[Peace-discuss] How the presidential election keeps Americans passive and obedient

[C. G. Estabrook]

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future," as Yogi Berra said, but given the continuity of US military and economic policy over the last generation - the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations - do you you really think those policies will alter, whether Romney or Obama is president in the new year? I don't.

The game is rigged by the 1% - and perhaps has been even more so in the age of Neoliberalism than before. Policy is insulated from politics in the US, and the elections are side-shows designed to convince (some of) the public that they are making political decisions. They aren't.

The only way the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama/Romney military and economic policies will change is by means of a public effort (largely extra-parliamentary) comparable to the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. 

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate" [Chomsky].

--CGE


"...one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right."
~ H.L. Mencken, 1956