By Stephen Carl, Morning Nightcap News
The Pews Have Been Filling Up at The First Church of Carlin Lately
50% of the country makes less than $30,000 a year. Over 60% of the country is one major vehicle repair away from missing bills, rent, or food. And they don’t have a political party that represents them on a state or national level. Not even a little bit. Automatically, half the country has no reason to vote. Not for anyone running for office in the two-party system, anyway.
Some folks like to say that there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats, but that’s simply an unfair statement. Between the two, they give us the opportunity- nay, the civic duty- to re-litigate settled science and basic human and civil rights every election cycle. Distinctions like that are important, otherwise people might start asking why we gave a Nobel Peace Prize to a guy who ordered 26,000+ bombs dropped in seven countries without cessation for eight consecutive years and zero congressional authorization.
We might ask why, as US citizens, we aren’t allowed to vote on whether or not a company gets to poison our water. The “will of the people” sounds great until you realize that over two thirds of the people believe health care is a right and support a Medicare For All system. A single-payer system – you know, like every other industrialized country on the planet. Hillary Clinton told a room full of Democrats supporting her candidacy in the 2016 Primary that single payer “will never, ever happen.”
Our elected officials and their surrogates in the establishment media are nothing more than the PR firm for the industries that retain them every election cycle. Otherwise we might get to ask why city cops need tanks and sound cannons for unarmed protestors. Or why the United States has the largest state-sponsored domestic surveillance network in existence.
The GOP has control of every branch of government right now. Every single piece of legislation they’ve brought forth, pass or fail, reduces or eliminates human and civil rights and gives a giant tax cut to the wealthiest Americans. Tax cuts for the rich are the only thing they know how to do. They literally run on “government doesn’t work- elect us and we’ll prove it.” There is no legitimate way to sugarcoat the Republicans in DC. They’re corporate fascists and religious zealots. At least their rhetoric matches their record.
The Democrats are a center-right party that represents affluent professionals and government employees with “sort of” a social conscience. I say, “sort of” because they embrace civil liberties and identity politics, but fall short of standing for a $15/h minimum wage, or Green New Deal, or against poison in the water. And don’t ask them about getting money out of politics. Before anyone argues, just remember that congressional Dems spent the last couple months trying desperately to save Mitt Romney’s health care plan with no cost controls or public option.
So, what do you do when George Carlin becomes more correct by the day? If we plan on giving this whole “representative republic” thing a real go, we should probably get some actual damn representation. If not, by sheer default for all the wrong reasons, the Libertarians are kinda right. A government that operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate interests cannot represent its citizenry. It can only rule it. By default, society would be forced to find private for-and-non-profit organizations to replace rule by balance sheet.
To quote George Carlin: “I don’t vote. Two reasons. First of all, it’s meaningless; this country was bought and sold a long time ago. The shit they shovel around every 4 years doesn’t mean a thing. Secondly, I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around – they say, ‘If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain’, but where’s the logic in that? If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.”
