Losing the vote
The budding dictatorship HAS really made some revolutionary changes in the American system of government, beyond giving the Vice President the steering wheel and institutionalizing torture as foreign policy. They’re also found a way to make voting irrelevant, while piously assuring us that being able to “vote” is what makes us different from the enemy.
It turns out there are ways to disenfranchise people beyond simply taking away their right to vote. There are at least three other options: dilution, reduction, and mind control.
We’ll talk about vote-rigging another time.
Dilution is the way stockholders are deluded into thinking they have voting power, but really don’t. If you have, say 100 shares of Exxon, and you don’t approve of the $400 million retirement gift their CEO got last year, you can vote your shares. Meanwhile, the CEO, corporate officers and the directors (“Your” directors, since you get to “vote” for them, too. Funny how they’re ALWAYS reelected, though. . .) own a billion shares between them, and they’ve already decided to give the gift that keeps on giving (remember, they all get deferred compensation, just like Cheney still gets from Haliburton). So yes, technically you can vote against your board’s recommendation, but there’s really not much point. Besides, who does the counting, you or them?
Then there’s reduction of options, and NBC and the Democratic National Committee have just illustrated how that works by eliminating Mike Gravel from the October 30th debates because he hasn’t raised enough money. Or whatever. The point is, Hillary has The Money, she has made the deals, so even though there are still several candidates “in the race,” The Money has already decided who gets the nomination. At least they’re being up front about it. Next it will be Biden and Kucinich, and soon there will be no “choice” at all. It will be Hillary vs Thompson, and may the richest sellout win (although I’d put my betting money on Cheney’s Choice.) You get to vote for the lesser of two weevils. Ain’t democracy grand?
But finally, the clincher is the brainwashing. If 40 percent of the American public believe Saddam personally piloted the jets that crashed into the World Trade Center, and jumped out at the last minute, and another 11 percent watch NBC (GE News), the election is already over and Thompson won. I’m consistently amazed at the fact that even non-corporate persons I know were educated beyond third grade believe the “insurgents” in Iraq will follow our troops home and make MSNBC a branch of Al Jazeera or that World War Three has already started, and it’s us against the heathen hordes (or maybe “Left Behind”?). That’s what’s on TV, that’s what’s in the movies, that’s reality. Unless you can think of a better explanation of how an entire country can leave its collective brains in its pants that are in the laundry for going on seven years, that’s the closest I can come. We watch, we watch, we watch. . . we believe.
So we needn’t wonder why Blacks, Hispanics or (shudder) white liberals will be sitting out this upcoming election. It’s already been decided, and they’ve lost. Again.