With pre-approved candidates by the nation’s plutocracy the system allows no true choices to the electorate, a fact that makes American elections something of a broad daylight farce. Yet the masses remain passive about such an imposture or get reliably passionate about the pseudo election in response to the frenzy whipped up by the media. The great stumbling to real democracy, however, remains the Democratic party illusion. Without demolishing it, nothing of positive consequence can be built. “Face it: the reigning U.S. political party and elections system is an epic plutocratic and imperial mind fuck: a corporate-managed fake democracy in which elitism masquerades as populism and state-capitalist authoritarianism wears the clothes of the common good.”—Eds
Originally: Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Three Positions
The presidential election year is here and along with it comes the quadrennial intra-leftist bloodletting on the unpleasant question of how to best respond to the narrow “choices” handed down by the nation’s corporate-managed one-and-a-half party system. I am aware of at least three different, often fiercely held left positions on this issue. Read more…
Did you like this? Share it:
By WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ
Opinion—The New York Times
Suggested by Gloria Stevenson
What’s come over the New York Times? All, of a sudden—maybe to deflect critics who have long claimed the Grey Lady is a stealthy manipulator of news in support of a bankrupt status quo (a notion we endorse) the Times has been publishing more essays that expand a bit its normal coverage of issues and opinion. We hope it will go on, although we hardly expect the Times to become an organ for the 99%. In any case, the antisocial nature of the corporation is embedded in its dynamic, often codified into convenient law. As for the rich, the Bible itself was warning us about their true nature thousands of years ago: not only are they “not like us” as Fitzgerald warned, but for the most part they’re simply not terribly nice. —Eds.
———
THERE is an ongoing debate in this country about the rich: who they are, what their social role may be, whether they are good or bad. Well, consider the following. A recent study found that 10 percent of people who work on Wall Street are “clinical psychopaths,” exhibiting a lack of interest in and empathy for others and an “unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation.” (The proportion at large is 1 percent.) Another study concluded that the rich are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law. Read more…
Did you like this? Share it:
President Obama, like the joker in the White House before him, owes Osama bin Laden for making him appear sufficiently lethal-minded. But it was U.S. the alliance with Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan that, ultimately, made “Osama bin Laden became, arguably, the most recognizable face on the planet.” Then came the “blowback,” when the “Americans found they could not control the Islamic forces they had unleashed.” The U.S. once again aligns itself with jihadis against Syria – and another blowback is coming.
“The U.S. is back in the business of encouraging Islamic holy war.”
President Obama made a surprise flight to Afghanistan to sign an agreement to keep U.S. troops in that country after 2014, but the real purpose of the trip was to once again dance on the grave of Osama bin Laden. Of course, bin Laden has no gravesite, his body having been dumped into the Indian Ocean after his execution. But the ghost of bin Laden is as politically useful to President Obama as the living and breathing bin Laden was to George Bush. One year after U.S. Navy Seals carried out Obama’s orders to kill the unarmed al Qaida leader, rather than capture him, the president used the Afghan agreement as another excuse to strut around like a Wild West sheriff – the top gun on the planet. That’s worth a lot of votes, and the Republicans are jealous. Read more…
Did you like this? Share it:
