Theater, Not Substance, Centerpiece of Election Campaign

Whatever happens in the US election next November, do not expect things to change much either way.

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(GOLD RIVER, BC) - How about that US election? Watching how it is being conducted makes one worry about the future with such power as the US has in the hands of such fools. One would think that the issues would be important, but in this election they seem to get only lip service in passing while name calling and fantasies become the meat and potatoes of the campaign. Maybe in order to reach the biggest segment of the population the intelligence level of the debate has been reduced to that of the average first grader?

President Obama certainly has a lot of baggage having run last time on building great expectations, many of which he has not fulfilled. But are the Republicans hammering him for this? Not really. Many on the right who support the Republicans are livid that Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, but is he being called to account on this? No, because it was a bill passed by a Republican House and the Republican campaign can’t very well attack it without attacking their own candidates for Congress. Avid opponents of the President attacking for this on one hand while not making it a campaign issue on the other is the height of hypocrisy.

Obama also broke his promise to close Guantanamo, and they bring that up when they want to talk about broken promises, but do they make it a campaign issue, not on your life. They do not want to close it. Then there is all of the real silly stuff, birth records, twisting of economic indicators, and a passel of half-truths, lies and silliness that would make Joseph Goebbels proud. For proof of some of the fantasies that are being manufactured the claim is used that they must be true since they haven’t been denied. Makes me think of the old question “have you stopped beating your wife?”

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Expecting to have a debate on real issues, however, may be unrealistic given the current state of politics in the US. There is really only one party, the Corporate Party, of which the Democrats and Republicans are both subsidiaries. Big money controls the process and no matter who wins the end results are much the same, big business gets protected. What we see is mostly theatre meant to amuse and divide the public and distract them from the reality that big business is transferring more and more wealth away from the poor and middle class to the upper class, a fact that is plainly evident to those who study the growing gap between the very rich and the rest of us.

Whatever happens in the US election next November, do not expect things to change much either way. The real issue between the parties, as opposed to the real issues facing society, is not about how to make life better or more secure, but about how the rich will divide the pie.

Jerry West

Copyright © 2012, West's International

Jerry West grew up on a farm in Fresno County, California, and served with the US Marine Corps from 1965 to 1970 including 19 months in Vietnam with the Third Marine Division, and three years at MCAS Iwakuni where he became an anti-war organizer in 1970. He earned an Honors Degree in History at the University of California, Berkeley, and did two years of graduate study there. While in university he worked seasonally in fire and law enforcement with the US Forest Service.

After university he worked for a number of years in the international tour industry in operations and management before moving to a remote village on the west coast of Vancouver Island where he is currently the editor and publisher of The Record newspaper serving the Nootka Sound region. He is a Past President of the Northern California Land Trust, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

You can email Jerry West, Salem-News.com Writer, at: newsroom@salem-news.com