It astounds me how wimpy and servile voters are. People, we're Americans! We're supposed to be independent, tough, ruggedly individualistic, exceptional!
No one pushes us around! Unless they want their butts kicked!
Right.
So why is it when the election cycle rolls around and as voters we have to start listening to the professional windbags courting our approval, we let the candidates tell us what they're going to do when they get elected?
Excuse me! Shouldn't we be telling them what they'll be doing if they get elected?
Voters
seem to have forgotten how much power they collectively hold in their
hands. The simple fact is, if we don't like what we see, we don't have
to vote for someone. And if we don't vote for them, they are out of a
job.
Let
me talk directly to you progressives out there -- since the odds that a
conservative or even centrist is reading this at OpEdNews are pretty nil --
and discuss a perfect example of the kind of surrender that has
perpetuated the powerlessness we all complain about, i.e. not getting
our elected officials to listen to us and begin serving us instead of the 1%.
Understandably, we lefties are encouraged by the rise in popularity of Bernie Sanders.
His campaign is certainly a much-welcome breath of fresh air next to both the belligerent bombast of the certifiably insane Republican presidential candidates, and the slippery shape-shifting rhetoric of Hillary the Terminator, the Democrat's heavy puncher in the neocon-driven cage fight to decide who has the most expedient blue print for incinerating the planet and destroying all living things in the nuclear holocaust of WWIII.
Why is Sanders gaining traction?
Because
unlike everyone else, he's addressing bread-and-butter issues, the
challenges which affect the daily lives of most Americans. He's talking
about better jobs, increasing income, reducing wealth inequality,
rebuilding our industrial base, bringing factories and jobs back to
America, improving health care, education, making college affordable,
etc.
Unfortunately . . . Sanders is NOT SERIOUSLY TALKING ABOUT ending unnecessary wars, reducing the defense budget, reversing the self-destructive pursuit of American empire, ending the monopoly control of foreign policy and promotion of military adventurism by the military-industrial complex, halting the unconstitutional citizen surveillance by the NSA, CIA, FBI and other security agencies, or ending the fraudulent War on Terror.
The
simple truth is, all of his noble aspirations about improving the
day-to-day lives of the majority of Americans will come to naught unless
the militarization of American society and the imperialist agenda of
world domination is reversed. As long as the current military mindset of
Washington DC prevails, there will never be any money to address the
needs of American citizens, nor will it ever be a priority.
There will always be another bogeyman, terrorist group, rogue nation,
another war, another "humanitarian intervention" to pursue. You and I,
the everyday Americans who fund all of these illegal, immoral
misadventures and self-destructive policies, will always be last on the
list. Not even in the kitchen, much less on the back burner.
Whether Mr. Sanders is willfully ignorant of this reality, or whether he's just confused, it's up to us to set him straight.
Here's what we say . . .
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