Fool Me Once...
By Timothy V. Gatto
20 October,
2008
Countercurrents.org
Sadly, the time for change has already come and gone. This is just another election where the American citizen is presented with “the lesser of two evils” and nothing in the past four years since we allowed George W. Bush to steal another election with the gang rape of the Ohio voters. There are so many people in this country that understood what happened in 2000 and 2004 during those “stolen elections”, you would tend to believe that many of us would have already changed the system.
Not so according to Greg Palast and RFK Jr., writing in Rolling Stone yesterday. The vote is already being tampered with by the Rovian computer geeks that according to the two, the Democrats must win by a large margin in order to override the GOP vote tampering effort. This is so totally wrong and deceitful, that I have a hard time actually writing these words. Just think of it, a political party that works to hijack the votes of those Americans who care enough to participate in what they believe is a representative democracy. The facts are that Obama filed one lawsuit somewhere against the GOP, but with so many facts brought up by Palast and Kennedy, you would think that the entire Democratic Party would be turning over rocks to find traces of voting fraud.
I believe that the Democrats expect voting fraud and the reason for this is their belief that Obama will win big enough to override the mechanizations put in place by Rove and his fellow co-conspirators’. The reason for this is simple; when they get into office they will manipulate the vote in the same manner. The truth is that both political parties that work for corporate backers want to make sure that the two-party system stays in place. Corruption of one party or the other will do nothing but enrage citizens that might demand a total reform of the political system in this country.
Some people believe that it’s only the fringe left that believes the two corporate political parties are inherently evil. That wouldn’t be true as the popularity of Ron Paul would suggest. There are just as many ex-Republicans that believe we are being sold out by the corporate duopoly. There are those such as Jessie Ventura, Mike Gravel and Cindy Sheehan who like Rep. Paul, decry the manipulation of this rigged political system we tolerate in this country.
Think of the fact that those who weald actual political power suggests to Americans that these two corporate-backed political parties can represent over 350 million Americans. Canada has 30 million people and they have five different parties. Of course you can truthfully state that America has numerous political parties, some have even won State and local elections! That would be a great argument for keeping the status quo, but the facts are that they are excluded by rules that prevent them from getting ballot access put in place by our two major parties that believe Americans can’t think well enough to hear anything besides two points of view.
The trouble is that they could well be right. In this election we have seen Barack Obama embrace Republican principles and John McCain sounding like a liberal. The truth is that both came running back to Washington to bail-out their corporate backers as fast as they could, even though calls to Sen. Barbara Boxer's office Sept. 25th ran 917 to one against the swindle. This was a case where the two political parties knew better than the people that they represent (or was it that they voted exactly the way the people they really represent wished them to vote?). Troubling isn’t a passionate enough word to describe the event. One could hope that this was a watershed event that exposed the true nature of the corporate duopoly but believing that would go against the poll numbers that Obama still manages to generate eve after he has gone against almost every belief he expressed during the primaries.
Believe me, I get it. I don’t believe that Americans are going to think their way out of the dilemma most of them don’t even realize that they are in. It’s going to take a clear and painful reality check after Barack Obama provides the same corporate influenced leadership style that we have seen over the past two decades if not longer. I understand the desire most Americans have to punish the GOP for Bush’s failed policies; hell… you could count me in among that bunch. If only the American people didn’t need a hammer blow to the head to knock some sense into them? The only thing that will shake them into looking at the political system we have in place is to watch how the corporate parties mismanage American taxpayer money until everyone feels the pain of terrible, if not illegal, corporate practices.
While we listen to both candidates play RISK for real on the geopolitical front by moving armies around, and vilifying Hugo Chavez for standing up to U.S. imperialism, the country is focused on what “Joe the plumber” wants. Well good for Joe, I hope he gets everything he desires. The facts are that I hope everyone gets what they desire, but not what they deserve for supporting political parties that are not operating in the people’s best interests. There will come an awakening in this country, and it’s not going to be pleasant. When Election Day comes I’ll dutifully go to the polls and cast my vote for Ralph Nader, even though he doesn’t have a chance. I’ll vote my conscience this time. I pray that the vote isn’t stolen and that Obama will tell us he was just trying to get the disenchanted Republicans to vote for him and act like a real Democrat (even though there aren’t really any left). The truth is that all of us are going to have to pay the piper sooner or later.
After the 2006 elections when I held my nose and voted for the Democrats who happened to win a majority in the House and Senate, I was told that we would “hold their feet to the fire” by the publisher of a major progressive website. Apparently their feet were insulated with asbestos or the fire wasn’t hot enough because they did just what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney told them to, from approving torture, using weapons of mass destruction against the people of Iraq, and circumventing the rule of Constitutional Law with military tribunals and secret prisons for accused “terrorists”. They “went along to get along” with almost everything the executive branch wanted. Now we are asked to believe that these same Senators running for President and Vice President want to “change” things in Washington. As George Bush once said; “Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice and well, shame on… you know what I mean”. I was born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. Maybe during the next four years we can level the playing field so that parties that represent the citizens can win Federal elections.
