I don’t care what Will.I.Am told you, today is not a new day. Even worse, President Obama is only a sleeker, more web saavy 2.0 version of Bush, and voting in the 2010 midterms will only make things worse, not better.
Many Obama fanatics continue to cling to the pre-election version of Obama in order to duck the unrelenting truth that the dream of change has shape-shifted into a recurring Groundhog Day nightmare where life today is pretty much the same as it was yesterday. Instead of facing the fact that voting for Obama was a mass exercise in folly, Obama devotees engage in inconsistent mental contortions which lay the framework for a hallucination born of unbridled optimism; that Obama’s prudence and incrementalism will pay off in spades if we all just give the young man a little more time. But what evidence do we have that President Obama will do anything more than what he didn’t do between 2008 and 2010?
To have both houses of Congress, the White House, be America’s first black President and underachieve to such an enormous degree isn’t solely a consequence of naiveté. To the contrary, Obama’s inertia is a sure sign that he and his accompanying power structure have no interest in meeting the needs of the American people. And to cling to Obama as a savior is to engage in the politics of religious sentimentalism.
Since Obama supporters and detractors have adopted an us versus them posture, corporate interests who quarterback our economy are busy misdirecting the energy and efforts of both Tea Party enthusiasts and Progressive activists. Why else do you suppose that the Republican Senate minority’s aha moment of using the filibuster as blunt force object to bludgeon the Democrat’s legislative agenda came during Obama’s first term? Does anyone really believe that this is the first time such a zero sum scheme occurred to an opposition party? And why do you suspect that the Democrats didn’t respond to such a misuse of power by forcing Republicans to filibuster, or by passing all bills through the reconciliation process?
Corporate conglomerates like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JPMorgan bought and paid for Obama during his campaign, while simultaneously (and patronizingly) patting small donors like you on the back for re-energizing the Democratic process through $10, $20 and $50 contributions. They knew that the Obama supporters would be expecting the President to make good on his promise of “change” once elected. And with a Democrat controlled Congress, Obama would have no excuse for thwarting the will of those who elected him. Enter the filibuster. The arcane Senate rule has been misused so that Obama and the Democrats can delay any fundamental action until they lose one or both houses of Congress, after which time they’ll have a valid cover-story for their malaise.
In the meantime, the filibuster serves an ulterior goal of focusing the ire of the American people on one another instead of the real puppet masters. The use of the filibuster has infuriated Democrats and emboldened conservatives who are now expressing their mutual antipathy via town halls, op-eds, and media bobble heads. It’s all meaningless white noise. Because although this back and forth may prove cathartic, it accomplishes nothing. It is akin to shadow boxing in a padded room.
Those who argue that voting is the answer, or that sitting out this election cycle and allowing Republicans to regain control of Congress would only make things worse, were obviously asleep at the switch when Republicans and Democrats morphed into a singular corporate hegemony.
The only difference which currently exists between the two parties is purely rhetorical. We’re left with two equally troubling choices. Either we go rogue or go zombie. We can no longer afford to pretend that a government which handed out 750 billion dollars to bankers, but is still allowing thousands of Americans to be made homeless by greedy lenders, is acting in the people’s interest. Neither can we pretend that pulling a lever or pressing a button at a ballot box will produce any meaningful change in the lives of everyday Americans.
Voting and marching were effective revolutionary tactics during previous eras. However, the strategies of the 1960’s are lost on an electoral system awash in corporate campaign cash. We must dismantle the corporate system which has successfully overthrown the people and inserted itself as the primary beneficiary of the Democratic process. It’s time to starve the beast. It’s time to engage in a form of consumer activism whereby we withhold our dollars from the very corporate entities that are oppressing us. It’s also time that we actively and verbally condemn our broken government, and support the people and organizations that have begun to fight back.
Revolutions act as decontaminants to the immune systems of governments and are necessary to the function of a healthy democracy. Revolutions, however, are never televised. We should’ve known when we saw Barack Obama on Oprah that he wasn’t the real deal.
Yvette Carnell is a former Capitol Hill Staffer turned political blogger. She currently publishes two blogs, Spatterblog.com and GoGirlGuide.com.
