Election Scenarios -- What's Next?

As we all wait with baited breath for the final outcome of another divisive election season its time to put it all in perspective.

The only "electable" candidates in our country are pre-chosen as "front-runners" by our elite and then, we get to vote for the electors that will cast the actual votes -- though they are not required to tie their votes to ours. Alternative candidates get very few if any electors and so can't win even if we all voted for them. In short, our electoral system is a joke, a sham, as is our democracy. The ruling elite will select the candidate with whom they feel their investment is safest.

While many comfort themselves with the illusion that Obama, undoubtedly the "lesser of evils" with herald change, how much change can we really expect from someone who has received more than $37 million from lawyers and lobbyists, $21.6 million from the communications and electronics industries, and $16 million from health care interests? He is part of and beholden to the same interests that have had influence all along. The support for "health care interests" all but guarantees we won't see real national health care on his watch.

As Michael Parenti has explained, the real power however lies with the state, those unelected, behind the scenes high level apparatchiks who decide what is possible for our elected officials to do and what isn't.

As this corrupt system implodes due to conflicts with economic, ecological and political reality, it will be up to all of us to build a real alternative on the ground. We can learn much for the Argentine experience. We must come together and build real community support systems that can give our neighbors some semblance of hope and security in the very hard time ahead no matter which corporate candidate is selected and we must do this in earnest ASAP. Thousands of us are already facing homelessness as foreclosures continue and work dries up. You can bet that the same hate-mongering employed by the Repugs in this selection will be used to divert public anger into scapegoating and fascist violence. Without real alternatives that provide material security they will draw support of many desperate people with nowhere to turn.

If this election is stolen like the last two, we should be out in the streets. We can tap that anger to build a stronger movement of resistance which must be the foundation for the on the ground alternatives we must build. If Obama is the next President, we must keep the heat on him to follow through with a break from the policies of the last eight years including an end to the so-called Patriot Act and stop the planned use of troops against US citizens.