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The Butcher's
Apron
By Mike Whitney
12/21/07 "ICH"
-- -- Every four years the country is swept up in the pomp
and pageantry of presidential elections. And every four years
loyal Americans flock to the voting booths to select the
candidate of their choice. Elections--we are told---are supposed
to be the true expression of democratic government. But they
aren't. They're a sham and most people know it. The balloting
creates the illusion of choice where there is none. It's become
a meaningless ritual that has nothing to do with representative
government.
The 2008 elections have already been marred by a number of
controversies, the worst of which is the report that was
published last Friday by Ohio’s top election official, Secretary
of State Jennifer Brunner. The report proves that the voting
systems that decided the 2004 election in Ohio were rife with
“critical security failures”. The election was rigged; pure and
simple--stolen by the Bush team and their friends in the
establishment media who refuse to report the news. It's actually
funny, in a cynical kind of way. The perpetrators were so
cocksure they could pull it off that---according to Democracy
Now--- “the servers for the computation of the Ohio vote count
were in the same basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee that houses
servers for the Republican National Committee. The programmers
who (worked) for Ken Blackwell, the Republican Secretary of
State, were Republicans who did websites for the Bush
administration.” (Democracy Now)
What gall. Blackwell's thugs didn't even try conceal what they
were up to. Why should they care? It's not like there's an
independent media that's going to report the details of a stolen
election. No way. Blackwell ripped off the election and then
thumbed his nose at the public. No investigation. No
accountability. No nothing. Just like a banana republic only
bigger.
So why do we keep throwing billions of dollars down a black hole
just to maintain this pathetic charade that fools no one? Why
not just load up the boxcars with pallets of crisp-new hundred
dollar bills and ship them off to Crawford where they end up
anyway. Let Bush worry about how to distribute the loot.
Besides, with Congress' public approval dithering at 11%; we'd
be better off paying them to stay at home and turn the House of
Representatives into condos.
This year every one of the leading candidates is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. Every one of them is a “dual
loyalist” with a globalist agenda. Every one of them accepts the
new regime of curtailed civil liberties, endless war, and free
trade. There's not a nationalist or a patriot among them. None.
They're all part of the same corporate effluent that washed into
Washington on a wave of special interest payola drowning all
visible symbols of a once-vital Republic. Romney pontificates
about expanding Guantanamo while Clinton boasts about an attack
on Iran. Blah, blah, blah. How can anyone listen to this
gibberish? There's not a dime's worth of difference between any
of them. They're all lacquer-hair phonies who've never had an
original thought in their lives. Everything they think or say
comes off a cue-card or teleprompter that flashes poll-tested,
focus-group mumbo-jumbo which they reiterate roboticly. It's all
rubbish.
If a prospective candidate hasn't sworn his undying allegiance
to the cabal of transnational corporations, or taken a
blood-oath to defend the doctrine of unfettered
self-aggrandizement, or pledged to carry out a bloodthirsty
“economy-busting” global crusade; he is quickly banished to the
wilderness.
Just look at Ron Paul, who collected $6 million in donations in
a matter of hours but still can't even get his picture in the
papers. Why is that?
It's because he hasn't sold his soul to the carpetbagging
freebooters who run the system. Apart from Kucinich, he's the
only red-blooded, Constitution-toting American in the race. The
rest are just bunko-artists and Pharisees.
Everyone knows what's going on. The whole campaign extravaganza
is a pointless farce. Why continue the deception?
We all watched in 2000 while the five loonies on the Supreme
Court suspended the hand counting of ballots, overturned the
ruling of the Florida Supreme Court, and awarded the election to
their own Party's candidate. How is that any different than
Blackwell's manipulations in Ohio? It's all the same. In fact,
the 5 justices had so little regard for the intelligence of the
American people they invoked the 14th amendment---the “equal
protection” clause---which had never been used except in cases
of racial discrimination. They didn't care. Who was going to
stop them?
Can you imagine, dear reader, the peals of laughter that must
have gone up at the right-wing think tanks after that ruling?
Hooray for the oligarchy of racketeers! Pass the brandy.
That was a turning point in American history. It showed that the
ruling class really doesn't care what the people think anymore.
This is THEIR country and they'll run it whatever way they want.
To hell with democracy.
The reason there's more coverage of the campaigns this year is
simply because the boardroom Mandarins want to restore the
illusion that we actually have a choice. We don't. They pick the
candidates and we pull the lever and go home. End of story. The
debates are nothing more than a public relations gambit designed
to lend a bit of credibility to a system that is rotten to the
core. What part of the body-politic has been spared the
cancerous ravages of corporate corruption. The Congress? The
Executive? The High Court? The media?
Don't make me laugh. The entire system is marinated in a culture
of violence and dishonesty. Nothing is salvageable. It all
stinks.
The real difference between the parties is minuscule but
significant. The Democrats have become the party of traditional
imperialism spearheaded by Brzezinski, Holbrooke, Albright and
the other guardians of Empire. These are the master-puppeteers
who operate behind the scenes for their well-heeled benefactors.
Their focus is mainly on Central Asia; controlling resources
from the Caspian Basin, “pacifying” Afghanistan, rallying the EU
to a greater role in NATO, and continuing the apocryphal “war on
terror” into infinity. It's the Great Game redux.
The Republican Party has become the party of neoconservatives.
Their operational plan is “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for
Securing the Realm”. It aligns the US with the foreign policy
objectives of Israel's Likud Party. The focus is balkanizing the
Middle East, undermining Arab nationalism, installing US-Israeli
client regimes, and controlling the regions prodigious natural
resources. It is a straightforward strategy for regional
hegemony.
This is the REAL split between the parties, not the meaningless
Democrat-Republican labels. Presently, the traditional
imperialists have regained the upper-hand as the Bush bandwagon
lurches into the ditch. Of course, there is some cross-pollenizing
between the two parties; the differences are not absolute.
There's plenty of gray-area and incestuous intermingling, but
this is a pretty accurate overview. What's important is that
neither party has any intention of restoring the Bill of Rights,
slowing the outsourcing of jobs, or abandoning the war on
terror. No way. That is not in their collective interests at
all.
When civil liberties are stripped away; elections become
pointless. Freedom has nothing to do with pushing a colored-nob
on a touch-screen computer every 4 years. Its about containing
the power of the state. Doesn't anyone grasp that? Freedom has
become hollow buzzword that's sprinkled through presidential
speeches or used to defend the latest bloody intervention in
some foreign country. It's lost whatever meaning it had. We've
forgotten that the Bill of Rights doesn't give us special,
superhuman powers. It was designed to be a straitjacket that
would restrict the actions of power-hungry politicians and
confine them within the law. That's all it is; a shackle on
government. Now, all that's been lost. The basic rules of the
game have changed; the social contract has been repealed. Even
the flag, which once embodied the hopes and aspirations of the
nation; has been raised over Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and
countless other black sites spread across the planet like grains
of sand. What does the world see when they look at that flag
now? Do they see a symbol of liberty and justice or the
butcher's apron flapping lazily above some far-flung torture
chamber.
Everything has changed. America has lost its way. Casting a
ballot for one silver-spoon CFR plutocrat over another
accomplishes nothing. That's not democracy. It's a fraud.
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