It Ain't Over 'til it's Over

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and I think it’s over, this ridiculous four year campaign for the Presidency of the United States, that is. Can you imagine any other country on earth exhausting so much money and time trying to select a leader for the next four years? We have managed to take an event that should take maybe a month or two at most into a non-stop four-year enterprise. Who benefits from this farce? What is the point? Why do we put up with this? As near as I can tell most of the benefits must have to do with the media, especially television, who reap enormous profits from the advertising that is now so much of the process. And who owns the media that profits the most? Why, surprise, the very corporations that manage the whole show. I guess you might have noticed that we are already talking about the 2016 elections, will Hillary run for President or not, and so on. U. S. elections are now an ongoing soap opera rather than a serious attempt to manage a country. It’s the nonsensical entertaining the nonsensical.

I mean, really, how can anyone take this seriously? Billions of dollars have been spent over months now promoting one or another candidate (probably already chosen), even though by the admission of most observers no one has paid any attention until now, and some acknowledge there are even still undecided voters. What was the point of all this expenditure? This is, to put it mildly, madness. Government and governing is no longer serious business in the U.S., it is simply entertainment, sound and fury signifying nothing. Whichever candidate wins they will still be beholden to the powers that be, Wall Street and the massive corporations that control the world. It’s true that Obama may be given license to make some basically cosmetic changes, improve the middle class, build some bridges, offer a bit more health care, continue to allow contraception and abortion, maybe even increase taxes a smidgen on the filthy rich, but they won’t even notice it and it won’t make any significant difference as long as the powers that be continue to rake in their profits. They don’t care about all these minuscule changes that will, even if generous, do nothing to seriously affect the status quo. American capitalism will survive, the rich will continue to get richer, the poor may stop getting poorer, but the basic swindle will continue. Marx failed to realize that the poor could be placated by “a six-pack of beer and a long-legged whore on Saturday night” (not an original observation by Morialekafa).

President Obama is not a socialist, far from it, in spite of what the lunatic right seems to believe. The basic system will remain intact with just a few adjustments here and there. We will no doubt continue with our heads buried in the sand, ignoring global warming, increasing poverty, environmental devastation, everything that truly matters, while fussing over a Black President, who said what to whom, what did he/she really mean by that, is cleavage in fashion this year, and what will Lindsay Lohan do next. And oh, yes, should we unilaterally, illegally, unconstitutionally, and immorally attack Iran to please Bibi. It’s the American way.

Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.

George Bernard Shaw