"The recent US election had the lowest voter turnout since World War II.

Originally shared by H George Tavakoli

"The recent US election had the lowest voter turnout since World War II. Only 36 percent of eligible voters showed up to cast their vote - giving the Republicans a "grand majority" of garnered support that adds up to a measly one-sixth of the adult population. The will of the people is a resounding vote of no confidence in our broken political system. Two out of three of us were uninspired with their limited choice between the Party of Financial Elites and the Party of Financial Elites Lite.

Looked at another way, the jaw-dropping $3.6 billion spent to buy this election has only further distanced the majority of people from participating in a rigged system. Many of us already know about the flood of "dark money" that routinely distorts the electoral process. Most Americans know full well that our democracy is a farce. We live in a plutocracy where money buys elections and wealth rules supreme. We didn't need political science scholars to do a massive study to show us this.

This understanding is the common thread that weaves disgruntled Tea Partiers, marginalized progressives, and frustrated libertarians into one American quilt. It is what brought millions together in shared sympathy during the Occupy protests back in 2011. We already know that elections have become an inadequate instrument for democracy on their own. What has yet to be said is what to do about it - how do people with such diverse ideological views (famous for making us interpret the facts differently) come together and replace the system with one that is more democratic, more pluralistic and more effective at solving the problems we all care about?

First off, we have to acknowledge that old political labels conceal more than they reveal. It's not about Republicans versus Democrats, or even liberals versus conservatives. Yes, there are real ideological differences between these groups. And yet - when it comes to macro economics and regulation of the financial sector - a singular ideology permeates the upper echelons of power for both sides. Call it neoliberalism, or free market ideology, or the Washington Consensus. Regardless of the label used, this internally consistent approach to corporate rule goes unchallenged by either political party.

There is a singular (and secretive) political party calling all the shots. Martin Kirk at TheRules . org calls it the One Party Planet in a revolutionary pamphlet released today. He makes the case for how this unified ideology pulled off the largest secret coup in world history. Sometimes it operates through back room deals like the one recently exposed by Rolling Stone, where $9 billion was spent to silence the very people who could bring corrupt bankers to justice with evidence that the 2008-09 financial crisis was orchestrated as an inside job. Other times it arises in more subtle ways through the social conventions of "business-as-usual" across industries - like when tax havens get used to hide income from governments as a standard practice around the world.

The frames that divide us are the weapon of our common enemy. Every election cycle the same predictable "wedge issues" are hauled out - gun rights, abortion, religious freedom and wasteful government - to break the populace into manageable pieces so the One Planet Party gets an easy win. Books like Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States are littered with examples where divide-and-conquer strategies ignited flame wars between different victimized groups while the real culprits set up a Federal Reserve Bank and tinkered continuously in the shadowy bowels of the financial industry where no one was looking.

This is how they pulled off the greatest heist in history - the so-called banking "bail outs" from a financial crisis created by the very same beneficiaries who bought politicians for pennies on the dollar and gutted regulatory agencies while placing their own people at the helm of enforcement. It is also why Democrats and Republicans in high office are so similar in their views about economic orthodoxy. NAFTA was put in place during Clinton's term. Bush rammed through the Patriot Act. Both extend the powers of corporations (and their military industrial branches that have infiltrated the defense sectors of our federal government) to deregulate markets, break up anti-capitalist protest movements and structure "trade" agreements that serve the elite at the expense of citizens the world over.

Said another way, a silent "Neoliberal Party" has taken the reins of all major political parties in the leading countries of the world. So naturally they have control over the economic heart of this global empire - the United States itself.

Global trend data shows that wealth inequality in many parts of the world was in decline from the 1940s to 1970s. Then, abruptly, the trajectory of economic development shifted as neoliberals gained control of executive posts in both the US and UK governments when Reagan and Thatcher were elected. In the subsequent decades, we have seen institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund push a coherent agenda of economic imperialism upon the developing nations of Africa, Asia and South America.

During this time, we also watched union busting, the outsourcing of labor and manufacturing (under the protection of "free trade" agreements), and an explosive growth in global poverty and inequality. The rich got richer while everyone else was taken for a ride. Now is the time to acknowledge this truth. If we are to take back our country here in the United States, we will need to know against whom we should unite. It isn't the Republicans or the Democrats, though one has clearly aligned more with the neoliberal elites than the other.

We must stand together - at home and around the world - against the One Party Planet that has wrought so much havoc during its reign. And we must do so before the full effects of ecological decline jeopardize our collective prospects as a global civilization in the decades ahead. We have the tools necessary to do this. All that is missing is the collective will.

The citizens of this great country are smarter than the corporate media wants us to believe. A great majority of us have disengaged from the largely meaningless act of voting in national elections (though we continue to experiment with democracy at the state and local levels). We know what is going on. Now is the time for us to come together and do something about it.

For starters, we need to have an honest conversation about why people don't vote."

http://tinyurl.com/nrozjud

"Just a day before the 2014 midterm elections, the Washington Post published an article titled "The biggest bloc of voters are the shameful ones who do nothing", which reads: 

"So all those politicians we hate? The clowns shutting down the government? The partisan dopes fighting like schoolyard kids and not getting the work of the city, state and nation done?

Who gave them their jobs? The Americans who don't vote. They are the biggest bloc of voters, the biggest political party, the ones who sit back and do the wrong thing: nothing."

These claims would perhaps be more effective if they were new - but they're not. Every election season, nonvoters are blasted with derogatory titles which are usually followed up with recycled arguments about how all the country's wrongs are the fault of the people who "sit back and do nothing". 

It may be a tired cliche to recall the words of George Carlin on this one, but for every time I hear this tired rhetoric, the legendary comic's words nonetheless ring true in my head: 

"I don't vote, because I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. I know some people like to twist that around and say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain.' But where's the logic in that? Think it through: If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and you screw things up, then you're responsible for what they've done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote - who, in fact, did not even leave the house on Election Day - am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote - who, in fact, did not even leave the house on Election Day - am in no way responsible for what these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created."

Voting in the US has been sold to us as a civic duty, a necessity, a right - one that we all need to participate in to make change happen. But this idea is a fiction, nothing more than a bedtime story for adult children who still think that we have any say in what goes in America. 

You want action taken on climate change? Too bad. Exxon, BP, and Chevron will outspend your concerns long after the point has passed where your home has been swallowed by rising ocean water. And if they somehow fail to outspend you? Well, that's no problem: They can simply opt to manipulate you instead. Just ask the so-called "Global Climate Science Team", created as a "task force" back in the late 1990s with the backing of the oil and gas industry, whose goal it was to hire industry-funded "experts" to muddle the scientific consensus regarding greenhouse gases being responsible for deteriorating climate conditions. According to the plan, "victory" will be achieved when recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the "conventional wisdom". 

You want marijuana legalized? Decriminalized? Too bad. The alcohol and pharmaceutical industries - joined by police unions and private prison corporations - will work hard to outspend your opposition. Sure, some states managed to miraculously legalize the plant, but it's still illegal beyond their borders, and more importantly, at the federal level. So unless you live in Colorado or a handful of other states, you'll need to make a trip out to a trusted off-the-books dealer for your bud and hope you're not pulled over and turned into a statistic for possession charges. 

You want the occupation of Afghanistan to end? Too bad. The defense sector, which profits heavily from the maintained occupation, will outspend you, as they have done time and time again. And if they can't beat you in the polls, they'll take to their good friends in the corporate media, who are more than glad to spark off a ratings-driven frenzy that will get you supporting just about any war. In 2013, Americans were overwhelmingly opposed to intervention in Syria. That, to the defense sector and its friends in Washington, didn't mean the war wouldn't happen - it just meant the war would be delayed. The media went to work - coincidentally waiting for the 9/11 anniversary - and injected Americans with a terrifying concoction of ebola and ISIS, effectively gaining their support for an intervention not just in Syria, but in Iraq as well. 

You want GMOs labeled? Too bad. Go to California and ask supporters of Prop 37 - which would have mandated that GMO foods be identified as such - how that worked out. The legislation was shot down by funding from Monsanto, Dupont, Bayer, Syngenta, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. But the influence of these corporations extends far beyond the reach of the Golden State. For proof of this, just head down to Washington DC and have a conversation with Michael Taylor, the former Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto, who is now working as Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the Food and Drug Administration. 

You want to reform the financial system? Well, remember Occupy Wall Street? From the outset, the movement had close to 50% of the country behind it. David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser at the time, said that "the protests you're seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens all across America. ... People are frustrated by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility, where Wall Street and Main Street don't seem to play by the same set of rules." Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Wall Street was working with the government and police stations across the country to initialize an intense crackdown of the movement. As reported by the Guardian, the collaboration "shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council." But more disturbing is that Occupy was treated not as some kind of mere civil disturbance, but as a terrorist threat: "The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized [Occupy Wall Street] activities under its 'domestic terrorism' unit." In fact, the government was so obsessed with Occupy that it largely contributed to them missing warning signs regarding the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, as reported by NBC.

But Occupy isn't the only group to get the "terrorist" label. Antiwar activists had their homes raided back in 2010, an occurrence that remains unexplained as of the publication of this article; the website, antiwar.com, was monitored for nearly a decade by the FBI due to an "accident"; and in 2007, the ACLU released a report demonstrating how the Pentagon kept track of "186 anti-military protests in the United States and collected more than 2,800 reports involving Americans in an anti-terrorist threat database." Anti-fracking activists have found themselves being questioned by the FBI for peaceful protests, and animal rights activists have been spied on by the FBI, which kept files on those who "expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms and recommended prosecuting them as terrorists, according to a new document uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act." The government has even started endorsing and passing "ag-gag" laws - backed by the meat, dairy, pesticide, and pharma industries - which make it a crime to take photos of a factory farm for the purpose of exposure. 

To be clear, the issue here isn't one of a particular political party. Republicans and Democrats alike are both taken in by cash from the companies that benefit from war. They are both taken in by cash from pharmaceutical giants. They are both taken in by cash from banking interests. In so many cases, their campaigns are fueled by the very industries they publicly claim they will reign in once elected. This was certainly true for President Obama, who somehow managed to gather up more donations from the defense sector than John "Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain. Obama was also beholden to Wall Street, as his appointments since coming to office have clearly demonstrated.

George W. Bush was no different. Bush, too, accepted funding from big banks. Moreover, during the 2000 debates he promised to institute a "humble foreign policy" and insisted he didn't want the US to be the world's policeman. Meanwhile, his campaign was largely funded by energy companies, which is perhaps why it's so unsurprising why he came into office itching to go to war with oil-rich Iraq and remained dutifully fixated on such right up until the final missed warning about an impending terror attack flew straight over his head and into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on a clear morning in September 2001.

In light of the aforementioned, is it really any wonder why the 2014 midterm election saw the worst voter turnout in 72 years? Has anyone stopped for a moment to think that maybe nonvoters are on to something here? What does it say about the state of our government when increasingly, so many of us want so little to do with it? One poll found root canals, head lice, Nickelback, and colonoscopies to be more popular than Congress. CNN reported in August 2014 that only 13% of Americans believe the government can be trusted to do the right thing. Gallup, which has tracked faith in the government for decades, shows a downward trend since 2001, which clearly makes the case that this issue is not about Republicans or Democrats - but both parties and the system as a whole.

Nonvoting Americans aren't lazy stupid slobs - many of them have just given up on their government because their government has given up on them. All they have left is the corporate-funded sham that has become the voting process. They can't even protest anymore without being slapped with the "terrorist" label and beaten by police, tear-gassed, or worse - and that's assuming they'd even be able to organize such a protest in the first place. As documents revealed by Edward Snowden show, the NSA and its allies are not only working to spy on activists, but to also infiltrate their movements and sow division and infighting.

But the final nail in the coffin proving the hopelessness of our political system came about in April of 2014 after Princeton researchers examined 1,779 policy cases from 1982 to 2002 and found that even when most of the public favors a certain type of change, they're not likely to get it: "When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it." Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions, they write, but "they have little or no independent influence on policy at all." If policy-making is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, "then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened."

So maybe it's long past time for us to stop mocking nonvoters and start listening to them. Until the corporate-dominated status quo is altered, voting will be nothing more than a charade."

http://tinyurl.com/kpx5gyn