Read full article and breakdown of our broken two party racket that is presented to us as government below the latest Ghion Cast video.
Today is election day! An event as American as apple pie and spurious as a toxic mix of Trump’s hair plugs and Obama’s cadence. I don’t mean to be Teddy downer over here, but sometimes harsh truths need to be told. We have been conditioned to accept voting as a civic responsibility for most of our lives; in reality what we are partaking in are acts of self-nullification. When a government allows two parties to use malfeasance, influence and fraud to monopolize access to governance, that nation loses all moral standing to call itself a Democracy and is instead exposed as a kleptocracy.
The revolution of 1776 has been erased; Democrats and Republicans have conspired to nullify the Declaration of Independence and shred the US Constitution. We are not a nation of laws, we are a banana republic where plutocrats dictate both policy and politics and the people are relegated to observers of a political reality show. How fitting, we have a reality show charlatan living in the White House and fidgeting on Twitter as our ears burn. Lest you think this is a partisan hit piece against Trump, let me disabuse you of that thought. The Democrats are equally malignant and more insidious than Trump. We are being treated to the grandest of deceptions as both parties and the political class thrive while the rest of us shrivel.
In all honesty, it’s the Democrats who rankle my nerves more than the pugnacious Republicans. Malcolm X once said that Republicans are wolves and Democrats are foxes. You know where wolves stand, it’s the damn Democrats, duplicitous foxes that they are, who come at you smiling only to stick a knife in your back. Today’s Democrats are the Dixiecrats with better messaging and poll tested talking points; they use “people of color” and diversity to hide their noxious paternalism and latent racism. I am not saying this for effect; the Democratic National Committee just showed us their hands. They have told all of us that they do as they want and that primaries are nothing more than front organizations as they make decisions behind closed doors.For those who think that last sentence is hyperbolic, let me just quote a lawyer who defended the DNC during a lawsuit undertaken by Bernie Sanders supporters and advocates who actually believe in fair and open elections. The lawsuit was thrown out as—you guessed it—a federal judge sided with concentrated power instead of siding with justice. These are the exact words of the DNC’s lead attorney Bruce Spiva:
“But here, where you have a party that’s saying, We’re gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we’re gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could have — and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That’s not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have also been their right.”
In other words my fellow Democrats, or as the party dismissively calls you “their base”, your votes are just window dressing. The DNC’s tag line should by “you vote, we decide”. I swear I have a new found respect for the “African” tyrants I used to deride; at least despots like Hailemariam Desalegn and Robert Mugabe let people know that elections are a dog and pony shows. When they win 99.5% of the vote, it’s ruthless truth in advertisement. In America, tyranny is camouflaged; pretenses of freedoms and the charade of ballots makes us think we actually have control.
I used to believe in the narrative that Democrats were the good guys and Republicans were the evil ones. Like a reality show junkie, I used to follow politics on a nightly basis and adhere to DNC talking points as if they were sermons being delivered from Mount Sinai. If only we can get more Democrats elected, I would preach to unconvinced voters, as I made it my aim and purpose to turn Virginia blue and get “progressives” in office. It never dawned on me that in city after city bleeding at the hands of gentrification sat Democratic mayors. I overlooked the stubborn fact that Democrats are complicit along with their Republican peers in the wrecking of the middle class and the destruction of the American dream. 
In hindsight, after a rude awakening, I look back and realize that Democrats are actually more beholden to Wall Street and corporatism than are Republicans. I don’t say this to give a pass to the bankrupt GOP, but the truth is that Democrats have been able to pass more legislation and policies that cater to the 1% because they have convinced the public that they are not in the tank for big business. When it comes to being the lackeys of plutocrats, the Republicans are presented to us as the “bad cops” while the Democrats are presented as the “good cops”. After eight years of Republicans playing the part of Grinch, the Democratic “Santa Clauses” are elected only to enact policies that go far beyond the mean-spirited legislation that Republicans push. This is the brilliance of this most nefarious duopoly people vote for.
Don’t believe me? Remember when Bush pushed through the $400 billion tax cut? Oh how the “liberal” left was up in arms over this immoral tilting of wealth from the masses to the few. Obama gets elected and he pushes monetary policies that transferred more than 25 times that amount to the oligarchs. $14,000,000,000,000! That would be $14 trillion dollars that Obama handed over to the same crooks who crumbled our economy in 2008. The Obama embezzle was not an outlier; it was Democrats who stood up the Federal Reserve, repossessed gold from Americans, pushed corporate boondoggles like NAFTA and TPP and kept pushing policies that enriched Wall Street while kneecapping the poor, labor and the middle class.
For my Republican friends who might be smirking a bit too much, let me pivot to the malicious Grand Old Plutocratic party. This is a party that, time and time again, keeps pushing the idea that if we just give more money to the rich, they will be kind enough to reward us for our naivety. The rich don’t give back, they save at all times, hoard as much as they can and only invest (give) when there is a profit motive to do so. What the Republicans are actually espousing is a strangle up economy where monetary and fiscal policies are enacted that pamper the rich while the rest of us are lavished with lip service.
How Republicans can claim to be a party of limited government and personal choice is beyond comprehension. This is the same party that is in bed with corporations and uses the heavy hand of government to codify our dependence on Wall Street. Instead of advocating entrepreneurship, Republicans are are actually a party who promote dependency even more than Democrats—the GOP wants all Americans to be beholden to the 1%. They preach an ownership society yet ,at every turn, they erect barriers to entry by pandering to multinational corporations while sticking it to the rest of us. The party of Abraham Lincoln is now a party of Abrams tanks and Lincoln limousines.
This is the face of Democracy we are presented. We are forced to pick between neo-Dixiecrats and GOPlutocrats. There is a reason why nearly 70% of Americans who can otherwise vote refuse to do so. Only 7% of Americans have an favorable opinion of Congress; taken another way, 93% of Americans give our government a vote of no-confidence. Given this, the Federal government is clearly illegitimate and governing without consent. The founders of this nation memorialized that the people have a right to rise up and overturn a government that is not acting according to their will. It is within our rights as Americans and humans to dethrone unjust rulers and start over.
Tragically, the citizenry is too engaged in the trivial, wedded to ideological and identity based differences and mired in separable grievances to reclaim a runaway government that oppresses all without prejudice. Sadly, a government that is clearly illegitimate is given legitimacy by the 30% of Americans who insist on voting against their self-interest. A defeatist attitude palls over too many. A third party is a wasted vote! We have to vote for the lessor two evils! If you don’t vote, you are the problem! A chorus of self-nullification drowns out any hope for a change and prevents a critical mass of people from coalescing to provide a viable alternative to these two criminal enterprises who disguise themselves brilliantly as governing entities.
By the way, if you caught yourself at any point getting angry or defensive, I ask you to really reflect and ask yourself why. When I condemn Democrats and Republicans, I am talking about the people who are getting paid handsomely to sit at policy tables and purvey iniquities throughout America and the world. 99.99% of Americans don’t meet these standards; I can state with almost absolute certainty that a near totality of the people who refer to themselves as either Republican or Democrat are not getting paid by the DNC or RNC nor do they get some type of political perk. So then why get upset over political parties and ideologies that don’t pay your rent or defend politicians who would sooner throw you into the Potomac river than care about your concerns. It’s sad, we are a society that views politics as a sport. Just like fans, people are loyal to their teams without understanding that they are the ones getting gamed by partisan players and their political owners. Stockholm syndrome is a hell of a drug!
This evening, people who voted will sit down in front of their HD televisions and watch CNN, MSNBC or Fox News give flashy graphics and state by state results. Pundits will chip in and rile up the passions of partisans on all side. Politicians will give speeches accepting defeat or acting graceful in victory. The band plays on; Democracy being produced live before us as if we are extras in a Potemkin village. Somewhere in America, a family is getting evicted from their home and a homeless veteran shivers in the cold under a wet newspaper. Bread and circus; we follow the death spiral of the Roman empire. As for the victims of the neo-Dixiecrats and GOPlutocrats in DC, let them eat Monsanto cake! After all, we did my part—we have a stickers on our chests to prove it! #VotingForSame
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
Teodrose Fikremariam
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