Let me give you the point of view of an European Leftist on what is happening:
The United States of America are on the brink of a major revolution. I am not talking about some fuzzy "internet revolution" or similar hogwash but the real McCoy.
I mean armed uprising, riots, civil war. The full Monty.
I know, I know, you are going to say that this is impossible, no way, I am being pessimistic etc.
Let us look at a few facts after the jump:
What are classical harbingers of revolutions?
* Increasing economic divide between lower and upper classes. The bigger and more obscene the divide the bigger the likelihood of a revolution — check
* Shortage and/or massive rise in prices of important goods such as food or gas. If I am not mistaken we are witnessing a massive price increase in
both and it’s getting worse — check
* A disconnect of the ruling/privileged class from the general populace, i.e. elitist arrogance. In this case both corporate fat cats AND the political class — check
* Increased oppression and slashing of civil rights — check
* A solidarization of the intelligentsia with the "oppressed" or underprivileged classes while propaganda from government/privileged classes increases — uhm, check?
There are a more indicators of course and although one could talk endlessly about every single one of those above I would like to quickly elaborate on the last one.
The gotcha games the MSM used to play were possible in previous elections because there wasn’t really much at stake. Yes, yes, you are going to tell me how important that or the other issue is and so on. But let me tell you from an outsider’s point of view that all this was rather silly.
America was a rich country and as long as you were willing to work you were pretty much ok. Nobody could attack you and it was pretty clear that America is going to bomb/invade some small country every few years to field test a new generation of weapons and/or tactics.
Elections were a popularity contest about who has the better hair and looks more pesidential on TV and the candidates were representatives from different wings of the same party.
Well, this has changed, hasn’t it?
People are struggling. Not struggling to climb the ladder but struggling for their and their children’s livelihood. After the privileged class has first denied them a fair share of their labor’s value (stagnating wages while manager and CEO salaries and bonii skyrocket), looted their savings (internet bubble), looted the last depot of wealth of common people (their houses), and now resorting to extorting money from people for their health and lives with prices for health care and medicine which crossed the border to daylight robbery long time ago, forcing people into debt and bankruptcy. And lest I forget, there has been an absolutely worrying development in the last years regarding SLAVE LABOR. Yes, right, slave labor. Ten thousands of males have been imprisoned due to unfair laws and justice and then forced to provide basically free labor to corporations. Uhm, these practices are not too different from labor camps in dictatorships (where the prisoners were also ‘guilty’ of something and sentenced by a justice system put in place by a law-and-order government under the cheers of the frightened population). Next thing coming up: Harvesting of organs like in China.
This is outrageous but not surprising as the ckickens are coming home to roost and after exploiting pretty much the whole globe and now facing stiff competion of other players like China, India, and Brazil, the US corporations have resorted to the last market they have not sucked dry until recently: the American Homeland.
The people are understandably outraged and demand action (Welcome to the club. Do you now understand why all over the world American flags have been burned?). In previous elections it was easy to distract, you only had to find a big enough gotcha or push enough buttons to distract from a pressing issue. However, this time there are not enough buttons to push and by panically pushing ALL buttons hard and often this tool is being overused and backfires.
Enter the debate: This is exactly what happened. Too many buttons, too hard, and too often.
I would not be surprised if this is going to create a serious backlash for ABC and the MSM in general. Possibly for HRC as well, but not necessarily. But it does not matter because the most important step is for the people to stop believing ruling propaganda.
A quick side-step: In developmental psychology change processes are analyzed into 4 stages: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.
Alpha is when everything is ok and fine. Business as usual, no need to change anything.
Beta is when circumstances or parameters have changed and the usual strategies do not work anymore. The individuals or organisations facing this stage always resort to the same strategy: more of the same. Work harder. Hit harder. Invest more resources. The problem is that the results fail to materialize.
Once it is clear that the old ways won’t do it becomes obvious to some parts of the system that there has to be some serious change.
If this change is a more or less peaceful and organized one it is called positive Gamma and can lead to a higher evolved system. A positive Gamma does not have to be peaceful, the American Revolution would be an example of a positive Gamma. However, there is serious danger of having a negative Gamma, which means conflict, drama, chaos and then something new out of that chaos. This can be better but in most cases will not be.
Delta would be the new equillibrium, shaky and requiring some maturing but already pointing in the right direction and leading to a new Alpha.
What we are witnessing in this election is a battle between Beta (Clinton, McCain) and positive Gamma (Obama). The forces of the status quo however do not realize that they can not stop Gamma, they never do.
This election, and the way an Obama administration is going to perform, is the crossroads for the American Nation. Either reform or revolution. The powers to be are not going to cede their powers voluntarily. They never do. If Obama fails, there will be someone else and there is no guarantee that this is not going to be someone like Lenin, or worse, Hitler.
But after so much gloom, cheer up! Here come the good news:
If the nation and people in question were anyone else but America and the Americans I would stick a fork in them.
The Americans however, have proven to be a very special people and to have the incredible ability to do the right thing (after trying all other options to quote Winston C. here). Obama is going to be the next president and you can count yourself lucky. You are probably the luckiest bastards in the universe to have such a leader emerging then when you need him the most.
On the other hand, you should never forget what is at stake and what awaits should you fail.
Cheers,
Sebastian
Update: This is my first diary so please forgive the beginner's mistakes. And as I am not a native speaker same goes for mistakes in grammar and choice of words. Thanks :-)
Update II: I have added a poll. Let's see ...