays back over time with interest, largely through taxes. With the prospect of new money in Sacramento, building and labor interests have already started lobbying. It seems we are back to where we were with Gray Davis – spending money without thinking of the consequences. We have come full circle, and we only have ourselves to blame.