The next president of the United States will be walking into a growing catastrophe of American decline. Our economy is in serious trouble, our armies tied down in wars that Nobody knows how we can win. A number of ecological disasters are hanging over our heads—from overfishing to smog, desertification to strip mining, ocean dead zones to the dreaded global warming. And every day our freedom—the freedom to defend ourselves, take care of ourselves, speak for ourselves, think for ourselves and live our own lives—is trampled a bit more than the day before. We are told who we choose is of great importance. But what if Nobody can solve our problems? What if Nobody has the right ideas? What if Nobody really understands the real problems, and Nobody would do anything about them even if they did? John McCain, Barack Obama and a bunch of Nobodies (and Nobody thinks they can win) are what we have to work with. As an American citizen you have a right to choose (from the choices provided for you), so let's look and why you ought to Vote for Nobody!
Nobody Needs You!
This year, Nobody is talking about the issues. Nobody cares about policy—the boring stuff of asking how we pay for things and knowing what our money is being spent on. Nobody talks about anything but the polls, money or image issues. Nobody wants to know how we are going to bring good paying jobs back to this country as much as what Barack Obama's preacher or John McCain's temper are like. That's because almost Nobody gets to decide who the president is going to be. The media only cover campaigns that have a “viable” chance of winning. They base this on polls that ask their viewers and the public at large which candidates they support. Not surprisingly the candidates they don't talk about aren't as familiar to the people who listen to them for their news. But how do candidates get to the tops of the polls and thus get the headlines in the first place? By having lots of money to pay the media for advertisements with. Nobody thinks its wrong that a candidate has to have money to pay TV, radio and print outlets for ads before those outlets will talk about them enough to do well enough in the polls to be considered viable by those same outlets. Nobody calls it by its real name: a racket. If the media talked about policy and specifics, Nobody would be able to tell the viable candidates apart. That's because they are chasing after the same cash cow interest groups—trial lawyers, lobbyists, executives and big investors. Only these people have enough money to pay the media enough for “viability;” Nobody needs your vote as much as they need a rich man's dollar. That's why Nobody Needs You!
Nobody Can Save the Economy
If you can remember learning about the Great Depression in school, you will remember that FDR put into place several safeguards to make sure nothing like it could ever happen again. Things fell apart because big banks had been loaning money they didn't have to Wall Street speculators making money out of thin air. To stop this FDR put into place reserve requirements—banks had to have a certain amount in reserve to cover their loans (not 100%, just 10% to pay for defaults). He also signed the Glass-Stegall Act, which made it so that banks had to stay out of risky speculation where they had gambled their members' money. It is common sense—don't be lending more than you can afford and don't risk money people have trusted you with.
For thirty years now Nobody has been defending federal regulation of business, and “deregulation” has been the policy of both parties. President Clinton phased out the reserve standards and repealed Glass-Stegall—he could be sure of bipartisan “unity” for this one. The result is that banks have lost trillions now, and they have yet to announce the full extent of the damage. They spent trillions of dollars in reserves on risky speculation thanks to the Democrats and Republicans finding something they could agree on, and the result is they are now trying to cover their losses by raising interest rates on homeowners. Nobody is talking about re-regulating banking, and Nobody wants to get to the root of this problem: Wall Street's deathgrip on the government.
And Nobody thinks that the fact nothing is Made in the USA anymore is a serious problem, because Nobody wants to get rid of the free trade deals that are getting us into this mess. Wall Street is making money and Nobody thinks that they might not speak for everybody in America. When American workers are competing with peasants for jobs, wages fall, stay low and people suffer. Nobody has a plan for reversing the bipartisan “unity” record of redistributing wealth from the many to the few. Nobody wants to be accused of “redistributing wealth,” Nobody realizes that wealth is ALWAYS redistributed. Nobody wants to say that the pro-business, capitalist, Wall Street system redistributes wealth upwards. The cash cows and for-profit media don't want to hear that, so Nobody says it. Obama and McCain both support NAFTA, the WTO and every bilateral bill they ever had a vote on. Nobody has a chance of bringing wages, wealth and jobs back to the working people of this country as long as Wall Street finances the campaigns. That's why Nobody Will Save the Economy!
Nobody Will End the War!
When one street in the entire country gets to make the decisions that affect every American neighborhood, it requires a great deal of violence. There is enough to feed, clothe, house, educate and medicate every American, but millions skip meals, live in the streets, rely on hand-me-downs and have no access to medicine. That can only happen if billions and billions of dollars are put into a black hole—destroyed. The most efficient way to do this is with war. Every bullet, bomb, dead soldier who has been housed and fed and trained, every helicopter that crashes flushes thousands of dollars down the toilet. Nobody wants to spend money on ensuring everyone has enough to be free, so we have to burn the money in wars. As long as the pro-business redistribution of wealth continues, so will meaningless wars like Vietnam, the Cold War and Iraq.
And Nobody is talking about the fact that the number one industrial export from the United States is arms. Nobody wants to cut the annual three-quarters of a trillion dollar military budget, because nobody wants to hurt the arms businesses. Nobody seems to think that perhaps making war production the basis of our economy might require us to keep fighting new wars to keep the gears running. Obama and McCain have both said they will INCREASE defense spending, and Nobody says they will withdraw every US soldier from Iraq. Needless to say, Nobody knows how to win there because Nobody has any idea what winning would actually mean. Multi-billion dollar corporations aren't worried, because it makes money for a few and throws trillions more down the tubes. Nobody wants to give that money to everybody, because then the Wall Street types really wouldn't be that special any more. That's why Nobody Will End the War!
Nobody Will Set Us Free!
There are more than 2 million people in prison in the United States; we imprison a higher percentage of our population than almost any other country. Our prisons are dangerous places where rape, murder and gangs are found everywhere, and they do almost nothing to help the people who find themselves there. Nonetheless, almost all of the people in our prisons end up on the streets again at some point, usually to simply turn around and go back. This is especially disturbing when we realize that sixty percent of the people in prison are sent there for nonviolent offenses—most of these for drugs. Nobody wants to talk about whether or not we have too many people in prison, because prisons are big business. Corporate prisons are one of the fastest growing industries in the US, and billions are made off of prison labor. Nobody wants to be seen weak on crime, and the news spends all its energy making us afraid of our own neighbors. Nobody thinks about what a world without prisons might be like. They can't because prisons are built for the same reason wars are fought—to destroy wealth without helping people. Keeping someone in prison costs less than sending a person to college, but if we didn't send millions to prison we would have to spend billions in some other way. The result would be rich people not being quite so special. Nobody wants to see that, so Nobody will promise to send fewer people to jail.
Even besides our prisons, Bush has expanded the power of the executive to have you thrown in jail without trial, tortured, judged by military officers as opposed to a jury, disposessed of your property and to allow the government to spy on you. Nobody will give specifics about which expansions of state power they will end if president, because Nobody wants to give that sort of thing up. Neither Obama nor McCain have said that they would change ANY of Bush's powergrabs. Politicians don't give up power, they seek it out. As long as there are politicians serving as president, the threats to our security—secret arrests, secret prisons, torture, secret surveillance and denial of a trial by jury—will remain on the books. That's why Nobody Will Set Us Free!
Vote For Nobody!
So if Nobody is willing to talk about Big Media's shakedown of our democracy, if Nobody wants to get money completely out of our politics, if Nobody is willing to talk about Wall Street redistributing our wealth into their pockets, if Nobody will talk about getting rid of all our free trade scandals, if Nobody wants to end wars even if they could and if Nobody can stop them as long as they are making billions for a tiny few, if Nobody will start to look for solutions that don't involve the cruelties of prison and if Nobody wants to rollback the violations of our rights under Bush, what are we to do? The only choice for someone who cares about our country not being crass, broke, at war or under tyranny is to Vote for Nobody!
How do you vote for nobody? It is pretty easy really. You have three options for voting for Nobody. The first is the easiest—don't vote. People will tell you that you don't get to complain and that you are failing in some noble duty if you don't vote. But if voting had any real chance at changing things, they would have outlawed it long ago. Neither the Democrats or the Republicans have the vision nor the guts to make the changes that would mean the country we deserve. Neither McCain nor Obama will question capitalism, imperialism, republican democracy or executive power. So not voting makes a lot of sense. Still, politicians and talking heads will call you lazy if you don't vote and they will assume that you are stupid. A better choice is to pick out a Nobody on the ballot. Everybody knows Ralph Nader, and most people know of the Libertarian Party. But Nobody has any illusion that these people are going to win. But they might just stand for what you do, and if enough people vote for them, the major parties will notice that Nobody wants them around any more. Third Party candidates, however, tend to be weird and even if they won they would be so hogtied by the system that very little would likely get done. So a third and final option is to get your write-in ballot and write the word “Nobody” for President. If millions were to pick up write-in ballots and put in “Nobody” and millions more were to vote for a third party, we could keep all the candidates under 50%--Nobody really wins. Sure one of the two Wall Street sponsored candidates will still be in the Oval Office, but with millions choosing Nobody over them, maybe they would have to listen.
In the end, elections aren't meant to change things—they are meant to make us feel like we get to have a part in the show. It is like when a parent lets a little kid sit on their lap and act like they are driving: it keeps them entertained while the grown ups are in charge 100% of the time. The only way to change things is to make the politicians sweat with direct action in the streets. But we should be happy that we get the carnival of elections every other year, and we should make breaking the ballot an important part of breaking the wills of our rulers. So don't forget to register (if you haven't been to jail yet) and in November of 2008, support the only candidate that REALLY cares about your life: NOBODY!
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