For many years the U.S. Oligarchy has ensured that the American electorate is perpetually faced with a meaningless choice between only two political parties (i.e. Tweedledum & Tweedledee), Independents have deluded themselves into thinking they actually make a difference in our quasi-defunct representational democracy. Third parties have been roundly ignored by the electorate except for a few Presidential Candidates (i.e. John Anderson, Ross Perot). It has been a depressing choice between selecting the lesser of two evils, imbeciles, or empty suits.
A true third-party has emerged in the U.S. called the “Tea Party” over the past 2 years. Whether one agrees with its positions, it has gotten a significant number of the electorate highly excited and willing to turn out to vote. They are running for all types of offices, and are building a lasting bottom-up organization. The Republican Party – after being spanked twice by the U.S. electorate for the abysmally negative effects of their incompetent governance over a much longer period of time – needed any group to liven its old and shrinking base. Thus the Republican Party has tried to co-op the Tea Party movement. The strained relationship may or may not last.
Democrats assumed power in Washington not principally on the merits of their ideas but by being the only other choice for the electorate – and they seemed at least moderate and not crazy. Now proving they have their own unique form of incompetence at governing, plus similiar corrupting mechanisms, it is a dismal choice to return Republicans to power after just two years of deserved exile. Both political parties deserve perpetual exile after reviewing the collaborative national mess they have created for the rest of us.
Some Democrats believe that they can beat Tea-Party candidates this November and hold onto some vestiges of power in Congress. They might be deluding themselves. What if Democrats are still defeated because people are sick of them and want to shake up the corrupt complacency in Washington DC? No party should count on winning merely because the oppositions is weak or inexperienced. The only hope for unpopular Democrats in a listless election where the majority will not likely vote, is using enough money from the Oligarchy to run enough smear ads against anyone who would dare waste the time and attention of our Oligarchy (aka Kleptocracy, Plutocracy) from making ever-more obscene amounts of money by socializing losses to the masses and keeping the profits for themselves.
But Independents could be trickier to manipulate and perverse enough to elect enough Tea Party candidates to make life miserable for both Democrats and Republicans over the next two years. Schadenfreude is a natural human sentiment – and will cause actions against one’s better instincts and interests if enough people are currently miserable and angry to spread that misery and anger around. “Let’s screw up Washington DC as much as it screwed up the rest of the country.” The Tea Partiers might not accomplish anything towards their extreme goals but if paralysis and gridlock is all we can hope for, at least it might as well provide some entertainment during a prolonged Depression.
Historically during midterm elections, overall voter turnout is low and those that bother to vote are often motivated by what they are against – principally the person in the White House and his political party. The results of the 2010 Midterm elections will be even more meaningless than those from 2008 because the majority of citizens won’t even vote and the winners will be grasping at the wind when arguing for any particular mandate. Multiple independent studies of various polling systems and of human nature prove anyone can get a certain number of people to agree upon most any formulated premise or statement. If one adds into the equation a large dose of complete ignorance of the facts on the part of many people, most polls are rendered pretty meaningless.
No far left party has emerged recently, nor has a large group of people coalesced around some boring moderates and independents who are not members of the two established parties. This might be due to the Age of 24/7 info-media entertainment, shallow extremism, pride in ignorance, anger and fear over everything, and unhinged outrage and lunacy, so we should not expect the middle or center to hold. Perhaps since PETA, the Green Party, and other left-wing-nuts have been around for several election cycles as distinct entities, the right-wing-nuts felt they needed their own group that is free to spout their own stupidity as far removed from reality as their left-leaning counterparts.
About 20% of the people within any particular group can believe in anything (dense imbeciles par excellence). Another 20% are ignorant enough to be easily misled and duped but they live long enough to recognize and regret their mistakes later but still fail to learn from them. Another 20% are just too lazy, narcissistic and ADHD to bother with anything but their small circle of interests revolving around their navels. Then about 20% of any population is highly partisan and group-oriented, seeing the world perpetually as “us-versus-them.” Then there is another 20% who respond principally to bright lights, big sounds, excitement, celebrities, sports, and the extreme actions of others in order to turn on and focus their brains. 20% try to build their entire lives around simple ideas and platitudes, ignoring all the complexity of life, and thus rendering themselves useless towards advancing any meaningful discussions and sane public policies.
Some TMV readers might note that my numbers (without accounting for various other groups not mentioned) will exceed 100 percent and that would only make sense to a football coach. “If everyone gives 110%, then we’ll win by at least a thousand and one percent!! Or by whatever – but let’s win one more for the Gipper.” Instead everyone should recall Venn Diagrams from basic mathematics, and realize that there is a lot of overlap among these various groups. Unfortunately at any given time less than 10% of any population is sufficiently sane, rational and intelligent enough to make sense of reality. Many of them fortunately write for TMV or are its readers.
Our national political system is in full paralysis and gridlock – fine for the oligarchs that control it, but very damaging for most of the population. The rest of the nations and people on the globe are not interested in waiting for the U.S. to emerge from its national insane-asylum and get its act together. Nature abhors a vacuum, and after we collapse completely from our unprecedented inability to address any small or large problem, some others will simply replace us as top dogs on this planet. This will occur within our lifetimes, and probably within the next 10 to 20 years.
Sadly, whatever good ideas from anyone, they will be ignored. The pundits and blogosphere will perpetually debate everything of inconsequence but a sizeable number of Americans still only watch FOX news, live in fantasy bubbles enabled by technology and our media, and rarely read sites such as TMV. Most people fail to realize that a powerful yet small army of Sociopaths with tons of money have taken over our large corporations, economic and social systems and our very democracy – essentially leaving the nice public trappings as fake fronts while gutting those ideas and systems of everything that is essential to their existences.
Those who control our entire merged political-economic system are wholly unelected. They are members of our fantastically wealthy Oligarchy who are becoming more and more global in world outlook, and less and less interested in any domestic issues with each passing month. They constitute the top 1 to 5 percent of the population and their supporting cast called the “meritocracy.” In summary, they merely wish to keep their business operating expenses in the U.S. to a minimum in order to maximize their profits from 305 million relatively wealthy consumers in a world of nearly 7 billion humans – most of whom are dirt poor, some are emerging big consumers, but all still constituting a great market to exploit as cheap labor and dumb consumers. Their sole goal in life is to amass the maximum amount of wealth and power possible and no other human endeavor is of any consequence to our oligarchs.
The only thing dictating most policies of Democrats and Republicans alike is the unbridled pursuit of money and power. They spend most of their time raising campaign funds to get elected and re-elected. The sources of funds no longer have to be disclosed and they can be funneled through all sorts of political, non-profit, and other shell (sham) organizations. That perverse bribery system that has been created is supported by our Oligarchy, who will profit by whatever laws are passed – since many have lobbyists and think-tanks ready to write them for their bought members of Congress upon a moment’s notice. The Oligarchy calls the tunes and pays its orchestra – not the American people.
Therefore, if a group of Tea-Party candidates are elected to the House or Senate, nothing much will change with regards to overall U.S. domestic and international policies. They will be a minority and whoever becomes the Senate Majority Leader or the Speaker of the House will still be a mere figurehead. There may be more silly diversions, such as an impeachment of the President, and various fights over some taxes, minor spending matters, the completely fictitious Federal Budget, Gays, Mosques, and any other conceivably meaningless issues that will arise or be fabricated over the next few years.
But the big picture of America’s continuing rapid decline will not change. This includes the steady separation of our Oligarchy from the rest of the nation, financially, economically, politically and physically. The vast majority of Americans will end up as spent and broken toys of the wealthy as their new favorite toys are found in China, India and elsewhere. Hey, it’s only business, in the world of crass, corrupt, crony capitalism. Our oligarchy has created a complete perversion of any system of free enterprise and creative entrepreneurship which has to be tempered by a restrained but effective social consciousness.
The very wealthy generally do well in both good times and bad; and in any location, environment or overall “milieu” because the rest of us saps permit them to do so and we foolishly worship them. We enable them because we never have the courage to say “stop, that’s enough, and now give back to everyone what you have stolen.”
Only during really extreme times in our collective history when enough people have nothing more to lose, do the ugly bloodbaths begin. Our Oligarchs, Plutocrats and “Kleptocrats” will hope their sanctuaries in Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Hong Kong, Singapore, Panama, The Cayman Islands, The Bahamas, and Belize will sufficiently shelter them from the impending apocalypse that awaits them. However, their sociopathic god was only money and thus all the protections and promises of most of the world’s religions for the end of times will not apply.
In the end, who holds elective office in Washington is a meaningless question. We do not have any real alternatives to the two moronic political parties that are mere fronts for those who hold most of the real power. If most independents refuse to vote, will the ensuing government lose its mandate, yet alone its utter legitimacy? That approach may be a viable option for more and more Americans as the best means to peaceably revolt against those who have stolen our nation and who hold ungodly power. We might refuse to participate in the charade of elections so as to reinforce our collective assertion that those who hold power in our government are utterly illegitimate. What would the U.S. Military do? Would our Oligarchy and political leaders require us to vote for the choices they present? Or will the sheer weight of endless money suffocate everyone and everything else?
Many Americans are still too lazy and content in their overall ignorance – and proud of it. Many others foolishly believe their vote, individually or collectively, makes a difference. The majority of us are fearful of engaging in meaningful thought and change that would require much personal responsibility. We would have to abandon the intellectual safety of all our silly and wholly discredited ideologies, platitudes, shibboleths, and beliefs in favor of a new way of honestly conducting our lives and societies upon sound humanistic principles, morals and ethics.
We might get to that enlightening point in time before we render our planet perpetually uninhabitable. My bet is that we won’t.
Submitted by Marc Pascal ranting happily from Phoenix, Arizona.