It's barely 4 pm EST on Super Tuesday™ and today I get to play pundit by calling the election hours before polls close, even on the east coast.
For me it is clear: the results are in, and America has lost. 2000. Seven years ago we had what amounts to a coup in the United States, not just a local finagling of votes by a party boss, but a spectacularly mounted calculated and managed effort to ensure who would get to occupy the Oval Office, with players in a number of state houses, in the media and in the Supreme Court.
The country has since gone down a road of increasing isolation, lawlessness, concentration of wealth and power, and colossal abdication of responsibility for the well-being, safety and future living conditions of its vast population.
2001. The brazen and deadly attacks of September 11, 2001 on symbols of American power, instead of fortifying our resolve to be a strong nation of laws, served instead as a facile excuse for the marketing of fear, burgeoning militarization, increased secrecy, and further concentration of powers in the Executive branch. The fact that the cast of characters involved in this venture had been trying to achieve just that for decades, seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
We have seen the gutting of national founding documents and principles, lies and distortion in nearly every realm of daily official business of state, a growth of secrecy and and the resultant intimidation and shutting down of anything resembling balance of power in our branches of government. Affirmation and repetition have replaced truth and news. Civility has given way to aggression, patriotism has become an Act, peace has become unfashionable.
The nation is at the brink of economic collapse, yet continues to borrow to pay for wars which its leaders deem necessary for "our" security and indeed for the survival of "civilization" as they know it. They have put our grandchildren into debt for this adventure. By any social measure, we are worse off than before, whether it be the percentage of people with true and essential healthcare, wages, educational level, true participation in decisions and voting.
2004. Against all odds people fought back. Groups formed to bring the power, potential and awareness of the internet into the fray to disseminate information, dissent, organizing information, and create the beginnings of a resistance to the further hijacking of our state. There were forums, debates, discussions, rallies and marches. New candidacies emerged, millions of dollars were raised. In 2004, the voter fraud was repeated as was the betrayal to the people by the supposed defenders of our vote.
2005. Katrina devastates the Gulf Coast. A major US city, New Orleans, is ravished through major neglect, and condemned through avarice to be re-organized without its citizens and communities' presence nor input. The"shock doctrine" at play in the US, with over a thousand dead, many missing and American refugees with not right to return nor to vote. Congress does not speak out the horrors, nor press the Administration to remedy the situation.
2006. Dazed and bewildered, the defeated defenders of the Constitutional Order fought back yet again with renewed fervor, to gain a foothold in the 2006 elections. New but fragile more liberal radio networks began. In the end they found their efforts produced no tangibly different results.
As though none of these easily documentable events had occurred, the lies, the fraud, the crimes against Humanity and our Constitution begun in 2000 produced precious little notice and voice among our entire elected body in Washington, DC.
2007. Americans outraged at the brazen wrenching from our hands of our national treasure, traditions, character, and lives fought back yet again with ever-louder calls for the ending of war funding and for the impeachment of the president and vice president for numerous crimes of spying, lying, abuse of power, crimes against humanity, war profiteering, violations of laws and the Constitution.
It seemed at last that America was fighting back not only to regain it's voice but its soul and destiny as well.
2008. Now comes the expanded 2008 election season. Begun in earnest in late 2007, we heard a few voices among the official ones describing and denouncing the multiple continuing crimes perpetrated by this nation in our names.
By the end of the first month of the year, no one publicly recognizing the gravity of what has happened to America lo these last seven years and seeking to unite its people in redress and rebuilding was permitted to continue participation in the "election" process.
Anyone who strayed from the permitted narrative (Good American Power with a Few Flaws to be Corrected) was gone. Gone by the Rules of the Game.
BEFORE most Americans got to cast ballots, no one willing to speak out against the outrageous attacks on our system and on our sovereignty, no one willing to fight for the best wages and healthcare for working men and women, no one willing to take on the corporate hijacking of nearly all our major institutions and decisions was left in the race.
Yes, this is a pretty accurate summary, all right.
Special kudos for this line here, which nails a great deal of truth in just one sentence: "Anyone who strayed from the permitted narrative (Good American Power with a Few Flaws to be Corrected) was gone."
The intense blabbering we see all around us, where people are earnestly & even passionately arguing the relative merits of Hillary vs Obama, is all entirely beside the point -- which is as you've laid it out: that the corporations pre-determined the so-called "choice."
It can't be overemphasized that the process specifically filters out all voices deviating from what you so accurately called "the permitted narrative." (People may think I'm referring here to the banning of Kucinich & Gravel, and the media torpedoing of Edwards. But that's merely the tip of the iceberg.)
The fact that the process permits no mention of the crimes of the last 7 years is incalculably damaging to the future prospects of our society. You can't systematically ignore (& thus tacitly deny) such immense crimes, and still have realistic hopes of remedying the underlying disease that gave rise to those crimes.
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1212 comments)
on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 10:43:48 AM
Air America, a liberal radio should openly acknowledge a deal between the GOP and Dems and tell ALL voters NOT TO VOTE in the Y2008. Same should be said by the GOP and Dem candidates pushed aside: Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, Paul. And it also has to be said by Bill Moyers.
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Mark Sashine (53 articles, 19 quicklinks, 250 diaries, 3574 comments)
on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 2:35:11 PM
There will be no change until corporate America is defeated. I do believe that Bill Moyers has talked about this issue but as much as I admire him, he talks the talk but he doesn't walk the walk. We need someone like Dennis Kucinich who will walk the walk for all of us because he understands what it is to be a working person.
He has all of the solutions that would make our lives better - he would stop the war;he would dump NAFTA and the WTO;he would institute a not for profit health care plan and he would impeach the bastards in the White House. This MUST BE DONE if we are to survive at all as a society. As long as these criminals are in power and I do mean power, they will destroy us all.
So what do we do? We have to vote for Dennis Kucinich in the election, even if we have to write him in. IT WILL WORK! Every person has to vote his/her conscience. You all must know that this is true. ACT on it!
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Caronome (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 238 comments)
on Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 9:33:37 AM
There are other remedies, all of which must include contuing to work on a New Narrative.
<>Another article is planned for that. A narrative which reveals truths and offers visions of what is possible with appropriate goals, using a collaboratve, not confrontational model of society.
We may well have to deal with some confrontation by those who have snookered us into this vile corner. Sadly institutions that could lead resistaqnce have been greatly diminished over the last decades and need reviving, re-forming, and replacement.
<>All tall order, but what else is left us? Do we want our kids to say, "We didn't know?"
<>Right now, I put energy into the Green Party, still green, but embarking on creating part of the narrative for our times, I believe. Not starting, is...not starting. No more excuses. If you don't like how it is, make it better. Supporting the Democratic Party might seem good at times, but is pissing in the wind. They aren't GOING anywhere, nor can say where they'd like to go. They take all the good work and betray you -- every time. Time to learn, folks.
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alan k (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 34 comments)
on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 5:41:45 PM
In 1989 the Soviet Union smarting from an unwinnable war in Afghanistan collapsed. Elite troops failed to suppress the people who had risen up against the the Soviet government. I wonder who the troops would choose if it came to a similar senario in Washington (i.e. think stop loss, constant repeated rotations and PTSD denial), of course there is always Blackwater guards.
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kwalsh (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 217 comments)
on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 3:09:09 PM
All things considered, including this insightfully accurate piece on our current "state", the only solution I see is to commit peaceful anarchy and treat our current government in the manner that we would handle a misbehaving child.....cut off thier allowance (income tax) and place "them" all in time out (prison). It's blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that our "democracy" is little more than a deceitful ploy designed to placate the masses...it is intentionally broken and not fixable by any means under it's current structure......WAKE UP people....you're being "had" in ways you can't even begin to imagine. The world you THINK you live in is anything BUT the world you live in.
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Galen (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 35 comments)
on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 3:27:26 PM
I feel it is a time to take a stand on restoring our country to LIVING by the principles established by the founding fathers.... by our bringing justice to the criminals that have betrayed the trust of the people, most importantly the corporate elite. And, based on results, waiting around for some congress man or woman to do it doesn't work.
Look beyond the politicians who are glamorized to appease your hunger. It is my opinion that the corporate elite have it all tied up regardless of who gets in office. They have a hold on your purse strings and that scares people.... survival, you know? It takes an informed and discerning and courageous CITIZENSHIP to LEAD this country on the path of equality, economic stability, and peace.
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Living Arts (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 10:51:51 PM
At this time when the US Senate considers an economic stimulus package - your article reminds me that the stimulus likely will go to those who are already wealthy? This is just another shell game taking hard earned tax dollars from the American workers and funneling it into the hands of those that do not need it but who believe they deserve it because after all - they are the employers and they give people jobs? - at least until they can outsource yours.
A real economic stimulus would be to reconstitute the CCC or some such program to put people back to meaningful work like cleaning up and protecting the environment or installing solar or wind power units to help this country move to energy independence in a sustainable fashion. Or, renovate our infastructure that is crumbling around us. Or, how about educating people to help with Health Care for All?
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richard scott (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 10:55:13 PM
Boy, do you have some nerve! Who said you could propose ideas that might make sense?
If you're planning to run for office with ideas like that, you'd better do it as a Green; I'm afraid the Dems would eat you like they're doing with Kucinich. He forgot to clear his ideas first with the big funders and look what happened.
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alan k (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 34 comments)
on Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 12:57:14 AM
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