The US midterm elections are almost upon us, but this is a needless bit of inconsequential trivia. It really doesn’t matter. All the Republicans can win or all the Democrats. Either way it means about as much as a fart in a category 5 hurricane. The net result of actions taken, legislature composed, or honesty with the populace will be inconsequential.
The primary difference between the two parties, who are merely playing a game of good cop/bad cop, is only if you’d prefer to see a rapid more authoritarian style ecological collapse or if you’d prefer one with a soothing dulcet voice reassuring you everything will be fine at two minutes to midnight. Neither have a workable plan on the table to get the US in a sustainable ecological state before it all comes crashing down, nor do they have any notion of creating such a plan.
The best the Democrats offer are conciliatory gestures in policy shifts, but they have not the wisdom, fortitude, or honest intent to stop the devilish system at the heart of the matter. During Obama’s presidency there was a time when the Democrats controlled the senate and the house and they showed their true motivations. They did nothing to pass policies to assuage the damage being done and stop the plunder of Earth for profit, or to end the wars, or to quell mass incarceration system. Even with total control we know what the Democrats offer amounts to platitudes.
And keep in mind, even if the entirety of congress, SCOTUS, and POTUS were controlled by Democrats we still would not find ourselves in a sustainable society, as again, no workable sustainability assessment and plan of transition has ever been done by the party, nor do they care to do something which might lead to such blunt truths. Because those truths would mean decentralization of power and reduction of economic influence for the neoliberal class. Monied elites know the game, and their egos immediately nix any solution set that doesn’t focus the onus of power and attention directly on them.
So what are we doing here in this system? We don’t have a pragmatic solution on the table to avoid ecological collapse, which is accelerating much faster than most think. Meanwhile the people are simultaneously being told by proponents of faux democracy that by not voting for one of the major political parties one is wasting a vote, and not voting at all is akin to a crime by their measures.
What such people either don’t know or won’t admit to is that we are stuck in a system where a financial gun is held at the head of the people at all times. This communicates to the people that if you change, the elites will pull their money out of markets and go Galt. The powers that be will make sure you suffer for your insolence to stand against them. They’ll make finding a livable wage impossible and thus threaten the plebs housing, supply of food, and ability to get healthcare for no other reason than a puerile egotistical insistence that they get their way. They simply don’t care what happens to the people or mother Gaia. Their self interests are why they sought out power to begin with and they’ve devoted their lives to it, and they aren’t surrendering anytime soon.
As it stands, this finger trap of a system will forever spin in place and only create varying levels of profit for capitalist interests. What the system won’t do is solve any of the real problems it has created because it’s been designed to operate to do exactly what it’s doing now, which is drive profits and power directly to the 1%. Democrats only push back enough with pretty sounding words to win your vote over the other guy they are running against, but they’re going to sell out just like their opponent because they themselves are part of the problem.
If this sounds like I’m discouraging people from voting, then good. Fuck voting in this system designed to oppress. As the saying goes, if voting changed something they’d make it illegal. What should be common questions routinely go unanswered around the voting system, like why are we still dealing with the same issues generation after generation; e.g., homelessness. After a couple hundred years of voting it seems like we could have solved this issue as it’s rather easy to work out when there are enough structures to house everyone.
And why would we construct a system at all that awards so much power to so few, and a system that is so corrupted that people ascertain by not voting it leads to tyranny. The system itself should never allow for such a thing, but it’s innately authoritarian in premise, and continuing to vote and pretending like it makes a difference is false hope. It’s like tugging on the controls on an arcade machine without inserting a quarter, where it kinda looks like you’re making something happen on the screen, but everything is on rails. Your input makes zero difference in this undemocratic system which is designed to ignore you.
And in response to the hordes of people who will insist that not voting is irresponsible and support the age old lie that if we just can get the right people in power then, then, the system will turn around – Such naive assertions should be met with a dose of reality which is glaringly clear through a cursory look at history. Such people should have to explain at what point in time there has been a sea change in our system from where it started from genocidal slavers to benevolent rulers, because such a change is nonexistent, and all one need do to figure this out is pick up a copy of Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States. What’s been there from the get go to present is abuse, stemming from the very origins of western civilization and top down social hierarchy.
When the people claim they achieved a victory what they have really achieved amounts to a gesture that shuts them up. It’s analogous to a hungry child crying that has just irritated their abusive parent enough they finally concede to give them an extra morsel of food. The child then celebrates like they won a battle; however, the child is still in the abusive state but now thinks their wails do something. What they don’t realize is if they get annoying enough what they will be met with is not another conciliatory gesture but a beating.
Thus I call on the people to grow a spine and stand up to our abusers. Stop choosing between which pro-mass-murder psychopath in a suit you want ruling over you and start fighting for something worth having.
Should we not at least try to come up with some kind of plan as a people to organize a real solution that could potentially shake monied elites from their elevated perches? If we are to change, then a real stand has to be made against this archaic and draconian system of social hierarchy presently installed because the powerful aren’t going away and they cannot be reasoned with. They have no plans of surrendering their ill gotten gains accumulated over several centuries of abusive behavior.
Many of our problems are very solvable, as they are merely the result of childish power grabs and a desire to control the labor of others. By not subscribing to this system it doesn’t mean giving up, it means shifting focus. It means incorporating real pragmatism to stop the nose dive into dystopian apocalypse and take a swing at a sustainable egalitarian borderless global society where humanity finally rids itself of the parasites who continue to insist they are more crucial to the world than the hosts they feed from.
If we rid ourselves of those arrogant parasites and their system of abuse, we will find freedom again. A freedom like Native Americans and Aboriginals knew for thousands of years before the bloodsuckers latched upon us. Many will find this vantage point to be highly impractical, but I find naive half-assed solutions, endless extreme unnecessary suffering, and a trajectory leading directly to societal collapse to be far more impractical
Revolt!
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas