The vacuity of American culture was on display — during our 2018 mid-term elections

07 November 2018

A couple of post-midterm points

American elections are about the Establishment wagging emoting sheep to its will.

US electioneering is also about ignoring everything that would concern us, if we were conscious.

Chris Hedges indirectly made the first point

He wrote that:

There is perhaps no better illustration of the deep decay of the American political system than the Senate race in New Jersey.

Sen. Bob Menendez, running for re-election, was censured by the Senate Ethics Committee for accepting bribes from the Florida businessman Salomon Melgen, who was convicted in 2017 of defrauding Medicare of $73 million.

His Republican rival in the Senate race that will be decided Tuesday is Bob Hugin, whose reported net worth is at least $84 million.

With Hugin as its CEO, the pharmaceutical firm Celgene made $200 million by conspiring to keep generic cancer drugs off the market, according to its critics.

Celgene . . . also doubled the price of the cancer drug Revlimid to some $20,000 for a supply of 28 pills.

The United States is so politically and morally corrupt that we do not recognize putrescence.

Army Major Danny Sjursen made my second point

He said that:

The United States military is actively fighting in seven Muslim-majority countries; and no one cares.

[No election-directed television commercials] . . none, I repeat, none, say a thing about American foreign policy, the nation’s ongoing wars, or the exploding, record defense budget.

[W]hile the populace reflexively . . . adulates our “heroes” in uniform, it has been programmed to ignore the actual travails of our troopers.

So long as there is no conscription of Americans’ sons and daughters, and so long as taxes don’t rise . . . the people are quite content to allow less than 1% of the population fight the nation’s failing wars – with no questions asked.

Both mainstream wings of the Republicans and Democrats like it that way.

They practice the politics of distraction . . . all the while basking in the . . . riches bestowed . . . by the corporate military industrial complex.

Everyone wins, except . . . the soldiers doing multiple tours of combat duty, and . . . the people of the Greater Middle East . . . .

Soldiers are political props and little else – meant to be “thanked,” paraded at sporting events, and then effectively ignored – the new American way.

The moral? — What is a conscientious wool-bearer to do?

As Sjursen put it:

The whole charade is little more than politics-as-entertainment, like some popular sporting event in which the opposing sides wave the flag for the blue team or the red team.

Fighter jets flying overhead at the beginning of football games. And military color guards looking ceremonially smart.

While thousands of people, who do not care about the death and maiming done in America's name, loudly chant — "USA, USA, USA".

If I were more cynical, I would laugh.

Instead, sadness wins.

PeteFree.com

The vacuity of American culture was on display — during our 2018 mid-term elections