Illusion & Reality - The Art of War

A truly excellent article regarding Trump, racism and the deep state titled Strip and Flip: Democracy in a Cage - Robert C. Koehler, Reader Supported News echoes what yours truly has talked about in BRT for quite a long time as power elites have run every country in the world since the beginning of time, including ours.

Whatever else delivered Trump to our doorstep, the most undeniable element in his “victory” was the Electoral College. It’s hardly adequate to call this institution obsolete; its existence is the manifestation of racist hell.

“. . . to protect their interests in a nation where they were being rapidly outnumbered, Southerners got an Electoral College that included a ‘3/5ths clause,’” Fitrakis and Wasserman write. “Slaves (who could not vote themselves) were counted for 3/5ths of a vote for president and in establishing congressional districts.”

This is American history stripped naked, its basic lie revealed. Slavery wasn’t simply a regrettable sideshow. Repression and dehumanization — the creation of an “other” — smolder at the nation’s core. Because of slavery and institutionalized racism, impoverished white people could still feel good about themselves — and there would be no mixed-race uprisings against the status quo, which is still the case.

In other words, democracy is only acceptable if it can be controlled by those already in power, and the essence of this control is to ensure that the conditions benefiting the powerful are not seriously threatened. This condition has not gone away. American democracy remains in a cage, which means “we the people” — and our will to create a better world — also remain in a cage.

Interestingly enough, in an indirect way, Koehler channels the great Paddy Chayefsky in his astute take on nooze, elections and the organized bamboozling on the part of the deep state, of our grossly ignorant populace.

To this I would add mainstream media contempt for anyone who questions the election results sanctified on Election Night by TV anchorpersons, no matter that they differ significantly from exit poll results. I would also add the extraordinary superficiality of presidential elections: the systematic jettisoning of populist candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, from contention, and the avoidance of real issues (e.g., the military budget) in the debate, creating a huge public-interest void in the process.

But there is hope.

But all of these extraordinary efforts to keep democracy caged make me believe that the country — and the world — are on the brink of profound change. Most of us want a world free of poverty and war and would vote for its creation if we could.

Fitrakis and Wasserman make the following recommendations: “We need to win universal automatic voter registration; transparent voter rolls; a four-day national holiday for voting; ample locations for all citizens to conveniently cast ballots; universal hand-counted paper ballots; automatic recounts free to all candidates; abolition of the Electoral College; an end to gerrymandering; a ban on corporate money in our campaigns.”

Copy that. :)

Paddy Chayefsky