The old me would have been popping a champagne bottle today and jumping into the sky to touch my heels together doing some sort of political happy dance. I would have viewed the victory of Doug Jones as an advancement for civility and civil rights. Consequently, I would have been devouring various opinion pieces and watching newstertainment as I reveled in “my party” winning a “historic” election last night in Alabama. But the new me has been jarred awake to the lies of our political system and the deception of these two equally bankrupt parties. I realize how we are enabling a government that has lost the confidence of the people and is thus ruling without consent.
It took a mean mugging by reality for me to understand how we keep being hoodwinked as a people. This is the red pill too many people would rather not take. The people we keep being enthralled by and the personalities we keep following devotedly are nothing more than curtains who hide the true malice of a nefarious system. Politics is nothing but a diversion, a slight of hand that distracts us from the pernicious policies both parties are equally complicit in enacting as they serve their corporate masters and their plutocrat benefactors while sacrificing the vast majority of Americans to the hyenas on Wall Street. The two parties insidiously use identity politics to pit people against each other; red meat and manufactured outrage act as blinders that keeps us in our narrow lanes of partisan fidelity instead of uniting as one to demand a better government and protect our collective interests.
I don’t write this to be Teddy Downer, but the truth is that Doug Jones’s election last night means absolutely nothing in the broader scope of our governance. When it comes to our politics and the two political parties which have diabolically colluded to monopolize power in what I now refer to as the District of Caligula, the institutions are always more important than the people we send to represent us. As long as a duopoly exists and the people we vote into office caucus with their parties, the chance for change to come by way of ballot boxes is less than the chance that Donald Trump will act his age and be a graceful leader. The whole system is rigged whereby lobbyists and big money donors mandate policies they want enacted and draft legislation behind closed doors. We the people might as well be “wee the people”; our votes and voices are tiny pixels compared to the influence and affluence of the oligarchs.
Doug Jones will join a cabal in DC that votes as a bloc and his voice will be co-opted by the establishment. He will vote as the party demands and as the whip count dictates. Once in a while, he will be given the leeway by party leaders to vote according to his conscience as a way of throwing his constituents some Monsanto modified crumbs. He will be allowed these symbolic acts of independence and to feign care for the people he represents only once enough votes have been coalesced to pass laws or decrees that enhance the fortunes of the military-prison-financial complex. This is the sham of our government; Senators and Congressmen are just cogs in the system who have zero influence on the outcome of legislation because the levers of power have been hijacked by bankers and corporate gangsters [read Nexus of Evil]. Occasionally, one politician or another will go on Twitter–as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warner, Ted Cruz or insert bloviating politician here have perfected–to feign outrage, but in the end the institution wins out.
Is there a part of me that is elated that a pervert who preyed on young teenagers is not going to DC and that he got his comeuppance? Sure. But upon further reflection, does it really matter? The District of Caligula is a beehive of depraved and wanton souls who have turned our nation’s capital into the 21st century Sodom and Gomorrah. We have a man in the White House who has been taped having sexual ideations about his own daughter and on both sides of the aisle are found a litany of men and women who make Nero look like a saint. But beyond the lascivious personalities in DC lies the cancerous parties themselves. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are both poxes on our nation, unless we find a way to break the duopoly and return power back to the people, not even the second coming of Jesus will change the toxic swamp that swills around in the US Capitol and the White House.
I hope one day soon we will reach a critical mass of people who refuse to be bamboozled by these two equally malignant parties and decide to unite beyond ideologies, identity and labels to reclaim our government and our nation from the hands of moneyed interests and globalist leeches. This is what the political and media class fear the most and why they keep feeding us sensationalism and divisive rhetoric. As long as we are splintered into factions and see things through the prism of parties and personalities, we will keep getting the government and the pillaging we don’t deserve but get regardless. Every two or four years, the confetti drops, the band plays “Happy Days are Here Again” and some politician proclaims a new day has arrived only to head to DC and partake in the fleecing of America and the bleeding of our planet. I’ve seen this dog and pony show before so forgive me if I refuse to get excited over this farcical rodeo. #DistrictOfCaligula
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
Check out the Ghion Cast where I discuss the deception of our political parties and the way both parties collude to fleece all of us and pillage our planet.
The system only thrives because we are divided as a people. That is the message behind the Ghion Cast below as I discuss the way we are pitted against each other.
Lij Teodrose Fikremariam
Originally from Ethiopia with roots to Atse Tewodros II, Lij Teodrose is a former community organizer whose writing was incorporated into Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. He pivoted away from politics and decided to stand for collective justice after experiencing the reality of the forgotten masses. His writing defies conventional wisdom and challenges readers to look outside the constraints of labels and ideologies that serve to splinter the people. Lij Teodrose uses his pen to give a voice to the voiceless and to speak truth to power.
Latest posts by Lij Teodrose Fikremariam (see all)
- Ethiopia’s Choice: Poverty through Grievance or Prosperity through Unity - September 9, 2019
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- A Matter of Life or Death: We Cannot Afford to Ignore Mental Illnesses Any Longer - August 17, 2019
