The most important thing about the elections

Commentary

The most important thing about the elections

By Liz Burbank
Online Journal Guest Writer

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October 23, 2004—The most important thing about the elections is this: they expose the real purpose of electoral charades as major political WMD of deception, delusion, distraction and a draft into a deadly trap, and they expose the left's' deadly capitulation to imperialism.

Not a deadly trap because the future hangs on which imperialist executioner wins, but because the future depends on what we the people of this world do. And here in the belly of the beast, we have surrendered our responsibility and right to exercise our power to really change the world that this system has so devastated. Instead, imperialism has seduced and suckered us into a deadly electoral trap. We have capitulated to the enemy. We and the system are exposed.

Electoral politics is a deadly serious battle for hearts and minds. These grotesque performances are designed to whip up patriotic public opinion, enthusiasm and endorsement, not only for the crimes the US has already committed, but especially for the even greater crimes in its crusade for an unobstructed white supremacist, all-Amerikan world.

Regardless of the election outcome, the powers that be have won a crucial psychological battle by convincing people to support Pax Americana¹s war for the world by joining their game, "exercising Democratic freedom to choose" the next political administrator. Surrendering our agency and our ability to oppose these murdering gangsters, we lose our power and our humanity. On top of that, the terms of this "debate" are to "choose" the man who vows to move the country in the most fascist direction.

Why are we willing to support and validate the enemy while betraying the peoples of the world, including ourselves? Why are so many activists, who should know better, willing to validate by vote the unforgivable horrors of this imperial white supremacy hell-bent on destroying the world in order to own it? Because they say it¹s about us and our "security"? So then it's okay to go along with their program to protect the class and race privilege that Amerika the barbaric has beaten, bled, and burned, from nations and peoples of color around the world for hundreds of years?

Oh of course, good liberals like to believe they can have it all without worrying about how they get it. Democrats have always promised to let them have it both ways. But these are different, desperate times for an empire in deep crisis. Having maintained a populist mask for so long, Democrats suddenly have to appear even more ruthlessly imperialist than their so-called opposition! Quite a trick.

But they are pulling it off. Their Big Lies are part of it, but not the basic reason for the success of their psy-ops/propaganda war.

It goes like this: After their magic 9/11 green light, the US suddenly declares itself the victim of "terror," rather than the worst perpetrator of state terror (with its Zionist partner) in world history. Remember "if you are not with us you are with the terrorists" now. Christian-Zionist patriotism is now the state religion and its new laws are God-given "natural" law which cannot be violated regardless of man-made secular laws. Declare a police state to save the "homeland" from its imaginary enemies—those with dark skin, who aren¹t Christian, and who dare to question or oppose God and Amerikan "democracy." Never forget, "if you aren¹t with us you¹re with the terrorists"‹in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or any one of our global gulag prisons. Trust us, God speaks through the US rulers. Forget about "Democratic" rights if you love freedom and all Amerika stands for. All obstacles to the empire¹s rampaging expansion will be crushed or killed—for your own safety, of course. What¹s required is easy, just your patriotic cooperation and compliance: validate this patriotic juggernaut with your vote—to disappear all those brown skinned suspected terrorists plotting to kill your Amerikan dream because they are jealous, not because of the tyranny of Amerikan "manifest destiny," with its incalculable human and environmental devastation. Never forget . . .

These psy-war fear and threat tactics, with the calculated racial-sexual subtext are basic to Amerikan "manifest destiny" capitalism, founded and propagated on genocide and slavery, dependent on creating hatred and fear of the "other" (itself a racist, white-centric concept) to justify its racist crimes, nurture its racist ideology to create divisions among the peoples, the majority, the exploited and oppressed. The racist sexual theme reflects and serves the minority, the masters, in unleashing and justifying barbaric crusades—like the anti-Arab-Muslim-immigrant pogrom set in motion by their oh so convenient 9/11 "Pearl Harbor."

This is part of why uber-patriotic, war-mongering terror-tactics have been able to seduce otherwise wise folks into the Anyone-But-Bush scheme (ABB). Diverting and misleading us against a simple but false target, a particularly grotesque but basically symptomatic figurehead for the US ruling class, Bush deflects heat from the system that spawns monsters like himself and his thugs, from the system which always has been and always will be the source of the horrors that have cowed us into demoralization and submission.

What did we do? Just as we're told: jump on the electoral bandwagon for another round, insisting that we are different from those reactionary, racist Republicans. But . . . 9/11 did change everything and the easiest way to act like we¹re doing something decisive, even if its worthless, is to just change the imperial guard again. Yes, yes, we know Democrats have been in office for most wars, and Clinton actually started the whole phony "anti-terror" stuff, but still, the best we can do is dump Bush. What about the real policymakers and . . . impossible . . . let's not fight about this okay?

Of course we liberals hate those unjust, undeclared wars without end, those fascist attacks on our "multicultural" ideals (anti-racist is just so harsh and alienating—let's just say 'multicultural . . . ok?) and, of course, on our sisters and brothers of color. too, the right-wing suppression of civil rights—all that nasty shit those Republicans do. But what else can we do now but elect a Democrat, even if he¹s saying the same things as all those fascist Republicans? We¹ll just have to go along with the program until we get rid of Bush—then we can get back to capitalist "business as usual¹. We can make Kerry keep his promises. Oops. Well, we¹ll do something later—so let¹s just not talk about it any more, okay?

Did you ever say, "how could they have let happen" . . . about Germany? We look hard in the mirror. It isn't pretty.

Like well-trained, well-fed animals salivating salaciously at the sound of a rabid, racist, jingoist buzzer . . . it¹s about our own backyards, our babies, nothing racist, just 'til all this blows over. Yeah sure, all the psychological, political or cultural repression is really scary—especially those "peaceful" white folks with anti-Bush T-Shirts—see, that proves Bush is the real problem!

Did the Democrat "opposition" say even one critical word about the "war on terrorism," the unjust and illegal war against Afghanistan and Iraq, the US kidnapping of Aristide and take-over of Haiti by US trained and financed death squads, the torture of prisoners here and there, the PATRIOT acts. or the mapped-out itinerary to achieve the US global goal as spelled out in the National Security Strategy of the USA, which they support?

Yes, matter of fact they did . . . they attacked those wimpy Republicans for being soft on "terror," for not planning the war well and getting bogged down in Iraq instead of real "terrorist" states like Iran, North Korea, Syria, the other Axis of Evil on their opposition's list of things to do for Pax/Pox Americana, and they pledged continuing undying support for Israel, Amerika's best friend—without one single mention of the Palestinians subjected to genocidal Zionist-U.S. state terror. Just vote for us. Israel must "defend" itself—like us. We'll do the job right for the security of the 'murican people (oh, and people of color too—as Toni Morrison said in "Playing in the Dark," America has always meant "white").

The campaign actually makes their hypocrisy, and their agenda totally transparent, as they say. Not enough to deter those willingly sucked in by the fallout from the 9/11 show and its sequel the "war on terror": no, it¹s just too upsetting, too overwhelming with everything else going on in our lives. Watch the progressive sheep collapse. Okat, we give up. ABB, at least he can't be as unbearable to look at and listen to.

Liberal (as in liberal/traditional imperialist vs. neocon imperialist) has been made synonymous with "liberal-left-progressive," so now they all, including most of the left, go along with the program. The criteria for "winner" is: whoever pledges the most fascist measures in the name of democracy, freedom and homeland security; whoever promises to run the deadliest gang in the world most ruthlessly, take his orders from God, swear by every putrid, reactionary idea that millions of good liberals have battled for years and makes it okay to be a right-wing hawk gung-ho to kill "suspected terrorists"—as long as they have brown skin and aren't real 'muricans—or any color if they are Muslim or dare resist Amerika¹s world takeover security-racket, which makes them a terrorist right there cuz remember if you aren¹t with us . . .

Both parties have always been committed to the imperialist wet dream of global domination, but have pretended substantive differences in order to seduce different sections of the people. Democrats for the working man (and ,oh yeah, people of color, too). Republicans for the ones who own and control about 80 percent of the wealth (and, oh yeah, apologist wannabes, too).

One sucker shell trick liberals use is to promise they can really make basic changes by pretending that global, monopoly capitalism is a different beast than imperialism (pretend imperialism is just about foreign policy but capitalism, even globalized, is okay and somehow separate—so presto, a Democrat could actually change everything just by writing new policies!). That's a lie. Imperialism is the political-economic-military system of US finance capital which dominates the world. It is not a few policies that can be voted or whitewashed from the agenda. It's a political system whose life-support is destroying the world whose plug must be pulled.

Now, at this critical historical conjuncture, with rare, world-shaking possibilities as well as dangers, the capitalist rulers have had to drop most of the pretenses and go for broke, as their neocon Policy for the New American Century strategists spelled out in detail a decade ago. At this rare historical moment when imperialism faces its worst crisis, a deep structural crisis which they cannot resolve by the usual means of conventional world war, when this system is desperately weak and vulnerable, at the end of its rope, what do we do? Surrender our critical thinking, our putative progressive values, our independent, radical political initiative, and our basic human decency to protect our class and racial privilege by supporting the enemies of all humanity? Will future generations have to ask in horror, as we do about Germany, "how could they have let it happen?"

Will we take advantage of the enemy's crisis, for the sake of humanity and the planet—or surrender in order to save race and class privilege?

What do we believe in and stand for? What will we fight for and against? What are our lives really about? We can—and must—still turn the nightmare around. We need to distinguish friends from enemies, truth from tricks: a major contributing factor to this ignominious capitulation is the Democrat "opposition's" deadly campaign to save global capitalism, bankrolled big-time by billionaire imperialist George Soros and others who have much to lose or gain . They have spent a fortune to save this system, to mislead white progressive lemmings with an Anyone-But-Bush deus ex machina strategem, that paints Bush personally as the source of all evil so people forget it's the system, stupid, convince them to believe the problem is the solution—just replace the face but keep the same system that has made the lives, and deaths, of most people on the planet indescribably and unnecessarily horrific.

It is a crime against humanity to validate imperialist lies and allegiance to this criminal system. The nature of imperialism cannot be reformed. No amount of state propaganda, called news, can change that reality or the profound hatred of the millions forced to live under its "democratic" guns and boots. They are doomed—wherever there¹s oppression there will always be resistance. We will prevail . There's literally a world of difference between capitalist reform and revolution. Now more than ever when reform has become capitulation and surrender, the very future of the planet hangs on that difference. If we are genuinely committed to justice and peace, we have a real choice: As Mumia Abu Jamal and Arundhati Roy said truthfully and wisely, being anti-war means being anti-imperialist.

Will you stick with the sinking ship of state and its PNAC program? Or will you resist, join with the oppressed everywhere to fight US imperialism? Join with our true allies, whose dreams, lives, loves and lands are annihilated by the "Amerikan dream¹, to build a global revolutionary movement for a hopeful, just, peaceful future. Nothing is more important. It is a life worth living and dying for.