Another U.S Presidential election is upon us, and more than ever before, technology enables the electorate to see (if it chooses to), even to understand in some measure (if it so desires), the nature of power and disempowerment , political and otherwise, in this time and this place. We are experiencing the humiliation of seeing, if not all of the picture at least more of it than we’ve seen probably ever before, and feeling that there is nothing any of us (the vast majority of the population) can do to alter the picture of Power and its abuses one iota. This is because the outcomes of our electoral politics seem pre-determined. As Thomas Frank points out in the Guardian after reading through the leaked Podesta e-mails, there is an entrenched wealthy elite which controls the economy, the political process, the disbursement of federal tax revenue (often for its own enrichment), the wise and unwise military/geopolitical ventures funded by our tax dollars for the further enrichment and advancement of this entrenched elite that very very rarely experiences or has experienced first-hand the trauma of warfare. As Frank further exposes in Harpers, our media, our “serious journalists”, are mostly complicit in supporting the ideologies and agendas of this elite, and often work to manipulate public opinion in favor of it’s pre-ordained attitudes and courses of action. Frank supposes that these journalists are playing the game out of some sort of aspirational loyalty to it’s relative enlightenment and out of a silly hopeful illusion that because there are also some Ivy League degrees in the rapidly shrinking ivory tower of highbrow journalism, playing nice might net an invitation to the white house, to the Met Gala, to the hollywood afterparty, or ultimately onto the Ark when the next deluge comes (could be any day now).

And that’s just the Democrats. The truth is, starting with this election cycle or the next one, the U.S will become a one-party system, ruled by the elite class described above. The G.O.P, the “other party”, in a two-party system (which seems to be the most we could hope for here), which ostensibly should have been a voice for the masses outside of Wall Street, the beltway, Greenwich and the Vineyard, has collapsed. In an obviously and increasingly pay-to-play political system, Republican legislators are largely (if not entirely) in the pocket of the industry lobbyists who finance their campaigns and sometimes cushion their paychecks. These interests are by-and-large their only constituents in any significant sense. And interestingly enough these same special interests also finance and control quite a few legislators on the other side of the aisle. Our Congress, as a collection of free individuals who represent the views and interests of human constituents in their places of origin across the country is an illusion. Both parties have foundered on these rocks. The Republicans however, are the ones who are going to fade into utter political irrelevancy, leaving the Dems as the sole surviving Political Party in our One-Party Plutocracy. This is because the G.O.P has also run aground on the twin shoals of racism and unfavorable demographics. As the base of the party becomes ever more vocally racist, xenophobic, essentially manifesting itself as a White Nationalist party, white christians for the first time slip into minority status in the electorate, and will never again be in the majority, since most of the demographic growth in the U.S is among non-white ethnic groups. Soon there won’t even be enough votes to put those spineless G.O.P lackeys in the congressional seats they shit on all day every day when they’re not on paid vacation (which, incidentally, is a lot of the time. And you know who is doing the paying). So that leaves us with one-party rule. Like China. And Egypt. And Zimbabwe. A corrupt, self-serving, incestuous, disgustingly (and increasingly) wealthy, self satisfied, astonishingly ignorant despite their gold-plated academic honors, and in truth, exceeding cruel and morally bankrupt elite will rule this country. They will level more and greater taxes on us while lowering their own tax rates and refusing to tax their own inheritances and capital gains at any meaningful rate. They will slash funding for our education and healthcare while themselves enjoying the highest quality education and healthcare in the world. They will design legal structures and rhetoric to go along with them, and use a militarized police state and mass surveillance to incarcerate us in greater and greater numbers and use us while imprisoned as a slave labor force for their own gain. Worse yet, they will use money taken from the half of use who remain free as tax revenue to imprison the other half, and somehow the check will still be cut to them.

What’s that you say? This isn’t the future? This is happening now?

This is happening now. Right now. At this moment an unknown number of our incarcerated brothers and sisters are participating in a historic strike against Prison Slavery which the elite media is not reporting on. At this moment First Nations and others are standing with the Dakota Sioux in Standing Rock North Dakota against an oil pipeline that a corporation in cooperation with the state and federal government is driving through Sovereign Sioux lands at great risk to that land, to the water that runs through it, and to the sanctity of Tribal Sacred Sites. The Sioux and their allies are standing to protect the earth and water and air for future generations and are being beaten and gassed, attacked and arrested for TRESPASSING on their own ancestral lands. They are under attack from U.S military personnel and from private security forces/mercenaries. Yes, it is happening now. Right now. Not in spite of the election, or because of it, but because this is where we are, people, election or no election. The fact is, this is where we’ve been for 50 years or more. Remember Kent State and Jackson State? Remember the AIM led and brutally put down occupations of Alcatraz and of Wounded Knee? Remember the Black Panthers? Once again the illusions of Democracy are fraying, disintegrating and revealing an ugly picture of Oligarchy, a militarized, racist, classist police state that is willing to kill to quash internal dissent, mass surveillance, war profiteering, and earth-raping. An absolutely nihilist world view, against humans, indeed against all sentient and non-sentient life, which underpins a seemingly unassailable fortress of greed.

This is an intimidating picture, and yet, we must not be intimidated.

This is a discouraging picture, and yet, we can not afford to be discouraged.

We must commit to defend ourselves and each other. As the Panthers said 50 years ago- by any means necessary. As Ice-T said a couple decades later- what the Black man needs is 3 things: Justice, Freedom, and Love. That’s what we all need, and if we can’t get these things by voting, we must, and will- as our parents and grandparents and ancestors did, as our brothers and sisters in the struggle all over this sacred suffering planet are doing-

we MUST seek other ways.