We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, January 5, 2012

The 2012 US presidential campaign begins: A cynical exercise in duping the people

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site. 
There is no popular enthusiasm either for Obama or his Republican opponents. Millions of working people have begun to draw the conclusion that neither of the two big business parties offers any solution to the crisis of the profit system. Both are committed to the defense of corporate interests and obey their real masters in the financial oligarchy, regardless of what they say to the voters in the course of an election campaign.
Nowhere in the world is so much money, time, and media coverage devoted to elections as one finds in the US where they are increasingly taking on the appearance of a circus. However, the ruling class is still willing to invest so much time and money into them because they still regard these staged political events as being useful to frame all the current political issues according to their interests and to promote the appearance of democracy. 

However, they are hedging their bets just in case too many of the 99 Percent start to see through all their games and begin organizing real opposition to the ruling One Percent. They are building a powerful police state with oppressive laws (see this) , equipping police forces with all sorts of lethal and crowd control weapons, building ever more prisons, etc.