Don’t Place Your Hopes For Change In Voting

Here we go again.  Seems like we’re back in 2016.  The progressives are rallying.  They think they’ve got all the momentum.  They think this is gonna be the year.  Charlie Brown is once again running towards Lucy to kick the football that will undoubtedly be pulled away.  Make no mistake, the progressive voters and candidates (if they are actually progressive) will soon fall on their asses.  Don’t look to me to give you a summary what’s been happening.  I couldn’t care less who won what primary, or why I should be supporting one progressive or another.  If I was Charlie Brown I’d being giving Lucy the long overdue middle finger.  But I’m beginning to see my facebook feed fill with hopeful progressive voices getting excited over election wins.  Apparently progressives are “winning big.” Some of these “progressives” are endorsed by Hillary Clinton, some by Bernie Sanders, some are woman, some are “of color,” and some identify as part of the LBGTQ community.  But before any of these token nods to “integration” get any ones hopes up, here’s the one thing to know.  None of them have said a thing about the military’s budget being larger than the next seven countries combined, none of them have made any real criticism of our foreign policy in general, and none of them have voiced concern about the millions of civilians killed in the Middle East since the US began its war on terror.  If you’ve never taken the time to place yourself in the shoes of an average citizen from another country, just imagine how you would feel if any single nation had killed MILLIONS of non-military people including woman and children in the USA while saying they were bringing us freedom.  You’d think it needs to be addressed at minimum. 

The Bernie Trap  

I don’t regret getting excited about Bernie Sanders.  The excitement gave me motivation to look deeper into the political landscape that we face in America.  But knowing what I know now, if we were back in 2016, I would not have volunteered, donated or voted for Bernie.  I would have known that his support of the military reflected his unwillingness to stand up to where the real power in this country lies. I would have seen him for what he was from the start, a fraud.  Some of my Bernie supporting readers may be saying, “but what about universal healthcare, and taking money out of politics? Aren’t these causes worth supporting?” To which I say yes they are, but of course there is a but, and it’s already been stated in this article, but I will repeat, “his support of the military reflects his unwillingness to stand up to where the real power in this country lies.” That means, even if Bernie becomes president and democrats take over the house and senate, the only universal healthcare and money out of politics changes that will happen will be pre-approved by the banks, the corporations, the military and the intelligence agencies, so they really won’t be changes at all.  Bernie had the chance to back up his talk of taking on the establishment in 2016, and instead he backed down. The email leaks released wikileakes right before the DNC show beyond any doubt that there was systemic collusion against Bernie Sanders. It is so bad that the DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz stepped down from her post.  Elizabeth Warren admitted it flat out on CNN.  Interim DNC chair Donna Brasil wrote a book about it.  I don’t even need to get into all the details that weren’t covered by mainstream media to say without fear of not being able to back up my claim that the DNC did everything they could to keep Bernie Sanders from getting nominated.  The DNC’s lawyers admitted it and tried to justify it in court saying they had the right to do so.  And yet the only party that Sanders accused of stealing an election was Russia.  Nothing’s changed for the better since 2016. So if Bernie wouldn’t stand up to the establishment for election integrity then, what makes you think he’ll stand up to the establishment on anything?

The Obama Trap

Some history that is often swept under the rug is the fact that in 2008, with the country in turmoil, Obama became president on a platform of promising universal healthcare, withdrawl from Iraq, and he boasted of being funded largely on the grassroots level.  When he took over office, the democrats had the majority in the house and senate. We happened next was the occupy movement disbanded, progressives stopped paying attention, and the largest transfer of wealth this country has ever seen went from the bottom 99% to the top 1%.  We got a version of universal healthcare pre-approved by the big-pharma and medical debt remains the number cause of bankruptcy, the bankers responsible for the 2008 stock market crash were let of the hook, and wars in 2 nations in the middle east, was expanded to 7 nations.  Whether or not you believe Obama tried his best, it should be obvious his “best,” was not good enough. Nothing proves this point better than the slave market in Libya making the news six years after the Obama administration helped overthrow the Gaddalfi government in Libya. Nothing has changed for the better since 2008. So if “trying his best” from a smart, well- spoken, and seemingly genuine politicians yielded results like that, why should any smart, well-spoken and seemingly genuine politician in 2018 be any better?

Voting Is The Opium Of The People

Move over religion, voting and political party loyalty have become the opium of the people.  It doesn’t matter what awful legislation is passed, we’ll just vote the guilty party out in the next election. It doesn’t matter the wealth gap is now at levels comparable to the great depression, we’ve got an election coming up that is going to change everything.  It doesn’t matter we that can’t fund the repairs in Flint or any of the numerous cities with toxic water while we continue to give aid to nations guilty of war crimes like Israel and Saudi Arabia, there are progressives running this time.  It doesn’t matter that the crumbling infrastructure of this country could be fixed for the cost of what our nation spends on the military in one day, the progressives are taking over.  It doesn’t matter that not a single non-incumbent candidate running under the progressive label has condemned what the Israeli military did to unarmed Palestinian protesters last week, they just need to get into office, and then we can seek justice.  I could go all day with this.  The point is that nothing will change while we place our hopes in voting in a system that is built to perpetuate exponential growth on a finite planet.  The strength of this country’s economy relies on a continuation of war, a continuation unlivable wages, and a continuation of exploiting all the world’s resource in the most wasteful ways imaginable.  The lifestyle of wealth and luxury for millions of people depends on the economy staying strong, and they won’t give it up without a fight, no matter how atrocious the crimes committed in their name become.  If you know what goes on that isn’t reported by the mainstream media, you realize that atrocities going on every day are already worse than most people would believe a human capable of inflicting. The problems are systemic. And if any candidates are speaking up about these problems being systemic, you probably haven’t heard of them.  

Well What Can We Do

I’m not a genius, I don’t have all the answers. But here’s a crazy thought, if we started having discussions around solutions themselves, rather than debating which mainstream media sponsored candidate has the best solution, we would be much closer to getting some answers than we’ll be if the next progressive gets into office.