Across America, citizens are voting, and their votes are being summarily dismissed because “we don’t know what’s in our own best interest.”

Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention in American Government 101, but it seems to me that the “democratic process” just isn’t supposed to work that way.

Recently, I told the story of Imperial Beach, Calif., where residents’ votes were overturned in favor of the interests of out-of-town real estate developers.

Earlier this semester, I mentioned a similar occurrence in Arizona, where the local government ignored the fact that the public voted three to two against a $300 million sales tax to fund the private business venture of local sports magnate Jerry Colangelo.

In both cases, the people spoke, the moneymen counterspoke and the public’s wishes were flicked aside. The tax collectors picked our collective pockets and lined those of multi-millionaires.

In both cases, the politicians kindly explained to us laypeople that we were just too darned dumb to know what was good for us.

Dissatisfied with that explanation, one disgruntled Phoenician expressed his displeasure rather unequivocally.

During a meeting of the legislature, he pulled a gun and shot a county supervisor in the butt. While he had struck more of a blow for dementia than democracy, popular response to the incident made one thing clear: People sympathized with his motives.

No one being seriously injured, we didn’t really mind seeing a politician shot in the butt.

It’s simple, really: People don’t like being robbed by their own government. Eventually, things get ugly (even “butt ugly,” as in the above case). People revolt.

In a letter to William Jarvis, dated Sept. 28, 1820, a more staid revolutionary, Thomas Jefferson, penned the following words: “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.”

His personal turpitude aside, Jefferson undoubtedly had a gift for articulating the highest ideals of government.

To me, these aren’t mere platitudes. Jefferson was trying to write a prescription for sound government. Good government understands that it is a servant to the people and cannot exist without the people’s consent.

To quote a constitutional peasant: “supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses (and not from some farcical aquatic ceremony).”

In recent columns, I’ve indicated the too-prominent role that major corporations play in influencing government policy.

I find it disturbing that America fights wars on behalf of entities like Texaco and Exxon because the CEOs of these corporations are concerned with one thing only: profit.

Serving the profit god, Almighty Buck, they gunk up the environment, set back the cause of civil rights and gender equality and play havoc with America’s position in the world.

That such people exist doesn’t surprise me. I do however fault politicians for helping them achieve their ends at America’s expense. Their loyalties are supposed to lie elsewhere.

I’m aware of the school of thought that says these mega-corporations are so integral to America’s economy that their interests virtually ARE America’s interests: i.e., “what’s good for Texaco, et al, is good for America.”

Let me clarify my thinking on this matter: That is a prodigious load of horsepoop.

What’s good for DuPont, Texaco and Exxon probably isn’t the least bit good for you or me. Consider what their products have done for the water we drink and the air we breathe … not too tasty.

When my family settled in Arizona, it was reputed to be a “clean air” state; people with breathing disorders like emphysema moved there on the advice of their physicians. Twenty years later, Phoenix rivals L.A. for smog.

Several days a year an advisory warns us to avoid exercise in the open air and cautions the very young and the elderly to remain indoors.

Forget cycling or jogging on those days; the air tastes lousy, and it hurts your lungs to breathe it.

It’s clear that something has gone wrong in a country where BREATHING the air is hazardous to one’s health!

But gee, I’m SOOOO glad our politicians allowed GM and the fossil-fuel lobby to keep a battery-operated automobile off the market these past decades. As long as THEIR interests are represented, I know mine must be.

After all, I’m an American, and THEY are “the real America,” aren’t they? At least that’s what my congressman has been telling me.

All I’m saying is somebody had better start paying heed to my vote pretty darn soon or they’d better prepare for the butt-ugly lung I’m gonna cough up on capital hill one of these days.

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James O’Donnell is a graduate student in painting, drawing and printmaking from Mesa, Ariz.