The Republican Party has just dropped their own candidate in favor of endorsing 'independent' Joe Lieberman. Is this (further) evidence of the tremendous confidence the ruling elite has in their pretense of a 2-party representative system? Certainly their public posturing, along with the constant push of various emotional hot-button issues such as gay rights (or not) and abortion and so on, seems to fool most of us that there really is a 2-party system in operation here.

 

 

I think of today's political spectacle as akin to the World Wrestling Federation: two wrestlers in opposite corners (the red and the blue!) are posturing and cursing and threatening each other, while their fans in the audience cheer their man and boo his rival with complete conviction and commitment. But the truth is that the two combatants are but putting on a show, and are both managed and paid by the same entity. Those whose ambition it is to control the masses and enjoy extraordinary wealth and power have ever followed this simple tactic. As Hegel advised his statesman audience: create your own opposition, as in thesis and antithesis, and by controlling them both (synthesis), you may control all.

 

 

To those whose agenda is simply to exploit and rule, there is little real interest in whether or not abortion or homosexual marriage should be legal ... but they gladly use such issues to rile us up and keep us from asking how it is that over issues where tremendous profits are at stake, there is usually smooth bipartisan co-operation. For example, NAFTA, and the so-called Mexican bail-out, as co-sponsored by Clinton and Gingrich, that resulted in vast profits for the big banks at the expense of both the American taxpayers as well as the Mexican people. And then of course we have the current wars on Iraq and terrorism and Lebanon where Bush, Cheney, Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and so on are clearly all on the same side!

 

 

And what side is that?  Well, growing up in London, I will never forget the graffiti slogan "Doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always wins!"

 

 

How can we oppose the huge and powerful deceit that is presented to us as the democratic process?  The first thing is to be very clear about who it really is we're facing. This is not about Republicans versus Democrats. The other side is composed of those who are committed to dividing and conquering.  They know only their own agendas, and view everyone and everything else as objects for them to exploit and deceive. Ultimately they have no integrity, and gladly use all sides of any issue, as well as both truth and lies, to fulfill their goals.

 

 

To effectively oppose them means to side with a very different perspective. As the Lakota peoples say in greeting, 'ho mitakuyasin:' all our relations. We are all connected, but that connection is only made visible by love. We are only united by love, which must also imply a willing surrender of our personal agendas that cause us to take advantage of our environment and of others, and this in turn necessitates our recovering the internal keys to peace and happiness. This is the territory of the spirit, but this has been especially undermined and usurped by the most greedy, duplicitous and ruthless among us. For while claiming to be speaking and acting in the name of God, of transcendental and all-embracing love, they are simultaneously engaging in cruel and horrible acts meant to enslave, exploit or exterminate all else. But when we allow the bigotry, intolerance and hatred advanced by one pseudo-religious cult or another in the name of Jesus or Allah or whoever to justify our rejecting the entire path of non-sectarian enlightened and divine love, then we have indeed been defeated, and we have lost our chance to truly oppose the path of separation and conflict, so that all our remaining choices all sit on the same side of the coin.