Showing posts with label proletariat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label proletariat. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Using Your Vote In Our "Destroyed Democracy"

Using Your Vote In Our "Destroyed Democracy"

by C. A. Matthews  

Readers might have noticed that TRC has spent very little blog space on the US midterms this time around. There are a couple of reasons for this. First off, since we’re open to guest bloggers expressing whatever is on their mind at the moment, we let our readers/bloggers set the pace in regards to posts about elections. We haven’t had anyone really interested in writing about the 2022 midterms, so there’s that.

Secondly—and perhaps most importantly—is this reason: Why bother?

Really, what difference will it make to ordinary working class Americans which of the establishment factions has the majority in the US House or Senate? What difference will our votes make one way or the other when study after study (starting with the infamous Princeton Study) demonstrate that our elected officials completely ignore the bottom 90% of American voters and only listen to those with the most money?

Just get a load of these figures:

According to a report released Thursday by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), just 465 American billionaires had donated an unprecedented $881 million by the end of September — even before last-minute campaign pushes in the last five weeks before Election Day. This is already more than the amount that billionaires spent in the entirety of the 2018 midterm election.
 
Further, the vast majority of this spending — $643 million, or 73 percent — comes from just 20 billionaire households, including prominent figures like the Koch family, Peter Thiel, George Soros, Michael and Susan Bloomberg and Jeffrey Yass.  --465 Billionaires Have Pumped An Eye-Popping $881 Million Into the Midterms
 

In past elections, reading an article like the one above showing how many millions—excuse me, billions—are being spent by the oligarchs/billionaires to influence US governmental policy, our planet’s health, and our general welfare would have made me extremely irate. I might have suggested that you make a plan to go to the polls and vote for an independent or third party candidate to send the duopolists a strong message that we’re on to them and their corporate puppet masters. I might have led everyone in a chant of, "We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!"
 
Nowadays, I’m more resigned to our fate. Those with the money will get their agenda passed with no problems, and there’s nothing we the poor and struggling workers can do about it. It's not like we can come up with over one billion dollars every election to bribe the candidates and take the reins away from our true masters and rulers, the billionaires, can we?

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges puts it very well:

The bipartisan project of dismantling our democracy, which took place over the last few decades on behalf of corporations and the rich, has left only the outward shell of democracy. The courts, legislative bodies, the executive branch and the media, including public broadcasting, are captive to corporate power. There is no institution left that can be considered authentically democratic. The corporate coup d’état is over. They won. We lost.

The wreckage of this neoliberal project is appalling: endless and futile wars to enrich a military-industrial-complex that bleeds the U.S. Treasury of half of all discretionary spending; deindustrialization that has turned U.S. cities into decayed ruins; the slashing and privatization of social programs, including education, utility services and health care – which saw over one million Americans account for one-fifth of global deaths from Covid, although we are 4 percent of the world’s population; draconian forms of social control embodied in militarized police, functioning as lethal armies of occupation in poor urban areas; the largest prison system in the world; a virtual tax boycott by the richest individuals and corporations; money-saturated elections that perpetuate our system of legalized bribery; and the most intrusive state surveillance of the citizenry in our history.

In “The United States of Amnesia,” to quote Gore Vidal, the corporate press and the ruling class create fictional feel-good personas for candidates, treat all political campaigns as if it is a day at the races and gloss over the fact that on every major issue, from trade deals to war, there is very little difference between Democrats and Republicans. The Democratic Party and Joe Biden are not the lesser evil, but rather, as Glen Ford pointed out, “the more effective evil.”  --The Politicians Who Destroyed Our Democracy Want Us to Vote for Them to Save it 

All this is not to say that I’m not voting this time out and that you shouldn’t vote, either. It's just that, with what I know now, I’m not wasting my time voting for either the Republican or Democratic Parties’ candidates. Both establishment factions accept plenty of money from the billionaires, so their loyalty will always be pledged to the top 1% and not to bottom 99% of Americans. 

I’m willing to vote for any and all independent and third party candidates who don't take corporate cash, and I will voice my opinion on all local and state issues. In my case, that’s about one page out of several of the printed ballot. I will make my opinion known on these ballot issues since they are important to my community and directly affect our lives together. 

If there’s no electronic diddling with the vote count, then at least some form of democracy will occur in regards to those ballot issues. I see that as a “win” for the ordinary people. We might still have to put up a while longer with a corrupt system that blithely calls itself a “representative democracy” (watch this video for more about how easily corrupted that is), but at least we’re not running away scared with our tails between our legs. We are buying ourselves time to figure out how to rebuild our destroyed democracy.

We ordinary American voters should stand proud. We’re interested in our local communities' well-being. We don’t have to explain ourselves to anyone about why we didn’t waste time rubber-stamping a vote for a bunch of corporate candidates to make their billionaire bosses happy. There's no need for us to feel shame about not supporting the status quo with our votes. We proudly can leave these corporate sell-outs twisting in the wind, desperate to come up with a good excuse to explain why no decent hardworking American wanted to vote for them. 

I think the biggest joke this midterm election is on the billionaires. They think they’ve successfully bought off American “democracy.” Ha! We all know it doesn’t exist, and we're not keeping silent. We've got the perseverance to keep working toward building a government that doesn't include the likes of them.

Of course, the billionaires will be laughing all the way to the bank in the short term as their politician-puppets gift them billions of our tax dollars to produce weapons, weapons to pass on to another corrupt government under the guise of a proxy war. These Daddy Warbucks will then sell their leftover weapon stockpiles directly to the US war machine. The US war machine will bomb even more countries in our collective good name until these decimated countries are overflowing with “freedom and democracy” and a whole lot less of their natural resources and citizens. 

It's why the billionaires bought out the US government in the first place. How else are they supposed to make so much money? Work for it with their own hands like we peons do?

I hope you can see now that voting alone isn’t going to get us out of this mess. Voting isn’t going to stop the endless wars for oil and liquefied natural gas at the expense of innocent human beings’ lives. Voting red and blue and red and blue will do nothing because of you-know-who! Billionaires and their bought off cronies have a lock on our corrupt system of government. The only way We the People can take back power is by refusing to play along with their abusive games.

It’s like that well-worn adage that the Dems seem to enjoy shouting every couple of years: “This is the most important election of our lives!” These midterms are the most important elections of our lives but only because now we understand that we no longer need waste our time putting check marks in front of the red or blue candidates on the ballot. We know now how much a real democracy is worth and that it can’t be bought by anyone. It's priceless, and it's worth fighting for until we get it. 

So, whatever you decide to do this midterm election or in elections to come, feel proud. You're mad as hell, and you're smart enough not to fall for the duopolists' propaganda. That makes you a "winner" in my book. Don't let a bunch of soulless billionaires' puppets tell you otherwise.

 


Related Articles:   

UPDATE: Total Cost of 2022 State and Federal Elections Projected to Exceed $16.7 Billion https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/11/total-cost-of-2022-state-and-federal-elections-projected-to-exceed-16-7-billion

Congress Literally Doesn't Care What You Think https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/

465 Billionaires Have Pumped An Eye-Popping $881 Million Into the Midterms https://truthout.org/articles/465-billionaires-have-pumped-an-eye-popping-881-million-into-the-midterms/

Chris Hedges: The Politicians Who Destroyed Our Democracy Want Us to Vote for Them to Save it  https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-politicians-who-destroyed-our

AIPAC Had a Banner Year in Election Meddling and We Should All Be Concerned  https://truthout.org/articles/aipac-had-a-banner-year-in-election-meddling-and-we-should-all-be-concerned/

US Again Isolated on UN Vote Against Its Cuba Blockade https://popularresistance.org/us-again-isolated-on-un-vote-against-its-cuba-blockade/

Why the US is Not a Democracy (video) https://youtu.be/srfeHpQNEAI 

Chris Hedges: Betrayed by Liberals (video) https://youtu.be/a-aVr6H0c3U 

The Racism of the Supreme Court Supermajority Was on Full Display This Week  https://scheerpost.com/2022/11/05/the-racism-of-the-supreme-courts-supermajority-was-on-full-display-this-week/

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Tuesday, May 16, 2017

"Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires"


"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires..." --John Steinbeck

This is one of my favorite quotes because it explains what's wrong in our world. It says We the People, a.k.a. the American workers or the proletariat, don't help ourselves out of our bad straits because we've fallen for the lie of the system--a system that tells us the two major political parties are our only choices. Somehow, they are "different" from each other and one or the other of them will help us. If you suffer from unemployment or underemployment and have few health care benefits (if you're lucky enough to have any through a job or parent), why do you continue to respect and support these two factions and the system which upholds them and does nothing for you? Expecting a different result from the same system which screws workers over time and time again is a good definition of insanity, don' t you think?
That's our theme this week, one I've been pondering for some time. Some of my fellow bloggers wrote along similar lines recently, so I recommend you check out their great pieces on the subject (links below). You will learn a lot from their insights. (I did.) Read and share the information with others who continually beat themselves up because they play by the system's "rules" and yet they always seem to be penalized in the "game" and can't figure out what went wrong. Well, nothing went wrong--it's how the system works.  To quote the late great George Carlin: "It's a big club--and you ain't in it." But we can change it through political revolution and staying awake and aware of how the system manipulates us.

From John Laurits's blog -- Children of the Great Recession: Will Millennials Ignite the Class War America Needs? https://www.johnlaurits.com/2017/children-great-recession-millennials-class-struggle/

The Price of Hellfire Missiles: Everything Americans Could Buy at the Cost of Drone Strikes & “Freedom”  https://www.johnlaurits.com/2017/hellfire-missiles-drones-defense-spending-price/


From Dirk Droll's Beanstock's World-- We Better Don’t Overlook the Fundamental Enemy of Democracy and Justice https://beanstocksworld.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/we-better-dont-overlook-the-fundamental-enemy-of-democracy-and-justice/

Another good article: Trying to Explain the Disdain for Poor Americans https://www.nationofchange.org/2017/05/15/trying-explain-disdain-poor-americans/

Requiem for the American Dream by Noam Chomsky
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/43587-requiem-for-the-american-dream


And now in the spirit of "equal time" (because, after all, alternative journalists believe in giving both sides of the story and not just snippets of propaganda for the ruling elite), here's something for the "hard working" one-percenters out there having trouble getting us "lazy" ninety-nine percenters to do as we're told.

How to Build a Better Slave, er, Worker

By  C. A. Matthews

By following this simple three step process, you'll be well on your way to making record profits in no time and purchasing your twentieth yacht and fiftieth mansion or private island resort you've had your eye on. Happy endless profiteering!


First Step -- Education

Educate your slaves as little as possible. Make higher education expensive and milk them with high rates of interest on their student loans--preferably by appointing a billionaire housewife to head the Department of Education whose family has a stake in the student loan business. Encourage slaves to only learn skills you feel appropriate or necessary to increase profits and nothing more by short changing public schools of federal funding, especially in poorer areas. 


Discourage the teaching of critical thinking skills or how to "think outside the box." This can be easily accomplished by ruthlessly slashing the funding for the arts, such as classes for painting, literature and music, and the sciences (except for teaching technical skills needed in your plants), since these liberal arts types of courses encourage the development of critical thinking skills. Ridicule and belittle creative thinkers, and encourage your other slaves to do as well. Squash all enthusiasm to better one's lot and help create a better world. (What "better world"? They won't be able to obtain water without paying the Nestle Corporation outrageous prices for a tiny bottle before long.)


Second Step -- Instill Apathy/Discourage Empathy

Instill apathy in your slave toward his/her own lot in life and discourage all empathy for fellow slaves. You want to create slaves who don't care about improving their own prospects and who couldn't care less about the suffering of others. These ideal workers can be treated poorly over and over again and will not speak out or protest the abuse. Added bonus: Over time, abuse hardens the slave's heart and makes him/her deaf to the cries of their fellow slaves. They simply won't revolt or rise up because they simply don't want to disturb their dystopic status quo. Their apathetic mindset tells them it's better to stick with the horrible world they're familiar with than to strive for an unfamiliar world, which may or may not be happier for them.

If slaves should start to express anger about the depressive "dog eat dog" atmosphere you've created to motivate them, don't let up. Don't allow them to think they're "special" or entitled to "unalienable rights" and can organize to overthrow their masters. Remind them constantly you can replace them with cheaper overseas workers or, better yet, robotic ones. Nothing assures cooperation more than a threatened shut-down of a factory or store or educational institution (a.k.a. "learning factory for making profits"). Always, your bottom line is paramount, so go ahead and move your interests offshore or install the robots as you've planned on doing all along--just don't let the slaves know your plans beforehand.


If slaves begin to act out their frustrations against the system, start rumors about how one sub-section of slaves are "stealing" jobs, food, benefits, etc., from the others. Try using long held prejudices  to divide slaves into antagonistic groups against people of color, women and gays--these tactics work great. Differing religious preferences work well, too, since you can use the "God excuse" to get them kill each other in His name, saving you the trouble of doing so. Allow the slaves' pent up hatred and frustrations to escalate into violence between slave groups, and you will have ample justification in sending in militarized police to quell dissent. It's a tactic called "divide and conquer," and slaves without critical thinking skills will walk right into the trap, providing centuries of controlling conflict to keep the ruling classes on top (where we all know they truly belong).


Third Step -- Bread and Circuses

This is perhaps the best method to keep slaves distracted and silent about their futile existence. Feed them just enough physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually but not an ounce more. On a starvation diet of literal and figurative junk food, the stamina and ability to think creatively and question the morality of the system starves, which is what you want. You certainly don't want slaves who think God loves them other than as exploited workers for their "righteous" masters, the one percent.

Throw in mindless entertainments emphasizing competition, non-cooperation and senseless violence, and you've got your slave class just where you want them--constantly bickering over "my team/sport is better than yours!" while you take away their freedoms of free speech and net neutrality. "Reality TV" showing buffoonery of other social classes make the slaves feel better about their lot, so never let on that it's all manufactured and scripted and is about as real as saying, "All men are created equal." (We know they're not.)

Video games will take away valuable thinking time and keep slaves physically and emotionally separated from their fellow slaves, crushing any budding union-building ideas or the gathering of forces to start a political revolution in their favor. Added bonus: Video games will increase hand/eye coordination in some and make them into better drone pilots and "boots on the ground" in the Military-Industrial Complex's endless war for oil and increasing profits.

Sure, you will lose some slaves in military conflict, but they're plenty more where they come from. You will have removed their right to choose and stop providing any access to affordable birth control by this point. Breed your slaves like cattle, and you'll have an endless supply of "meat" for your purposes, even if all you want to do with them is to hunt them down like the soon-to-be-extinct white rhinoceros. The Nazis made lampshades out of human hides, so why can't you?

I hope as a member of the one percent you take these steps to heart and practice implementing them while denying them with a smile on your face. This is especially useful is you plan to run for public office, but why put yourself through that charade? It's just as easy to buy a slave/puppet to do your bidding in government. Call up your lobbyist slaves and have them get to work on it for you. Threaten to cancel their favorite Reality TV show or move their favorite professional sports team to another city if they don't deliver the goods. (You were going to do those two things anyway, weren't you?)


George Carlin gives We the People the low down. (Warning: Adult Language)


 ***
March for Science
From the March for Science:

 We’ve spent the last couple of weeks crunching the numbers and using crowd science techniques to make an official estimate of the total number of participants in the March for Science around the world.

 We’re excited to announce that the March for Science events around the world amassed an unprecedented total of more than 1,000,000 marchers -- making the March for Science the largest global science event in history.
The March for Science also included:

  • Approximately 10,000 volunteers and organizers
  • 740,000+ views of the March for Science livestream
  • More than 600 marches in…
    • All 7 continents
    • 66 countries
    • All 50 states
  • And 5 penguin marchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
You can check out the crowd science behind our estimates here.
It’s up to ALL OF US to keep this incredible momentum going. Learn how to continue your advocacy by checking out a couple of these resources from our March for Science partners:

Thank you to everyone who has supported the March for Science so far. Let’s #KeepMarching!
-- The March for Science Team
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