While about 70 million Americans are feeling elated today, slightly less than 60 million are fairly disappointed (bear in mind that there are over 300 million of us). This is the nature of our two-party dictatorship. While a significant minority of us are walking around with election hangover, a HUGE majority of Americans (about 170 million) are simply left wondering why all these people are so concerned about which Sales Rep will head the corporation known as USA, Inc for the next four fiscal years.
In my lifetime, these "CEO's" have proven themselves to be a slippery lot who do nothing for the working class and who pander to their corporate donor base and the shrinking middle class, handing out pork like after dinner mints at a Greek diner. Why would the majority of us care which puppet you've selected to mislead us this time? It really doesn't matter. The small percentage of us who are awake, who do vote and who are politically active know that our candidates (Nader, Barr, McKinney, Paul, Kucinich, LaRiva, Calero) are not going to win. We just feel like showing our fellow citizens that you don't HAVE to do what the machine wants you to is quintessentially American. You CAN vote independent or third party. You don't have to play the game by their rules.
The other 90% of this majority are inactive and don't vote at all. They are not stupid. In many cases they are street smart. They are workers. They know the system is rigged. They think we are all crazy to bother. They know that the empire is crumbling. They know their jobs are in serious danger. They know there is no health care. They know wages are too low. They know what the mortgage crisis means first hand. They are not apathetic. They are seething.
Will an Obama or McCain presidency be markedly different for any of these people. Obviously they don't think so.
Will Obama get us out of Iraq? Will he "unbuild" the corporate and military entrenchment we have undertaken there? Will he reverse our course to occupy Syria or Pakistan or Korea? Of course not. We're all toast. Obama will put a nicer face on our fascism but its pretty hard to dress up this pig we call American foreign policy (never mind the lipstick).
Will Obama put forward articles of impeachment to ensure that the war criminal Bush and his cronies go to prison for torture, war profiteering, mass murder and the suspension of our Constitution? Of course not. Honor among thieves. Future presidents can feel safe bringing the jackboot down because Obama is here to show them there will be no repercussions.
Will we get health care? While those who read know that Single Payer Health Care is the only proven answer to universal health care worldwide, Obama has been supporting an unfundable, Hillary-style, corporate plan that will allow the HMO's and Big Pharma to continue profiteering from human misery, making 25% net incomes, while denying care to sick people. 18,000 Americans will die in Obama's first year in office alone because they lack access to health care. He will not change this even with the clear mandate the people have given him.
Will Obama end our racist prison industrial complex and decriminalize marijuana and hemp? Will Obama open the gates and release the millions of black prisoners imprisoned for non-violent crime and fill the prisons with the white collar criminals who have fleeced the Amercian worker repeatedly? Of course not. Prisons are great economic development. They are loved by Dems and Reps alike and Wall Street is the source of many huge campaign contributions. Don't bite the hand that feeds you!
Will we see NAFTA or GATT renegotiated to include labor laws and environmental restrictions to protect our air and water and our jobs and our standard of living? Of course not.
So many "progressives" have said to me over the course of this day, "Well, at least McCain didn't win! Lets give Obama a chance!"
In truth, although the man, John McCain, didn't win, the class he represents and the agenda they put forward DID win yesterday. It seems that, once again, we the people, have learned nothing.
Corporate media told you that McCain and Obama were your only choice. They told it you from every angle and at every location and with amazing frequency (about 6,000,000 times a day). You believed 'em and you voted for McBama. Why does it never occur to you that you shouldn't EVER do what the machine tells you to? Have you not read your Orwell?
It would be great if you thought for a minute about what I am saying. I am admittedly not happy about what just happened. In my world, fewer than 1.5% of those who bothered to vote had the good sense to vote for a human being. About 98.5% of those voting are "happy" to have voted for one major corporation or the other. I am not "happy" about that. Its truly a terrifying thing to contemplate.
Over the next four years, as your values are betrayed and the media makes up all kinds of lies to excuse these betrayals and you start to fall for this fake, two-party, liberal vs. conservative, polarization all over again, try to remember what I have said here and use that awareness to propel you to try something different next time around. Vote for a human being. Ignore what the machine is telling you. How many times will you do the machine's bidding before you get it?
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The main difference is that Obama will bring a kinder, gentler face to corporate governance and militarism. There will be no fundamental change, of course. But he'll offer a softer tone than Bush/McCain. This will neuter liberals that would have been up in arms in outrage had Bush done the same thing. A "multilateral" aggression against Iraq would still have been an aggression. A "surge" in Afghanistan will be stupid whether it's done with just American soldiers or whether it's done more "consensually" with other NATO troops. On something like health care, Obama may nibble around the edges but of course he won't push the real change (single payer) we need. But liberals will be content with that nibbling around the edges because "it's better than nothing." But I was struck by a quote by Nader of Debs in a clip we watched on Tuesday night. Debs said, " "The American people live in a country where they can have almost anything they want. And my regret is that it seems that they don’t want much of anything at all."
The diplomacy and the tone will be different and that's what's fooled otherwise well-intentioned liberals. But the actions will be the same. He'll talk a lot about unity. But liberals haven't asked and won't ask unity toward what end. They won't point out that as reassuring as unity may be, change has only ever come in this country by agents of disunity. The troublesome suffragettes. The divisive abolitionists. The agitators for humane working conditions. The disruptive civil rights activists. And on and on.
Eugene said, "The American Constitution guarantees the American people pretty much anything that they want. If I have a disappointment it is that they really don't seem to want much ... of anything ... at all."
Ralph uses this quote all the time. Debs was responding to a reporter asking after his 5th run for the presidency if he had any "regrets".
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