Election Winners and Losers

Will the winner be Obama or Romney, Democrats or Republicans?

Once again it is clear who the winners in this election will be. It will not be the majority of the American people. We lose either way, albeit more or less, depending on which party prevails.

As we the people lose more, someone always gains. Over the past four years corporate profits have gone up and the wealthy have been doing swell. The winners are unconcerned about the losers. Shared sacrifice is as alien to them as shared prosperity.

The winners are enjoying a rigged game.

The national corporate media are also perennial winners. Corporate media has done its job. Instead of reporting pertinent information for the public good, it’s all about sensationalism, ratings, spinning a close election, and scooping up campaign advertising dollars. They never come out and report the fact that one side is more deceptive and less honest than the other. It’s always a “Both sides do it” kind of false, but equal, “fairness”, for the wrong as well as the right.

Appearances mean everything in this neurotic, attention deficit afflicted culture. As Clinton said, "When people are insecure, they'd rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who's weak and right".

People don’t deserve what we get from politicians. We don’t deserve a no compromise party exclusively in service to Big Money, and we don’t deserve a neutered “opposition party” that must also depend on corporate approval and support from wealthy interests.

What we deserve are news media serving the public interest on our public owned broadcast spectrum. We deserve uncorrupted public funded campaigns. We deserve equal access to the polls. We deserve hard copy, or otherwise verifiable ballots. And we deserve politicians who represent the people, rather than Big Money and powerful special interests.

But we will continue to be locked into a system that is rigged against most Americans. Will enough Americans wake up to the great scam of this facade of democracy? Will enough Americans be willing to raise their voices and demand our representational democracy be of, by and for the people?

Probably not. We have football games to watch on TV today. And the World Series is more important than elections and politics.

On second though, maybe we do deserve the politicians we get, if we are incapable of seeking information and thinking for our selves.

Humans as a species are very much like a herd, headed for their fate of austerity under corporate overlords, their bought and paid for politicians, and their rigged system.

It’s unfortunate for those who are conscious and actively aware. We’re caught up in the herd.

But isn’t this a thrilling new season of Survivor?