BRATTLEBORO — It seems quite fitting that Karl Rove's super PAC is named American Crossroads. America is indeed at a major crossroads, one we have been approaching for some time.
Both paths forward are adorned with a bizarre mix of genuine diamonds and gaudy costume jewelry. Both paths are fraught with hazards - many known, many hidden from sight. Both are far from perfect. It might be that neither is adequate.
Still, we have at least the appearance of being able to help choose which path our nation will take.
One thing seems unfortunately clear: oscillating back and forth between the two paths is at best inefficient and at worst deadly.
Neither path is very much like the sales brochures that teasingly portray their purported benefits. So what are our alleged options?
Not surprisingly, they are quite similar to what the Arab Spring nations face.
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While there are many diverse factions tugging at our money and our souls, the overwhelming strength of the two major, warring influences currently give us but two roads to take if we are to travel inside the game.
Now, even if our aspirations compel us to step outside the game, the choices we make within it do, in fact, have major effect on our eventual direction, so there is no reason to drop out of the arena at this time.
The path on the supposed right lures us toward a theocratic, feudal Utopia, where we paradoxically prove our rugged individualism and self-reliance by enforcing conformity, silencing dissent, and subscribing to a homogenized groupthink.
In this return to “traditional values,” a rarified few will be royalty, some will be vassals, most will be serfs, many will be slaves. We will all get along by paying the royals their tribute and burning the witches of dissent.
This path is primarily reactionary, a return to the good old days for the royalty: a return to greater superstition and insular arrogance for the rest. For the neo-feudalists, fear is their current best friend and most effective tool. Saudi Arabia is an example of this path taken to an extreme.
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The path to the supposed left glitters with hope and secular, progressive change. We are teased by the promise that we will take baby-steps toward a more advanced and diverse community down this road.
Here, the paradox is that the suggested method to win this incremental change is to surreptitiously support the immensely powerful and change-resistant status quo.
If we accept the dalliances of the banking, insurance, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries, and if we submit to governance by appointees (vassals!) from these vested interests, then things are supposed to get better. Perhaps not a lot better, but better enough to keep us in the game, if only enough to keep us buying the products that drive the machine.
For the status quo “moderates,” possibility is their best friend and most effective tool. The America of the era from 1947 to 1979 is an example of this path actually working.
Then, as Dick Cheney said, “Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.”
In fact, deficits are one of the best ways for the rich to legally extract wealth from the middle class. They run up a deficit, spending the money on things that turn them a personal profit. The wealthy then force the poor and middle class to pay off the debts that they themselves caused.
For current examples, see Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, and Iceland. And, of course, the U.S.A. Strangely, only the Icelanders have figured out that they did not have to go along with the scam.
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It is abundantly clear to anyone paying attention that both paths are maintained by enormous greed and skillful manipulation. But here, the method and likely the extent of these influences diverges.
The greed of the secular, status-quo moderates seeks an ever increasing, yet hopefully sustainable, balance, where the rich get richer, and the rest are slowly pulled along - pulled along specifically so that they can continue to make the rich richer, not out of any great feeling of charity.
They know that this experiment in how communities and economies might function is just a couple of hundred years old and is not yet a proven approach globally. But, for now at least, they see their future in its success.
The greed of the theocratic neo-feudalists is similarly great and far reaching. They seek strict limits on the number of landed gentry, the greatest possible concentration of wealth for the royalty, and a system that is sustained by absolute rule.
This is a proven approach that has worked quite well for the royals for many thousands of years.
A seemingly essential element in restoring this level of control is a theocratic government, where people's core beliefs are dictated by the state, and great peril comes to those who fail to comply. This play on people's superstition, dreams, and delusions is mightily effective to help maintain complete economic control.
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We know that there is tremendous skullduggery that will have direct impact on the results of our supposed “free” elections. Still, it is well worth considering (and voting for) those whom we want to at least think we are choosing for our representatives.
To the left, we have a status-quo secularist (although still a Christian) who, while clearly favoring his rich, well-connected masters, is at least willing to help forward some progressive social change and is placing at least part of his bet on maintaining a middle class.
He will gladly twist the truth if he thinks it benefits his cause. He sees this dishonesty - rightly so, I suppose - as simply the rules of the game.
He wants good things for good people, but he is very clear about which side of his bread is buttered and by whom. He does not seem to mind too much if you have some choices about how you live your life, as long as you don't buck the system.
He may have learned that you cannot compromise with the uncompromising. But he may still be too naive to effectively get his way.
To the right we have a theocratic fundamentalist, someone who already enjoys high-royalty status and thinks that what is best for us is to serve his cause.
This is first for our financial well-being, as he will be happy to let his dedicated and faithful serfs and slaves have enough of the basics to survive. But his grace is also given, if we are to believe his proclamations of unshakable faith, for the sake of our immortal souls. This is because he also knows for sure that only Mormons will get into heaven and enjoy eternal life.
Gallantly, he is only too happy to help us follow his lead in this department. Pragmatically, if we do not wish to accept his spiritual guidance, he will be quite content with doing anything he can to get us out of his way as quickly and easily as possible so that we don't mess up his nice, clear, clean path to a return to his God.
Then there are Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, respective candidates for the Green and Libertarian parties. Interesting notions, but a most impractical waste of your vote. If I had a kingdom, I would gladly trade it for a parliament and a viable third (and fourth, and fifth...) party.
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No matter who wins, we will remain a nation weakened by division, which will likely continue as the two major parties (and hopefully We the People) struggle for self-serving dominance.
This division is in many ways false, as we all have much more in common than differences.
But this division, to quote the Firesign Theatre, “keeps them in power, longer, longer, longer.” So both sides sow division with alarming success.
So: my unsolicited advice? Vote early and often!
Or buy control of a voting machine company. Whenever possible, we seem to decide our elections the old-fashioned way: we steal them.