Aug 20, 2024

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

One bizarre thing about modern US presidential races is watching politicians in one of the most dystopian civilizations ever to exist warning people that the other candidate wants to lead them into a dark dystopia, which depending on the party they label “communism” or “fascism”.

Yesterday I saw an amazingly idiotic tweet by Chuck Schumer responding to an equally idiotic tweet by Donald Trump. Trump had tweeted an AI image of Kamala Harris addressing the DNC convention in Chicago with a crowd full of red flags beneath a giant hammer and sickle, the suggestion of course being that Harris is a communist and the Democrats are a communist political party.

“The guy who loves Putin is projecting again,” Schumer said in response to Trump’s tweet.

I mean, where do you even start with this? Russian president Vladimir Putin is not a communist, Russia is not a communist country, and the Soviet Union ended more than three decades ago — all facts that the average fifth grader could have told the majority leader of the US senate.

Perhaps more significantly, Kamala Harris is about as far from a communist as anyone could possibly be, and the Democratic Party is devoutly capitalist. Ideologically Harris is much, much closer to Donald Trump than she is to communism, and from a communist point of view there isn’t a great deal of difference between Harris and Trump. They’re both imperialist lackeys of neoliberal capitalism, are both devoted to the US empire’s goal of stomping out communism around the world by any means necessary, and are both pledged to continue the exploitation, oppression, ecocide and warmongering of the status quo capitalist order if elected.

But this is all these freaks do every four years. Trump, who spent his entire presidential term ramping up cold war aggressions against Moscow, is accused of wanting to turn America into a fascistic autocracy ruled by Vladimir Putin. The Democrats, who play just as crucial a role in preserving the capitalist status quo as Republicans, are accused of trying to institute communism. All while campaigning to lead a nation that is arguably more dystopian than anything they claim the other candidate wants to create.

The US is the most tyrannical regime on the entire planet. No other power structure on earth has spent the 21st century killing people by the millions in wars of aggression. No other government is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases, waging nonstop wars around the world, and working to destroy any population on earth who disobeys its dictates via invasions, proxy conflicts, bombing campaigns, starvation sanctions, staged coups and covert ops.

This is all held in place using the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed. Americans are the most propagandized population on earth, successfully manipulated into thinking, speaking, laboring, spending, acting and voting exactly how the powerful want them to in a mind-controlled dystopia — all while believing themselves to be free. This propaganda machine extends its reach throughout the world, with most of its firepower focused on its close allies who are effectively member states in a globe-spanning empire.

The only reason the US empire isn’t seen for the horrifying blood-soaked dystopia it is is because of that very propaganda machine, which normalizes and glorifies this freakish status quo through both its “news” media and its mainstream culture manufacturing centers in New York and Los Angeles.

From the heart of this tyrannical nightmare, politicians warn that if you don’t vote for them you will find yourself in a nation that has been transformed into a tyrannical nightmare.

But what else are they going to do? Campaign on their actual policies and point out their actual differences from the other candidate? They don’t have any real differences. They’re both auditioning for the job of temporary mid-level management of the US empire, and you don’t get to have that job if you are in any way opposed to the interests of that empire.

Either of them will preside over the continuation of imperialist extraction, warmongering, militarism and genocide. Either of them will preside over the continuation of capitalist exploitation and ecocide. Either of them will preside over the continued expansion of authoritarian measures like surveillance, censorship, propaganda, government secrecy, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, and the war on journalism.

But they can’t just come out and say that. They wouldn’t be this close to getting the job if they were the types to say that. Saying that would wake people up to the reality of how profoundly unfree they really are, opening up the possibility for the birth of a real revolutionary movement.

So they babble about the other candidate wanting to usher you into some frightening future dystopia, hoping you won’t notice that dystopia is already here.

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