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Emma And Lesser Evils
By Paul Edwards
October 13, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" -
With the Presidential
election weeks away now and the country
rigidly polarized—people violently divided
on matters rooted deeply in their moral and
cultural biases and unreconcilable—an urgent
call is made from true believers in the
democratic process, liberals mainly, to
vote.
While this is nothing new,
the pressure this cycle is more intense than
ever. The mantra goes like this: if you
don’t vote for their candidate, the other
will win, and that will be the end of
America. By voting, you act to preserve our
great democracy, hence not voting is
unthinkable. It would sully your
citizenship and spurn your priceless
birthright.
Two elements in the mantra
need revision. First, we don’t have, have
never had, a democracy; at best, a hamstrung
republic. Second, not voting won’t end
America and whatever you wish to call what
we do have. America is ending itself fine
on its own, regardless of voting,
campaigning, and all the Dada imbecile
trappings of our polity.
So, what drives this
persistent, passionate adjuration? Why are
so many so certain of its critical
importance? The idea of democracy, at its
origins, was to entrust governance to the
Demos, the People. It was a noble concept
that, when implemented, was quickly
subverted by brute economic power and has
been, when tried, ever since.
Human history, as far back as
we can trace it, has been a tale of the
tyranny of economic power in various forms,
and the struggle of the people for equity,
endlessly waged and endlessly defeated.
Until very recently, power had no need to
disguise itself because its mandate was said
to be divine. Only in the last few hundred
years has a rising tide of popular
discontent forced power to camouflage its
cruelty and corruption. Democracy—the idea
of it—has been its very best cover.
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A rank simplification here…
If I have an unstable power over you and
your group while taking all that is yours by
force, to obtain security I need you to
accept my theft as justified. So I create a
system that lets you endorse me by voting.
If necessary, I allow a rival to oppose me.
If he’s a flunky, he loses graciously. If
not, my election bureau will find that he
was beaten legitimately but your voice was
heard.
That’s the primitive model of
the “democracy” ruse, employed by all
absolutists: caudillos, dictators, military
capos. Nations claiming to be democracies
refined their methods to disguise their
predatory nature. The fact that every one
is an exploitative Capitalist Tyranny
obviously required a more subtle, persuasive
masking.
The method was creation of a
multi-party system, each one founded on
specific principles, theoretically
presenting a range of options, left to
right, with radical outliers at the
extremes. None, regardless of tint and
tilt, could be seen to be acting against the
interest of the people.
Allowing choice conceals the
fact that “democratic” government, just as
all others, serves only its economic elite.
People have to be convinced this is not so,
that they are sovereign, that by voting they
control the policies of their nation. Thus,
the intense effort nations invest in
sacralizing the vote, and the plea that we
do our civic duty. We are all enjoined to
act in this barefaced, shopworn charade.
A century ago, battling the
monstrous power of rampant Capitalism, Emma
Goldman said, “If voting changed anything,
they’d make it illegal.” She meant
that the core purpose of “democratic”
government had nothing to do with improving
the lot of its people, and everything to do
with maximizing profit for the Capitalist
juggernaut. No country on earth has greater
government/Capitalism symbiosis than
America.
Most Americans, after
life-long indoctrination, can’t believe they
have been deceived about their government,
by
their government. A short exercise can
address that inability. (If your net worth
is $10 million, or your annual income $1
million, stop reading. Nothing for you
here.)
Try to recall the last
legislation that socio-economically
benefited the American people at large.
Stumped? That might be because it was
before you were born. Two bills have passed
that were indisputably for the public good:
Social Security, in 1935 under FDR, which
also provided for unemployment and aid to
mothers with dependent children; and
Medicare/Medicaid, under LBJ in 1965.
That’s it.
Take that in. Digest that.
There has been, in 55 years—the better part
of a normal lifetime—no legislation to
significantly socially and economically
benefit 300 million ordinary American
people. None.
One would think that a raging
flame from that titanic betrayal would burn
great, ragged holes in the smothering
blanket of propaganda under which our
government hides its crimes. One would
think that, like the Finch character in
Network, Americans would all be roaring,
“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to
take this any more!”
But, no. Instead, the
public—passive, deluded victim of this
cynical abuse—is urged to vote, to preserve
the desperately dirty, spiritually sick
racket that has deceived, defrauded and
impoverished them.
The indoctrination is being
reinforced by the unity of most Deep State
heavyweights appalled at the ludicrous,
pants-dropping burleycue Trump has made of
the presidency and, more importantly,
desperate to regain control of what they
regard as their very own ship of state.
With fronting by the Dem Politburo’s Crone
and Geezer junta, and all media—visual and
print—but Fox, they are all in on replacing
their nightmare with the appalling ghost of
the reprehensible Joe Biden.
Apart from the fact that Joe
is far past his sell-by date, Biden has been
on the morally and ethically wrong side of
every major policy issue that has arisen
throughout his endless tenure as the Senator
from MBNA. The list is long. Let it
suffice that he shilled for mass jailing of
black men, cheerled for the Iraq invasion,
lauds the Zionist Nazism of Israel, and is a
major War Machine flack baiting China and
Russia. Oh, and there’s the multi-million
black bag job he and son, Hunter, pulled
with Burisma in that hog’s nest of
corruption, Ukraine.
When you live in a false,
rotten Capitalist “democracy” in which there
is no hope of reform; when the same vile
crimes and depredations will continue at
home and abroad under either contemptible
phony; when nothing of value to people or
the world is even considered by either dead
soul, then engaging in fine gradations of
imposed evils is a lunatic’s exercise. Emma
got it. We keep hoping for a different
result.
Paul Edwards is a writer and film-maker in Montana. He can be reached at: hgmnude@bresnan.net
