Bill-George-Barack-Hillary: US’ free-trade relay team

Hillary is ready to take the baton from Obama and run the last leg for America’s free-trade relay team. Scoundrel Bill started the race by allowing businesses to export many family-sustainable jobs in America without providing an economic bridge to remedy the consequences; and now his missus is about to complete the race, without scruples and a straight face, on behalf of the moneyed-class. Any attempt to see it any other way is political suicide by deception, nothing else.

In the long run, two or three generations hence, most people in the world will probably proclaim globalization as a great thing for mankind, an economic equalizer for much of the planet. And even many Americans will continue to be ignorant or indifferent to the historic implications of how such equalization took place: the sacrifice of their parents or grandparents in subsidizing the transfer of resources and wealth. Appropriately or not, history books are unlikely to consider this transfer as sacrifice from a hard working segment, the middle class but rather “just deserts” to prior economic inequities which existed in the world . . . even blaming them on the US.

But we are not looking at the future, only at the suffering and sacrifice of probably a third of Americans that the other two-thirds have thrown under the bus. For it isn’t just that scapegoat-crowned one percent that holds the entire responsibility; such blame should be shared by most, if not all, of us. Unashamedly we allowed the political class, our three presidents—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama—to serve as economic executioners of labor on behalf of those who dare place capital ahead of community . . . capital often inequitably extracted from the blood and sweat of the very same community.

In this federal election which has already started to take place under the helter-skelter rules of the different states (different periods and times, and not on a specified and reasonably available date), the US keeps showing its undemocratic colors by, time and again, giving the citizenry two candidates not much different in hue or intensity. Two candidates that at the end of the day, regardless what their parties’ platforms say, stand for preserving the status quo for the elite: predatory capitalism and an obscene foreign policy committed to dominance over compromise. Choices certain to keep America in perpetual war, suffocating any prospects for world peace; and a continuously declining standard of living for two-thirds of the people . . .

If two-thirds of Americans are sick to the stomach of the existing body politic, whether coming from the pseudo-patriotic right, or the pseudo-progressive left, how is it that we continue to remain blind to the truth or keep turning our heads the other way? Could it be that both Republican and Democratic parties have been hijacked, one by a truly despicable, self-serving charlatan, Donald J. Trump, and the other by a shrewd, deceitful politician, Hillary R. Clinton?

It’s almost a given that Hillary Clinton, deservedly, will be elected commander-in-chief, a befitting title for her warmongering ways, condoned and even applauded by a society obsessed by fifty shades of evil, where Trump’s obnoxious persona will only receive support from the vociferous bigoted patriots (bigopats) attending Trump’s rallies, the group that Hillary probably referred to as deplorables, and that closeted contingent who only appear in the privacy of a ballot, or in the anonymity of blind polls.

Fortunately for Candidate Clinton, her lesser-able and more-evil adversary for C-i-C is Trump. Several moderate conservative Republicans could have retired the Clintons to final political pasture. And just as bigopats alone cannot give Trump the presidency, the solid minorities-base of 90+ percent blacks and 70+ percent citizen-Latinos cannot alone gift Clinton the White House. As in past presidential elections, a candidate will be elected and assume the presidency without the support of a reasonable cross-section of our diverse population. And we question the obviousness in our political polarization!

Bernie Sanders and other progressive politicians, Sen. Merkley (OR) and Rep. Gabbard (HI) prominently coming to mind, will probably continue their unsavory advocacy for Hillary until November 8, despite the treatment by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), in order to prevent the hijacker of the Republican Party to do the same with a nation that has lost its taste for politicians of either of the two evil denominations.

Perhaps by the time most of us are ready to cast our vote, Trump’s candidature will be as dead as Evanora, the Wicked Witch of the East, and we are “safely” able to cast our vote, if only symbolically, for those other political parties (Greens and Libertarians at the forefront) that advocate meaningful stewardship domestically and internationally.

Copyright © 2016 Tanosborn

Ben Tanosborn, columnist, poet and writer, resides in Vancouver, Washington (USA), where he is principal of a business consulting firm. Contact him at tanosborn@yahoo.com.

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