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The Lesser Of Two Evils US: Myth Of The Two Party System
Would America look much different if Republican John McCain had
beaten Democrat Barack Obama to become president?
By Cindy Sheehan "The two-party system has given this country the
war of Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate of Nixon and the incompetence
of Carter. Saying we should keep the two-party system simply
because it is working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success
because a few people survived on life rafts."
Eugene J. McCarthy, 1978
October 29, 2010 "Al-Jazeera" - -If John McCain were president, we
can never be exactly sure what would be happening, but I think we
can make some educated speculations.
First of all, the "banksters" would be receiving their carte blanche
bailouts and Ben Bernanke would have been re-appointed as Chairman
of the Federal Reserve.
Robert Gates would probably still be the secretary of defence and
Sarah Palin would be offering late night comedians endless fodder
for their monologues.
If John McCain happened to be the one infesting the Oval Office at
this time, single-payer health care would surely be "off the table".
I am confident that a health care "reform" bill probably would have
contained massive giveaways to the insurance and big pharmaceutical
industries, with no "robust" public option.
We citizens would, Im sure, have been forced to purchase insurance
from the very same insurance companies that spread out a largess
of nearly $170m lobbying dollars to Congress in 2009. If we are one
of the "lucky ones" that happen to already have coverage, we would
have been taxed for the benefit.
McCain and 'justice'
Without a doubt, McCains Justice Department would be protecting war
criminals - like John Yoo - of the preceding administration and the
McCain Department of Justice (DOJ) would probably be vigorously
defending the discriminatory practise of Dont Ask Dont Tell for the
military.
More than likely, under this nightmarish scenario, McCains Federal
Bureau of Investigation would be committing home invasion break-ins
(designated as "legal raids") to intimidate activists.
McCain probably would have given himself the power to be judge and
jury over any American citizen that didnt approve of his foreign
policy.
There is not even a shadow of doubt that McCain would be feigning
strictness with Israel, while turning a blind eye to the continued
expansions of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the completely
immoral and destructive blockade of Gaza.
If the unthinkable occurred and McCain beat Obama in 2008, official
unemployment would be hovering around 10 per cent (unofficial around
20 per cent). And one in every five homes would be in danger of
being foreclosed upon. We might even be experiencing the widest
income disparity between the rich and poor that we have seen since
before the stock market crash of 1929!
McCain, being the "brave" military man, may have tripled troop
deployments to Afghanistan and the needless deaths of US troops and
Afghan civilians would probably have increased dramatically. I am
sure that McCain would have given huge contracts to the US war
machine for drones, mercenaries, airplanes and other military
hardware.
Being a loyal Bushite, McCain would probably be conscientiously
following the Status of Forces Agreement for the slow withdrawal
from Iraq that was negotiated between the Bush government, and the
puppet regime in Iraq.
At least we aren't bombing Iran!
I get informed all the time, that even though "Obama isnt so great",
at least he hasnt invaded Iran yet, and McCain surely would have
been bombing Iran by now.
Okay so rhetoric towards Iran would be heigtened, but whether McCain
would have waged another military campaign during the current
political climate would be an assumption too far.
Gosh, if McCain were president right now, the defense budget might
be the largest - $741.2bn - since World War II. He might have even
asked for billions upon billions of supplemental funding for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Horrors!
Of course, a McCain education budget would only be about 1/10th of
the defense budget at $78bn. And, a McCain education plan would
probably contain lots of rigorous testing if the states were to
want more desperately needed funds.
If McCain were president, there would be an active "anti-war"
movement.
However - as during the Bush years - the "movement" wouldnt be so
much antiwar, but anti-war waged by the Republicans. The anti-Republican
movement wants no systemic change, it just wants Democrats in office.
Blurring the political divide
However in almost every case, Democrat equals the status quo.
Of course, in all of my above scenarios, Obama and his regime have
done all of those things that people were afraid that McCain would
do, but theres an extremely small outcry.
Here we are, once again, careening madly down the path to electoral
ruinwhere voting for the "lesser of two evils" has become a national
pastime.
When the elite class gives the appearance of only two choices on
the ballot, we end up voting "against" a candidate far more times
than we vote "for"
someone.
Whats wrong with us? We are lazy, we are fearful, the establishment
beats us down, we are ignorant, and we are defeated. Voting at least
gives us the latent feeling that we are doing something, when we
are really doing very little.
We righteously march down to our polling place, like good soldiers
for the status quo. We vote. We get our little stickers with an
American flag that proudly proclaims: I VOTED. But when we vote for
a member of the political duopoly, we are only voting for "Dee or
Dum".
The Democrats had their chance during the last four years, and
instead of passing progressive legislation and ending the wars,
they have pandered to the right, which has been emboldened by the
power the Democrats gave it.
Now the Republicans are poised to take over at least the House of
Representatives. And Democrats will begin to spew progressivism out
of their lying mouths and abuse the energy of their newly-angry
base to try to regain power - like the Republicans have done
effectively for the past two years.
Will progressives ever learn that political pandering and fear-based
voting never brings anything but defeat, or are we trapped in a
vicious cycle of our own making?
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, who was
killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Since then, she has been an activist
for peace and human rights. She has published five books, has her
own Internet radio show, Cindy Sheehans
Soapbox<http://cindysheehanssoapbox.com/>, and has been nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize. Cindy lives in Oakland, CA, and loves
to spend time with her three grand-babies. You can learn more about
Cindy at Peace of the Action<http://peaceoftheaction.org/>.
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