Monday, January 28, 2008

But Perhaps ...

Yesterday's post about the illusion that is Barack Obama was on my mind while I was firing up my computer this morning.

Aside from the possibility that Obama is a "liberal" Manchurian Candidate (making with the empty rhetoric and the cozying-up to Lieberman and etc. to lull the authorities into a false sense of security in order to win and then turn the tables on them [yeah, as if!]) his victory, or any other Democrat presidential victory might finally wean Americans off of their devotion to their empty political process.

A Democratic president would be just as effective at changing the course of neoliberal imperialism and domestic failure as the Democratic legislature has been at reversing 8 years of bush's neoliberal imperialism and domestic failure, which is to say, not at all.

To be fair to the American people, and to clarify yesterday's post: Half of them don't vote, which is probably due to apathy and a belief that voting is a waste of time there, which is correct because it certainly is. (But that doesn't mean that the political process won't still screw you over, ... it does. If apathetic resignation was a successful political strategy we'd all be living like kings today, ... it isn't.) And, also to their credit: as a voting people they rejected bush II twice, both in 2000 and 2004. To their discredit, they didn't rebel against the installation of this corrupt, murderous twit and his cabal of vermin.

But the US political system has run its present course. This is all that can be expected of capitalist politics folks. Wars based on greed and lies abroad. The wrecking and looting of the domestic economy by the plutocracy at home. And empty vessels like bush II to serve it all up to a bloated, idiotic ruling class that will be too stuffed and jaded to read the writing when it shows up on the wall.

2 comments:

JimBobby said...

"But the US political system has run its present course. This is all that can be expected of capitalist politics folks. Wars based on greed and lies abroad. The wrecking and looting of the domestic economy by the plutocracy at home. And empty vessels like bush II to serve it all up to a bloated, idiotic ruling class that will be too stuffed and jaded to read the writing when it shows up on the wall."

Good assessment but where does that put us at the current moment. I'd say the winners are reveling in their victory and the looting and pillaging is in full swing -- more now than ever.

On top of that, resistance or dissent is at an all time low in the west. Awareness of the problem is at an all time low. Things like obesity are bigger issues than corporate greed and government corruption and even an obesity epidemic fails to register for millions and millions of MacDonald's eaters.

Consume! That is the mantra. That is the watchword. Consume, so you may feed the beast.

JB

thwap said...

It's always darkest before the dawn perhaps?

I wouldn't say that dissent is dead. I'd say that a lot of people are out of ideas about how to stop this nightmare and what to replace it with.

But there's been anti-globalization, anti-war, etc. movements constantly in the West.

I think we've moved beyond thinking that the rulers will respond to our in the street demands the way we'd like them too.