The American Electoral Charade
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"Very little of the general election campaign action will
have anything to do with policy, just as in the primary campaign."
If all goes as scripted, the Democrats hope to spend from
now to November congratulating themselves on their ability to forge unity out
of the seeming chaos of the excruciating primary election season, now
thankfully over. "Unity" will join "change" as a meaningless buzzword in the
vapid Democratic vocabulary. The fact is, corporate Democrats have been unified
all along, joined at the hip in grim determination to ultimately plant
themselves so microscopically to the left of the Republicans that the voters'
choice will be just a matter of personality and individual taste. So, who do
you like - Barack Obama or John McCain? At the end of the general
election campaign, that's what it will boil down to for millions of voters, as
the two corporate dancers draw ever closer together.
To be sure, there will be lots of manufactured drama, but
very little of the action will have anything to do with policy, just as in the
primary campaign. McCain's age will be a constant undercurrent, as will Obama's
race. But the actual conduct of the war in Iraq, for example, and precisely
when it is to be brought to an end, will be buried as the candidates battle
over who loves "the troops" the most, and which standard bearer's personality
is best suited to waging never-ending war on "terror."
It does not really matter if Senators Obama and Clinton ever
develop a fondness for one another, now that the pay-for-play primary charade
is over. Their policies are interchangeable, as are their advisers, most of whom
will wind up drawing big fat checks from some section or another of the larger
Democratic campaign effort. All serve the same masters: the financial
corporations that this season definitively redirected their infinitely
corrupting campaign contributions to the Democrats. Hedge funds are reported to
be backing Democrats, nine to one.
They are betting that, whatever "change" occurs, it will not alter basic power
relationships in ways that threaten the rule of the rich one iota.
"Whatever ‘change' occurs, it will not alter basic power
relationships in ways that threaten the rule of the rich."
Those citizens that want to abolish the American oligarchic
form of government should vote for the Green Party, and put Cynthia McKinney at
the head of the ticket. That's the very least one can do; the real task is to
create multiple people's movements that will force an end to imperial
warfare - a prerequisite for all the other tasks that face humanity. But
opposition to oligarchy operates in a state of invisibility in America.
Corporate media, through whose bizarre, distorted lenses most people view their
nation and world, can make the opposition disappear, in an instant. Remember
Dennis Kucinich? Most people don't, thanks to private media corporations that
stage-manage and slick-package cosmetic versions of U.S. public discourse and
call it "democracy."
The New
York Times this week sneered at Russian television executives for
causing critics of the government to disappear from the small screen. The Times
presents this as proof of the superiority of the American political system.
They're wrong. U.S. corporate censorship is just as heavy-handed as the Russian
kind - and it's a lot more expensive.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted
at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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