If one is impelled to foresee the light at the end of the tunnel, we are a bit more than a month away from the much-anticipated climax of putting the latest well-rehearsed American political circus ad nauseam behind us. We can then go back to focusing on our uncertain daily plights until a year from now when we will once again be stricken with the interim election sloganeering and then two years thereafter when the next presidential fiasco orchestrated by mainstream media will drag us into yet another theatrical rodeo show. It is as if the political circus has become an undesirable, albeit nonetheless inevitable, part of our daily lives, like rated TV sitcoms. Hear our laugh track?
The emptiness of our canned laughter speaks of our ennui. While the two entrenched political parties may astutely portray their platform of “CHANGE” as the more viable remedy for solving all our lingering problems, the fact remains there would be no fundamental change but semantics at best; in reality the two parties are simply the two sides of the same old coin. This is repeatedly confirmed in national surveys where a large majority of the citizens, irrespective of their political affiliations (one third democrats, one-third republicans and one-third independent/third parties), register their disillusionment with the political process. In the end, the 50% of the eligible voters who cast their ballots confess to simply voting for “the lesser of the two evils.” Is this genuinely what American ideal of democracy was?
Incidentally, such dismal voter turnout ranks among the lowest if not the lowest in all developed and developing “democratic” countries. Although our constitutional system of government is founded with marked influence from the Iroquois indigenous Indian nation, the credit if any is solely given to the European ancestors. Whereas we rightly advocate democracy and freedoms in other countries, be it as it may mostly in rhetoric and not necessarily substantive, isn’t it strange that despite the great potentials inherent in the American system to serve, our system, in incapacitated system in effect limits the opportunity to serve in the highest office to practically two groomed candidates and the final say of electoral college hierarchs, and not direct voters?
However, when 3 to 10 presidential candidates are vetted to run, from a pool of 3,000-7,000 prospective candidates in a country like Iran with typical 75% voting turnouts, we rightly cry violation, foul. Iran, a historical nation nearly ten thousand years in the making, and run by the theocratic autocrats since 1979, has justified its harsh repressive measures against its own citizens as a schizophrenic reaction to constant threats from the U.S.
Iran has not invaded any other nations in the past few hundred years, but that does not deter the U.S. to make of a villain out them in the hope of regaining leverage over their vast oil and gas reserves and geopolitical and strategic position. Have we ever wondered why our military adventurism is primarily focused on the regions with vast natural resources, such the Islamic states of the Persian Gulf region where we have the grand plan of annihilative exacerbation and dual containment of Shiite-Sunni conflicts, and not on the poor regions where mass genocides (Cambodia, Rwanda and Turkey) occur under our nose?
An unprecedented, yet serious degree of cynical pessimism and ignorance that has been inserted into the apathetic culture of malaise in the U.S., then allows such ill-conceived policies in our name. And if one ever rarely dares speaks his conscience for the good of the nation and humanity, he is immediately discounted as one committing treason and treachery under the fifth column by schizophrenic government organs, the media or even ignorant people themselves who wrap themselves in the flag to demonstrate they are the far more patriotic and loyal Americans? By the same taken, the patriotism and loyalty of the unpatriotic mega-corporations cheapening and selling America and wasting its precious resources are never questioned, but instead constantly rewarded from our pockets.
As seen in history, a political party and its appointed presidential candidate make countless “pie in sky” promises to the gullible populace, most of which they never deliver after their election turned coronation and most more often, in fact, they contradict. Our American political process is increasingly influenced and controlled by the “(un-/non-)”American lynchpins, namely, the corporate trans-national conglomerates that have mastered the deceitful charade of sophisticated media power and paybacks to the soon-to-be elected. The public official would then walk the corporate party line normative and keep tongue in cheek, to leave the office a few years later for a lucrative private sector CEO position, and a book contract to “tell it all,” which they never do. These mega corporations only dump on the over-indulged U.S. consumerist society trillions of dollars worth of cheap and not durable, mostly non-essential products manufactured with cheap labor and raw materials, and no environmental regulations and tax laws in other enslaved countries.
On the bright side, these corporate interest fraternities have not yet efficiently harnessed the grassroots movement on the Internet, but have every intention of curtailing its power, as they don’t want “surprises”. By the same token, can we truly be reassured that the insightful role of secretive societies such as the Free Masons, Illuminati’s and Scull and Bones, are not as paramount as they are perceived in setting policies, while moving and accumulating capitals off-shores?
After World War II when the U.S. in essence took the imperialist role of gendarme of the world, as previously played by the British in the preceding two hundred years, our government system has given itself the super-authority and ideological moral majority position of dictating to other countries Democracy, socio-political and economic Reforms, Freedoms and Human Rights. Isn’t it ironic that these are all but almost non-existent in our very own historical documents on which our system of government is anchored on? Employing our military, economic and media, we have changed indigenous governments, and installed and supported totalitarian monarchs and dictators who primarily serve the concession driven interests of foreign corporations at the expense of the legitimate rights of their own constituencies through repression, torture, imprisonment, exile, and even execution of political dissidents. The material dividends, from such international unilateral wars of adventurism and hegemonies, that inflict painful human and financial losses on both the victor and the victim, are divvyed up among the large multinational corporations in terms of no biding long-term concessions leading to natural and human resource exploitation, and market monopolies and dominance.
On the domestic level, the once bright prospect in the past 75 years of a sustainable American middle class who have endeavored to nurture their children to better life prospects, now carry in the stead financial and human burdens of a perpetually mushrooming and inefficient government infested with nepotism and cronyism. The middle socio-economic class is rapidly eroding as the taxes increase disproportionately to defray the dual doctrine of expansionist “preemptive” wars of aggression overseas, and the never-ending pork barrel earmarks and entitlements domestically. Strong foreign and domestic lobbyists and powerful special interest groups orchestrate both of such wasteful agenda, while the majority of us carry the empty bag with a hole in its bottom. As if that, in and of itself, is not sufficient, the government has now added salt to the injury by eroding civil and constitutional rights of citizenry as manifested in the suspensions of: habeas corpus, due process, eaves dropping and surveillance, and the presumption of innocence unless proven guilty in the law court all under the so called national security threats.
No one can argue with the need for a safe and secure living environment, but there remains a fine line between that and individual’s civil rights. Add to the mix tumultuous economic uncertainty, that has rippled through every household in the nation and the world with the collapse and selective bailouts, with our tax money in the trillions, of giant banking and insurance corporations while personal bankruptcies have in effect, become impossible. When mega-corporate privileged immunity far outweighs personal liabilities by astronomical margins, of course Wall Street in collusion with the government deregulations would sell out America and the Americans ten times over without our consent and then leave us in the ditch soaked dry and vulnerably exposed. This has led to tax base reductions and the loss of up to 25% of individual retirement funds, and the devaluation of the country’s assets as whole by a wide margin.
Has the Nation truly realized the disaster inflicted by our government incompetence, at best, if not a malicious accomplice, elected by our so called votes, which was and still is apparently in collusion with the huge non-American multi-, and transnational business conglomerates and the in cognito messianic elements under the banner of globalizations? The government has in essence funneled our middle class current and future tax monies to these shrewd mega-corporations in the form of tax breaks, financial subsidies, environmental degradation and legal deregulation, overseas outsourcing, unethical business misconduct, corporate welfare, bailout and bankruptcy protection.
Although only ludicrous excuses have been offered, the political kingpins, the business lynchpins directed by the messianic behinds the scene must have known this coming, but instead they opted not to proactively steer the “economic” ship in time to avoid striking the iceberg. When personal bankruptcy is next to impossible to obtain, why would callously bankrupt corporations be rewarded by our tax based bailout, for the miseries they inflict upon us, as was once the general practice in then failing communist countries? And when all this was happening, where were the ethically inclined investigative business journalists to report on it, especially since the late 90’s when the corporate deregulation was enacted? And who would be the J.P. Morgan savior of the early 21st century to save us from such catastrophe as he did back in 1907?
Needless to ask, who are the prosecutable criminals? When a minor speeding or parking traffic violation is rightly dealt severely with surveillance and heavy fines, where is the logic of allowing megalomaniac corporations steal and waste people’s sweat and blood money? What actions must we as a nation take, if any, so as to protect ourselves from such capricious violations of our legal rights and our loss of capital, retirement funds, real estate and savings? Who is to be held accountable for the trillions of dollars that were lost, topped with our lingering unilateral wars of adventurism, which we and future generations, having had nothing to do with it, now are seemingly held responsible to pay for it? What has happened to the noble American dream of a sustained middle class for its hard working, now eroding at a much faster pace than ever? And as we so rightly question the lack of ethical conduct driven by corporate greed and government lack of oversight and regulation, how about the need for the individual to embrace a code of ethical and moral conduct, devoid of greed, so as to live within his or her own means?
All the above notwithstanding, there is an evolving consensus-based paradigm where a platform anchored on the integration of select domestic and international visionary priorities are crystallized and demanded. For instance, a periodic comprehensive review and revision, if found necessary, of our constitution and other government procedures, protocols and laws, is not any longer an ivory tower elite exercise driven by a conspiracy theory, but rather a reality demanded by the grassroots populace. On the domestic front, our guiding principle should be a much more compassionate decentralized approach to sustaining a respectable and dignified quality of life (better education, healthcare, environment, crime prevention, employment, etc.) for all citizens; such paradigm shift is crucial if we wish to avoid an all out revolution.
On the international front, regaining our credibility and the global acceptance of our nation as a mature compassionate super power, to expand mutually beneficial economic enterprises worldwide, with objective even-handedness, and to advocate true democratic reforms as genuinely practiced by ourselves first-reforms embedded with the realization of the dreams of the recipients, and making the proper use of our strong military might, only as the very last possible resort and after all possible negotiations have been exhausted, would shape our long-term foreign policy.
Back to the election sequel circus: After the plastic stage and the tents are pulled down and the confetti and balloons are swept away into the rubbish bin of oblivion, when we go back to being stomped again by the political bulls, we will hear that tiny, fake laughter again. But who’s really laughing? Would the Nightingale of human dignity and freedom, and economic prosperity and democracy be singing again in our backyards?
