Choosing Evil – Are Elections the Great American Illusion? 

‘Tis the season for electoral folly. People are getting more and more excited over candidates who have shown less and less but the debates have placed Obama in juxtaposition to John McCain to make him look like the lesser of two evils. Obama isn’t measured against the highest standard but against someone amazingly matched in many ways.

Both candidates have received big contributions from Wall Street that attract their attention from Main Street. Both candidates claim that Arab hijackers caused 9-11 even though the Director of the FBI admitted that there was insufficient evidence. Both candidates support keeping the dogs of war barking even though the American people have demanded an end to the wars. Both of our “presidential candidates” have pledged to export the Afghan war into Pakistan.

… inverted totalitarianism has its own means of promoting generalized fear; not only by sudden "alerts" and periodic announcements about recently discovered terrorist cells or the arrest of shadowy figures or the publicized heavy-handed treatment of aliens and the Devil's Island that is Guantánamo Bay or the sudden fascination with interrogation methods that employ or border on torture, but by a pervasive atmosphere of fear abetted by a corporate economy of ruthless downsizing, withdrawal or reduction of pension and health benefits; a corporate political system that relentlessly threatens to privatize Social Security and the modest health benefits available, especially to the poor. With such instrumentalities for promoting uncertainty and dependence, it is almost overkill for inverted totalitarianism to employ a system of criminal justice that is punitive in the extreme, relishes the death penalty and is consistently biased against the powerless.

Thus the elements are in place: a weak legislative body, a legal system that is both compliant and repressive, a party system in which one party, whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent upon reconstituting the existing system so as to permanently favor a ruling class of the wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair, and, at the same time, keeping the middle classes dangling between fear of unemployment and expectations of fantastic rewards once the new economy recovers. That scheme is abetted by a sycophantic and increasingly concentrated media; by the integration of universities with their corporate benefactors; by a propaganda machine institutionalized in well-funded think tanks and conservative foundations; by the increasingly closer cooperation between local police and national law enforcement agencies aimed at identifying terrorists, suspicious aliens and domestic dissidents.

Can you recognize the elements in place to control the American people? Do you think that more of the same politicians will make a difference? Do you think that just because you vote in an election that your vote counted? Do you think that just because you voted, that you had a real choice or was it an “arranged” choice?

There ARE other choices that most of us don't make because we wish to have our vote count for a winner not for the best in our estimation. We don't want our vote to be "wasted". But isn't a vote for the lesser of two evils worse than wasted? Isn't it a vote that has been contaminated by manipulation of your ego? Who is it that says that a vote for a Ron Paul or a Ralph Nader or an Eric Hufschmid or a Karen Kwiatkowski would be wasted on someone who doesn't have a chance? Was it the propaganda of the “talking heads” on ABCNNBCBSPBSFox? Was it the local newspaper editor who got this from the New York Times? Who do YOU think would be the BEST CHOICE to represent you in Congress or the White House? THAT'S real voting! That's democracy! Or the illusion of freedom.

You might ask if this is the right action to be free. Is it the most effective way to use your energy, your time and money? Remember Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience chose to refuse to pay a tax he did not believe was lawful. He said, “Thousands are hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

The challenge always before you ... and me .... is this: do we have the courage of conscience to be free? Or will Americans continue to choose evil of the lesser kind?

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