Capitalist Democracy at its finest – the choice between Obama and Romney is no choice at all

When Obama was first elected 4 years ago, amidst much euphoria, my blog post ‘Obama – the Black face of capitalism’ was heavily criticised.  I suspect that today, as Obama wages a drone war in Pakistan, there will be fewer critics.  The only thing going for Obama is that he is not Romney.

A couple of nights ago I was utterly frustrated by the drivel that passes for commentary on the US elections, not least in the Guardian.  Before hitting the pillow, I decided to pen an angry missive.

Comparing the initial version with that which is printed, the only sentence which was cut was ‘To put it bluntly, the Guardian’s coverage of the US Presidential election is just another example of it dumbing down.’ 

I guess I should have expected that to be cut!  But the point is a somewhat more profound one, which is that we live in societies where multi-national corporation and capital rule.  The Police do their bidding.  Individuals are forced to survive and are pitted, one against another, to keep people from directing their anger at those responsible.  Unemployed v employed, black v white or today Moslem v Christian, and all the other sub-divisions that prevent the poor uniting against the rich.

At the same time we learn that Starbucks, through clever accounting dodges, has paid no tax whatsoever in the past 3 years and virtually none in the past decade on over  £3 billion trade.  Of course Cameron and Clegg will pay lip service to the need to crack down on the spivs, speculators and tax dodgers, but it is the poor who are called ‘benefit thieves’ (New Labour) whilst the rich get away scott free with literally murder.

We have the cascading sexual abuse stories of young children – stories of kids being taken out of their North Wales children’s homes by politicians, lawyers and police to be abused at will.  Of course no one in power knew anything and the judge who presided over the first enquiry made sure that no one was named via a blanket court order.

So it is that the land of the free, the home of western democracy, pits Obama against  Romney, with near enough $1 billion spent on either side to convince people to vote for someone who will go to war on behalf of Mobil and Exxmon.

Truth was that the differences between Romney and Obama were insignificant.  One was more socially liberal and that was it.  Both believe in the use of US military power to enforce a world order whereby the US is ‘entitled’ to help itself to other countries natural resources and in the case of the Middle East by keeping parasitic rulers in power by arming them to the teeth, whilst hypocritically weeping crocodile tears over the dead in Syria’s civil war that they have inflamed.

Cameron is reported in yesterday’s Guardian as defending arms sales to Gulf Rulers such as the blood drenched King of Bahrain as ‘legitimate’.  Presumably his use of torture against doctors and nurses who treated protestors in Bahrain was also ‘legitimate’ as is the practice of cutting of people’s limbs in Saudia Arabia if they steal a loaf of bread whilst the ruling royal family steals the country’s mineral wealth.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/05/david-cameron-arms-sales-gulf.  

The tragedy of it is that there is virtually no socialist opposition to the rule of capital in Britain any longer.

Tony Greenstein