Contrary to the accusations of laziness and apathy, therefore, the decision not to vote of those who profess anger towards the system represents true democracy: exercising the right to vote for ‘none of the above’ because, in frank terms, ‘none of the above’ stand for them; representing instead the ruling and corporate classes – the ‘establishment consensus’: the continuation and entrenchment of the status quo.
If taxpayers are to fund corporations, why shouldn’t they demand that those businesses observe certain conditions of basic fairness? The publicly funded train operators should pay their staff living wages, provide decent pensions and sick pay. And all recipients of public money should be banned from using elaborate structures to avoid paying tax.
The irony is hard to miss. The United States government, which wages war all over the world on the phony pretext of defending “democracy” and “human rights,” increasingly relies on the methods of martial law in response to any indication of social unrest within its borders.
The vast majority of “food” we consume results from unspeakable animal cruelty, environmental devastation, and the use of exploited human labor. This “food” contains toxins and chemicals and pesticides and GMOs that rain violence down upon ourselves and all living things and the system that controls access to such “food” perpetrates the daily — hourly — brutality of poverty. Every single bite you take contains the not-so-hidden ingredient of violence.
In fact, the lack of concern regarding the militants’ gains in Syria exposes the fundamental deceit at the heart of Western foreign policy. The elites claim to be fighting radical Islamists, yet in Syria they’re doing everything they possibly can to ensure that the side that’s fighting radical Islamists, the secular Syrian government, is weakened and eventually defeated.
If you also need a reminder of how all this dysfunction kills any chance of social change, take a good, honest look around. While we bask in the glow of our “fans” regularly tuning in to our livestreams or sharing our photos or quoting our statuses, every form of life on earth is under assault with no hint of imminent reversal.
Voting is a pitifully slow and ineffective way of creating change. In reality, the only thing that has ever created change is collective action; we think that action should be direct. Direct action is not just a tactic but a transformative way of taking back power for the people and beginning to re-organise our world.
The destruction of Libya is not only not ‘detail’, it is arguably the defining fact, and crime, of Clinton’s life. If an official enemy were responsible and under discussion, the idea that one could simply pass over, or take as read, their destruction of an entire country would be unthinkable.
The American press, led by the New York Times, writes of refugees fleeing poverty and violence in the Middle East and North Africa without so much as mentioning the actions of the United States and its European allies that have caused the humanitarian catastrophe. What is unfolding in the Mediterranean is not a tragedy; it is an imperialist war crime.
The former British prime minister says that he did not know about JP Morgan’s link to the Palestinian contract.
And the political fare on offer is all manufactured and presented to placate big business, to court corporate approval and to ensure that the ways in which we vent our dissatisfaction is safely-boundaried by QuestionTime-type ‘participation’.
For example, during the run up to the invasion of Iraq, Clinton joined her Secretary of State predecessor (female and person of color) Condoleezza Rice and other neocons in ramming the false propaganda of Saddam/Osama and WMD down the throats of a frightened, gullible and revenge-seeking US population. While Secretary of State, Clinton never met an invasion or coup (i,e: Honduras, Libya) that she didn’t absolutely adore.
