George Carlin said it best: “Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice…you don’t. You have owners. They own you. They own everything…” Of course, I’ve been aware of how the American political system works for quite some time now, but for a brief shining moment I was distracted. Overcome with hope. Hoodwinked by a young politician named Barack Obama. Hopeful that this erudite guy who talked the talk might just get away with walking the walk. Silly me. They own him too. If he’d been what I’d hoped he was, he’d have ended up like JFK…with his brains scattered across the leather seat of a black GMC SUV, and Michelle frantically trying to gather up the pieces. President Biden would send out the CIA and FBI to investigate, and some poor sap from Russia, China, Venezuela, or Iran would take the fall. He would, of course, be shot and killed before he had time to complain. I won’t be fooled again.
You may have noticed that we’re only a year or so away from another presidential election. In 2008 I backed the democratic candidate with my heart and soul. By late 2009 I decided that it would likely be my last vote. Like Ralph Nader said: “The only difference between the republican and democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door.” Or to allow a bumper sticker to rephrase the same idea: “Only one difference between the two parties: With the democrats you get kissed before you get screwed.”
“But there’s Bernie!” my liberal friends are frantically screaming. “He’s a socialist. He loves the little people. He’ll save us from the jaws of the republican machine. You’ve gotta register to vote and work for Bernie.” But I can think of at least three good reasons not to embrace the donkey in order to subdue the elephant. 1. Bernie can’t win. Hillary is the chosen one. 2. Bernie is a card-carrying member of the military-industrial establishment who votes for so-called defense bills at every opportunity. 3. If hell froze over and Bernie happened to win, and Bernie happened to be way better than he appears, and was indeed the potential savior of the USA…well, see the scenario concerning spilled brains on the leather seat of an SUV in paragraph one above. And that ain’t gonna happen because…altogether now: He has owners.
There’s a weak argument to be made for voting for the lesser of two evils. Americans have no real choice, other than engaging in the act of futility suggested by Chris Hedges: Ignore the whole election process until election day and cast a symbolic vote for the green party candidate. I can’t emphasize the word ‘futility’ enough. The greens aren’t allowed to engage in the political process in any meaningful way. Hardly mentioned by the corporate press. Non-entities. But the donkeys are all asses and the elephants are all liars, thieves, and miscreants. They all work for Wall Street and turn their backs on Main Street. They all hop on the bandwagon when the time comes to spend trillions of dollars to wage the next war for corporate profit, but if you’re lucky, you might get a little smooch from the democrats while they’re picking your pocket and drone-bombing another country into oblivion. F#@% it! I’ll stay home and drink beer and write another sad article while the corporate media projects the winner of the so-called election.
It comes down to a few questions. Would we be better off with a Clinton than a Trumpbushcruzrubio? Would she wage fewer wars for Wall Street, move to close a few of the thousand military bases, or cut the Pentagon’s budget by a few pennies? Would she discontinue the vicious attempt to start World War III with China and Russia? Would she reign in the CIA and make the rest of the world safe from having democratically elected governments overthrown by coups and assassinations? Would she make an effort to feed and house the homeless, jobless huddled masses? Bring back their jobs from third world slave labor operations? Would she work for the non-billionaires among us, or drop to her knees for Boeing, Monsanto, Exxon-Mobil, and Bank of America?
I think we all know the answers. It doesn’t matter whether we have a Clinton or a Trumpbushcruzrubio. At the end of the day the USA will still be a fascist empire, a corporatocracy, an oligarchy, and a threat to the future existence of mankind. Anyone in a position of actual power who questions the system will be eliminated. One way or another. See the scenario concerning spilled brains on the leather seat of an SUV in paragraph one above. The system will not allow an actual free person to assume high office. They all have owners, and their owners demand obedience. The asses and elephants are well-trained to jump through the proper hoops.
So what’s a poor boy to do? After kissing the asses of the two authorized political parties good-bye, what do I do with all this energy? Americans are, for the most part, living in a bubble of illusion. They’ve been poisoned by their owners. Not enough to kill most of them outright, but poisoned in mind and body. Brains filled with corporate media doubletalk and nonsense. Bellies filled with corporate fast foods until most of them look like cartoon caricatures of themselves. Veins filled with Monsanto’s glyphosate, poisonous ink from head to toe tattoos, and untold dozens of other carcinogenic chemicals. Souls filled with false hopes of a heavenly home in the sky at the end of the bumpy road of their meaningless lives.
I’ve got a Che Guevara style beret, and am wielding a pen that (I can only hope) will turn out to be mightier than the sword. I marched against The Vietnam War, I marched against Monsanto, and I will march against the next war waged by Empire. I take every opportunity to verbally battle stupidity and misinformation wherever and whenever I encounter it. Che once said that he’d have loved to live in the belly of the beast in order to do battle against it. There’s a battle brewing and I hope to still be around when it commences. But I won’t vote.
George Carlin began this piece so he ought to end it:
If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote…who did not even leave the house on election day…am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done, and have every right to complain about the mess you created.