Americans desperately need to grasp the notion that it is possible, if enough of us can muster the insight and integrity, to get beyond the bipartisan proposition that our choice is limited to one of only two parties, that "third parties always fail," and that we'll be the more damned if we do not support the "lesser-evil" choice.
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The Republicans set the standard, a very low and exploitive, thuggish if not goonish standard indeed. The Democrats offer nothing more than "we're better," and we're for "Hope" and "Change," while competing quite successfully behind the scenes for the corporate funding and rewards, at the cost of their own indenture, while selling out the best interests of the citizens.
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This leaves us with the truth -- beyond the mighty bipartisan endeavors to obscure it -- that neither party runs our government, but that the Corporatocracy runs our government to its own best interests, and the citizens be damned!
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President "Hope and Change" has proved to be just a slicker propagandist than his more obvious predecessor. He has escalated the war in Afghanistan and his spokesmen now suggest it should continue -- victory-less as it will -- indeterminately. And perhaps we torture a bit less than we did, but do we actually know, and is "less" torture a decent standard by any concept of civilized behavior?
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We do know that Obama has endorsed (in an off-shift move) the Bushco suppression of our Bill of Rights, and that the "War on Terror" (whatever that means) yet dominates every and all Constitutional provisions for the rights of the citizens and any decency in our international behavior as a nation. And now with the addition of political assassination to the list of our "War on Terror" entitlements, along with the Mafia style body-dump into the ocean, we wonder, and the world wonders what uncivilized abominations can possibly follow.
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From 2001 through 2008, America was cursed -- as was humanity -- with a congressionally approved presidential despotism to the benefit of moneyed interests and the politically perverted. Yet there were those of us understandably proud that an American majority in the election of 2008 could ignore (finally!) such as a racial admixture of a candidate in favor of the "Hope" and "Change" he promised and that we and humanity so desperately needed. But now only to be faced with a political irony of historical proportions: It is not that Obama is Half-Black -- it is that he is Bush-Light.
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Where does this leave us? Without change, quite possibly to perpetual war. To continued constitutional abuse (Don't f--k with Homeland Security!) To more invasions, assassinations, island prisons? To more -- as now actually proceeds -- enrichment of the rich, bailouts followed by bonuses to exploitive banksters, and the eradication of the middle class? Yes, quite likely all of the above.
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Ah, so easy to criticize, but what solution is in order? Quite frankly, Step Number 2 is currently beyond our grasp. But Step Number 1 is quite clear and desperately urgent. And that is that we must -- before we can proceed to the ultimate solution -- disavow the proposition of the tweedledum-tweedledee Republican-Democrat propagandists that we must choose the "lesser-evil" of their candidates, platforms and lies.
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We must now galvanize our insight, then follow on with the integrity and courage to toss out both these exploitive partisanships, these two bombasting cabals in obeisance to the greed interests intent upon destroying our democracy and any concept of decent economic survival for the American middle class.
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We can get beyond the propaganda that "third parties always fail." We can escape from the treacherous and stupid proposition that we have no choice other than submission to the "lesser-evil" proposition.
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It is time finally for Americans to stand tall, and to stand smart. To stand -- not in manipulated obeisance to bullshitting masters -- but to our own best interests and those of humanity. We can chart a course not of the shysters' making and their ever so clever two-party gambit. It's time for a new standard, one that actually does serve the people and peace in the world.
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We must trash this "lesser-evil" persuasion. Only then can we have a chance at regaining some semblance of decent government and recover some respect from the decent governments of the world community as well as in the verdict of future history.
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