The
Grand Delusion
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
12 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org
With
an endless, futile and costly Iraq war, a stinking economy and most
Americans seeing the country on the wrong track, the greatest national
group delusion is that electing Democrats in 2008 is what the country
needs.
Keith Olbermann was praised
when he called the Bush presidency a criminal conspiracy. That missed
the larger truth. The whole two-party political system is a criminal
conspiracy hiding behind illusion induced delusion.
Virtually everything that
Bush correctly gets condemnation for could have been prevented or negated
by Democrats, if they had had courage, conviction and commitment to
maintaining the rule of law and obedience to the Constitution. Bush
grabbed power from the feeble and corrupt hands of Democrats. Democrats
have failed the vast majority of Americans. So why would sensible people
think that giving Democrats more power is a good idea? They certainly
have done little to merit respect for their recent congressional actions,
or inaction when it comes to impeachment of Bush and Cheney.
One of the core reasons the
two-party stranglehold on our political system persists is that whenever
one party uses its power to an extreme degree it sets the conditions
for the other party – its partner in the conspiracy – to
take over. Then the other takes its turn in wielding excessive power.
Most Americans – at least those that vote – seem incapable
of understanding that the Democrats and Republicans are two teams in
the same league, serving the same cabal running the corporatist plutocracy.
By keeping people focused on rooting for one team or the other, the
behind-the-scenes rulers ensure their invisibility and power.
The genius of the plutocrats
is to create the illusion of important differences between the two parties,
and the illusion of political choice in elections. In truth, the partner
parties compete superficially and dishonestly to entertain the electorate,
to maintain the aura of a democracy. Illusion creates the delusion of
Americans that voting in elections will deliver political reforms, despite
a long history of politicians lying in campaigns about reforms, new
directions and bold new policies. The rulers need power shifting between
the teams to maintain popular trust in the political system. Voting
manifests that trust – as if changing people will fix the system.
It doesn’t.
So voters become co-conspirators
in the grand political criminal conspiracy. Those who vote for Democrats
or Republicans perpetuate the corrupt, dishonest and elitist plutocracy
that preferentially serves the interests of the Upper Class and a multitude
of special interests – some aligned with the Republicans and some
with the Democrats. Voting only encourages worthless politicians and
those that fund and corrupt them.
Public discontent leads to
settling for less through lesser evil voting rather than bold thinking
about how to reform the system to get genuine political competition
and better candidates and government.
I understand why sane people
would not want to vote for Republicans, based on the Bush presidency.
But I cannot understand why politically engaged people think that putting
Democrats in power will restore American democracy and put the welfare
of non-wealthy Americans above the interests of the wealthy and the
business sector. Bill Clinton’s administration strongly advanced
globalization and the loss of good jobs to foreign countries. Economic
inequality kept rising. Trade agreements sold us out.
And in this primary season
talk about reforming our health care system among Democrats never gets
serious about providing universal health care independent of the insurance
industry. And why should citizens be supportive of a party that favors
illegal immigration – law breaking – that primarily serves
business interests by keeping labor costs low?
Nor have Democrats stood
up to challenge the official 9/11 story that no longer has any credibility
to anyone that takes the time to seriously examine all its inconsistencies
with what really happened and the laws of physics.
Whoever wins the Democratic
presidential nomination will not be free of corruption and lies. He
or she will owe paybacks to all the fat-cat campaign donors. Voters
will be choosing the lesser-evil Democratic presidential candidate.
Is that really the only choice? Is there no other action that can advance
the national good?
There seem to be just two
other choices. Vote for some third party presidential candidate, but
the downside of that is twofold. No such candidate can win in the current
rigged system. Worse, voting gives a stamp of credibility to the political
system, as if it was fair, when it is not. Voting says that you still
believe that the political system merits your support and involvement.
The second option is to boycott
voting to show total rejection of the current political system and the
plutocratic cabal using the two-party duopoly to carry out its wishes.
When a democracy no longer is legitimate, no longer is honest, and no
longer serves the interests of ordinary citizens, then what other than
violent revolution can change it? When the electoral system no longer
can provide honest, corruption free candidates with any chance of winning,
what can citizens do? Either stay home or just vote in local and state
races and for ballot measures.
I say remove the credibility
and legitimacy of the federal government by reducing voter turnout to
extremely low levels. Show the world that the vast majority of Americans
have seen the light and no longer are deluding themselves about their
two-party democracy. A boycott on voting for candidates for federal
office is a form of civil disobedience that has enormous power to force
true political reforms from the political system. This is the only way
to make it crystal clear that the presidency and Congress no longer
represent any significant fraction of the people. This is the only way
to show that America’s representative democracy is no longer representative
and, therefore, is no longer a credible democracy. Just imagine a federal
government trying to function in the usual ways when only 20 percent
of the eligible voters actually voted.
It takes more courage to
boycott voting than to vote for lesser evil Democrats and in the end
this is the only way for people to feel proudly patriotic. This is the
only way to not contribute to the ongoing bipartisan criminal conspiracy
running the federal government.
We have broken government
because the spirit of Americans that gave us our revolution and nation’s
birth has been broken, in large measure by distractive and self-indulgent
consumerism. It is better to recognize that those who vote suffer from
delusion than to criticize those who do not vote as apathetic. Non-delusional
nonvoters recognize the futility of voting.
Democrats will not restore
our democracy. That is the painful truth that most people will not readily
accept. Such is the power of group delusion. Voting produces never-ending
cycles of voter dissatisfaction with those elected, both Democrats and
Republicans. It is time to break this cycle of voter despair. Voters
that bitch and moan about Congress and the White House have nobody to
blame but themselves, no matter which party they voted for.
[Joel S. Hirschhorn
observed our corrupt federal government firsthand as a senior official
with the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National
Governors Association; reach him through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]
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