America, you have become a nation of enablers and apologists for tyranny and mass murder. You condemn the Nazi and gulag guards of times past even as you celebrate your own mercenaries and torturers, even as you explain away, if not outright cheer, the unspeakable crimes committed by your sons and daughters. You don’t care who you kill, as long as your soldiers are paid, and your munitions, bomb and tank factories are humming.
Safely ensconced in academic luna parks, your leading intellectuals lean slightly right or left, but never enough to rock this blazing gunboat, lest they sour the cocktail parties or, god forbid, have their tenure revoked. Mouths stuffed with antipasti, they’re expert at sidestepping Israel’s prolific crimes, 9/11, Bin Laden’s faux death or the parasitic Federal Reserve, and as another joke election nears, they’re all gung ho about candidates who back illegal wars and banking frauds, since each is supposedly the lesser of two evils.
For the past five presidential elections, winning candidates have won 52.9%, 50.7%, 47.9%, 49.2% and 43% of the popular votes respectively, so there hasn’t been an overwhelming mandate for any of them, but with the runner ups from the other major party often close behind, and in 2000, actually ahead in the popular vote count, the two-party system has gotten a stranglehold on our public life and pocketbooks. As for our senators, only two are not Democrat or Republican. An American election, then, is basically a rigged referendum for this thoroughly corrupt and murderous system, and simply by voting, you will give it the green light to go on killing and looting. Every four years, we’re railroaded into sanctioning endless war and bottomless corruption. If disappointed, we’re then steered by our brainwashing and dumbing down media to a near clone of our current rapist.
The Good Old Party spooks the upper and middle classes by threatening, If you don’t vote for us, the Dems will take your hard-earned cash and give it to the freeloaders, crackheads and other miscellaneous losers, while the Democrats, in turn, scare the lower rungs by snarling, If you don’t vote for us, the Republicans will let your retired, diapered ass rot under a bridge, on a piece of cardboard, but lordy, lordy, lordy, it is already happening, but let us not sweat the details.
It is fitting that as our most important vote has become nearly meaningless, we’re offered myriad opportunities to vote for all sorts of irrelevant acts and personalities, from singing oafs to dancing buffoons, to steroid-charged sluggers. Americans have never voted so much for so little.
Each party paints the other as the greater evil, though both are equally whorish to a military...
Exposéing My Breasts on the Internet ADRIENNE PINE I work in a family-friendly setting. The staff and administration, my colleagues and my graduate students at American... How Mitt Dodged the Draft H. BRUCE FRANKLIN May 1966. Mitt Romney is just finishing his first—and only—year at Stanford. I’m a 32-year-old ex-Strategic Air Command... The Waning of the Modern Ages MORRIS BERMAN La longue durée —the long run—was an expression made popular by the Annales School of French historians led... The Big Lie About Police Brutality DAVE LINDORFF Police brutality is in the news, thanks to the widespread availability of amateur video and the omnipresence of... America and the Muslims ESAM AL-AMIN Thousands of angry Muslims demonstrated in front of American embassies and consulates in Egypt and Libya because of... |
Islamophobia, Left and Right JEFF SPARROW ‘Koran discovered with coffee cup stain on the front cover, US marines deployed to all Starbucks franchises.’
The quip,... So, Really, Why Do They Hate Us? PAUL ATWOOD Recent attacks on American embassies and consulates in numerous Muslim countries are claimed to be irrational and undue... Canada's Housing Bubble Set to Burst MIKE WHITNEY Canada’s housing bubble is about to burst, and when it does, hundreds of billions of dollars in equity will be... Breaking News: Julian Assange Mossad Agent! ISRAEL SHAMIR Iran is a great country for kebab; their pretty if well-covered girls are fine; but sense of humour... Visit our archives for even more interesting articles from past CounterPunch authors.
|
Counterpunch
Tells the Facts and Names the Names Published since 1996 Copyright © CounterPunch All rights reserved. counterpunch@counterpunch.org |
Mailing Address
CounterPunch PO Box 228 Petrolia, CA 95558 Telephone
1(707) 629-3683 or1(800) 840-3683 |
Editorial
Jeffrey St. Clair, editor Joshua Frank, Managing Editor Nathaniel St. Clair, Social Media Alexander Cockburn, 1941-2012 Business
Becky GrantBusiness Manager beckyg@asis.com Deva Wheeler Subscription and merchandise fulfillment counterpunch@frontiernet.net |
Browse the Archives
|