POLITICS
Ron Paul Is Right: The Only Chance For 'Change' Is To Vote For A Third-Party Candidate
Both Obama, McCain, Guarantee More of the Same
he crash of America's economic markets is a timely reminder of the importance of the upcoming presidential election.
The American Dream is deferred for millions teetering under higher gas, electric, housing, medical costs and overextended credit cards.
While thousands of Americans lose their homes to foreclosure, corporate welfare continues unabated, with the government's $85 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG.
As admirable as both presidential candidates are -- Barack Obama with his charm, intellect and swagger, John McCain for what Time calls his twin conflictions of ambition and honor -- neither man has the righteous indignation necessary to change the status quo. And to suddenly aspire to it would mean eschewing the political machines that have brought them to the top of the presidential heap.
Like every campaign before it, this presidential race is turning out to be the most expensive to date, with more than $1 billion raised so far, much from "bundlers" who have an economic interest in influencing legislators. The largest piece of that pie will be spent on television and internet advertising, estimated to exceed $3 billion, thus enriching broadcasters who are the primary source of news and information for Americans. So it should be no surprise that what passes for news coverage can at best be described as a "pig wearing lipstick."
Barack Obama, the people's messianic hopes aside, is unlikely to turn this corrupt tide. To date his campaign has raised $390 million-- more than any single presidential candidate in history. He's also now part of the Richard Daley Chicago machine, which runs the City of Clout like a family of sanctioned mobsters. The system is so broken here that elections don't matter so much as political appointments. Residents, distracted by the Cubs or their Wiis or their car payments or by television's somnambulistc influence, routinely re-elect incumbents, who then quit and hand their seat to a family member or political operative. Those who think Obama will deliver the promised land have ignored his lack of reform in Illinois and Congress.
McCain, who has to date raised $174 million for the campaign, has a longer history of falling on his sword on behalf of change. Caught in the Keating Five scandal, political pundits say that McCain's dutiful reaction to that embarassment was to become a bipartisan reformer, leading to his stewardship of the McCain-Feingold Act, which limited the impact of "soft money" and "issue ads" in presidential campaigns. As moderate as his record is compared to Republicans in the Senate, McCain is handicapped for being from the party that has enabled big oil and business to gorge themselves at the public's expense. And up until this week, McCain had little to say about re-regulating an out-of-control and collapsing marketplace.
All of which brings home former presidential candidate Ron Paul's point that made last week while calling on voters to support a third-party candidate.
"I've come to the conclusion, after having spent many years in politics, is that our presidential elections turn out to be more of a charade than anything else, and I think that is true today,'' Paul said. "It is a charade."
According to CNN, Paul said the "two major parties and media had 'colluded' to avoid discussing issues and falsely presenting the difference between McCain and Obama as real."
What -- other than the dismantling of civil rights, consumer protections and regulation -- has been accomplished by Bush and Congress during the last eight years? Do we really want to perpetuate financial practices that devalue our economic system? Play world cop by enforcing "pre-emptive" hegemony? Spend billions on an unwinnable war on drugs?
When hundreds of thousands turned out in Berlin to hear Obama speak, pundits chalked it yet again to his charismatic pull. But in a 2002 report comparing elections around the globe, Germany ranked 33rd for voter turnout while America ranked 120th. Germans are in general more politically engaged.
This year we saw several examples of populations turning out in force to pressure their governments for change. More than 40,000 South Koreans marched to protest their country's renewed imports of U.S. beef. And hundreds of thousands of Colombians marched to protest abductions by leftist guerrillas in the South American country. What America needs is a good, old-fashioned revolution.
Ron Paul is right; the two-party system is a fixed-game for those on the inside. And until Americans shake off their apathy and turn out enmasse at the polls, nothing's really going to change.
Posted September 18, 2008
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