I am consecutively stuffing my ears with various airline earplugs, in order not to hear the news blasted on the radio.
I am closing my eyes when the topic appears on TV, even on RT or Press TV.
I skip newspaper headlines.
I beg my friends, comrades and relatives not to bring up the subject in front of me.
I don’t want to know anything about the US Presidential elections!
It is not some sort of pose or “rebellion”; it is just an honest, powerful fear of having my brain damaged, my thoughts derailed from searching for alternative humanistic and political concepts.
I see no need to know who, from all those already pre-approved by the Regime and therefore allowed to “compete”, is going to get nominated by his or her political gang, and who will be finally mounting the saddle of that static wooden horse which is as a rule galloping nowhere, inspires no one and only jumps around crushing with its heavy murderous horseshoes everything and everyone who dares to demand true freedom.
Go and follow elections; even participate in them! If you believe in Western multi-party “democracy”, good for you! Or bad!
Decades, in fact centuries, of the terrible stagnant political scene in North America and Europe has taught you nothing? Then go for it and stick those pieces of marked paper into a carton box!
It was done for ages, that paper insertion. The same thing, when slaves were being chained and shifted from Africa to that “New World”, when hundreds of millions were exterminated by Western colonialism, when the Chinese people were brought to North America for horrible labor, and treated like animals.
It was done when the first and the second generation of Europeans were annihilating almost the entire native population of North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.
The West created elections. So that the elites from within the white race, as well as the white race in general, could justify the brutality with which they have been ruling the world. They need to feel that they are fulfilling the wishes of the world, or at least of their own citizens.
The moneyed and bellicose clans always get elected; there are ways to assure it.
Several Greek philosophers protested: they were defending direct democracy, the direct “rule of the people”. They were sidelined, or silenced altogether.
*
During the previous US Presidential elections I was in Nairobi, Kenya, where my good friend, an Indian bookseller at Yaya Center, was pushing on me several Greek classics.
“Why?” I asked him.
“So you see even clearly what is happening across the Ocean.”
“And what is happening?”
He mentioned the elections. I had no clue … I had been blocking them successfully from my mind.
While filming in the Democratic Republic or Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, while writing intensively about Zimbabwe, South Africa, Egypt and Somalia, I was developing an extremely clear picture of what the Empire was doing, and how it was liquidating tens of millions of innocent people.
I did not need elections to understand. There was no necessity to know who is actually warming the chairs with their buts inside the White House.
I knew plenty about Obama’s Kenyan connection (I even knew, personally, his grandmother), including his father’s deadly involvement in Kenyan politics, when he was acting on behalf of the West and helping to destroy the African Left. I knew about his Indonesian stepfather, a military officer who was participating in the horrendous purges of 1965/66, right after the US-backed military coup, which killed between 2 and 3 million people.
Obama or Clinton, one Bush or another… Could someone still honestly believe that it matters who is the President?
Or is this voting and “following the elections” just some expression of extreme intellectual laziness, of the need for entertainment of the lowest grade? Is gazing at television screens and listening to the debates really so much different from just statically watching baseball or football games?
If Mr. Trump or Ms. Clinton wins, it would most likely make the same difference as if the ball flew in between three poles, on the right or left side of the field.
For some people it matters. Tens of millions of fans in Europe, North and South America see their lives revolving around games. Real games or video games… It is a matter of life and death. And so are the elections, even if they are meaningless and change nothing.
*
If I submerge myself into analyses of that entertainment and propaganda farce, the real meaning of what is happening in the world would escape me.
It is simply designed that way: concentrate on games, pop and junk, as well as elections, and forget about the big picture – what the Empire is doing to our World.
I always want to ask my readers in California, New York or Texas: did something significant change in your life just because G.W. Bush ascended to the White House, or maybe Obama? Apart from those irrational and religious whispers like “Yes We Can!”
The Regime has nothing to do with those “elected leaders”; it only produces them, as it produces ISIS, or propaganda or Western supremacist feelings. They are simply screened by the system, then pitched against each other like fighting roosters, then paraded as some religious symbol with hardly any power.
They are like some huge advertisement boards promoting the Western Global Dictatorship, and frankly, I hate advertisement.
And so I beg to be spared this appalling circus.
I work in the real world, where millions are dying, actually right now, at this very moment, in order to feed the West – to aliment its corporations, military and citizens.
And their screams and agony resonate in my ears every single day, every hour. I do not want victims to be muted or overpowered by some pre-chewed speeches and advertisement gigs.
Like ancient Greeks, like the Vietnamese or Chinese, like the Cubans, I don’t believe in “representative democracy”, be it in the United States, Europe, Indonesia or India.
In the past, I played that game. I played it long enough. I did not vote, but I wrote about elections.
I finally understood the limitations. I managed to get totally disgusted with the concept. “Democracy” as promoted by the West, is serving just a tiny minority, the few rotten members of the “elite”.
The rest has to serve, or suffer, or even die! Of course in the West people are free to choose which of their “leaders” will be raping Africa, the Middle East or Asia.
Who will be overthrowing the truly democratic governments in independent countries? Who will be whipping the buttocks of the patriots? Who will be looting Congo and Papua?
They can choose the face, like in some violent video game. The engine, the system behind that face (or call it a mask), is permanent. It does not change.
To understand the world, to grasp how it ticks, one has to go to the real countries, talk to real people, and discuss real issues. The answers are not in the pre-election debates. They are buried in Afghanistan, Bolivia, and Papua, Yemen and in so many devastated places.
It is essential to understand how the Empire, the monolith, really rules, loots, rapes and controls.
The color of the surface of the machine of violence, the mask that is glued over its control tower, is irrelevant. Male or female face… Who cares? Republican or Democrat? What difference does it make?
I ignore it, like others who do not believe in some primitive fairytales.
Like my comrades, I have to think about how to get us out of this filthy shit created by the Empire! For that, I cannot waste time on the US elections!
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.
Brilliant!