The two-party U.S. system is political theater designed to promote powerful interests who stand above and behind the parties.
Brotherly operatives. (Beverly & Pack/Flickr/Public Domain)
Consortium News is dedicated to challenging the bi-partisan political class that dominates the U.S. and seeks to dominate the world. The unsophisticated and deceptive mainstream thinking would have us believe the two major U.S. parties have completely different visions of the world.
On some domestic issues that is largely true: abortion and guns come to mind. But on foreign affairs, both parties are driven by interests more powerful than the political authority invested in them and their aim is the same: expand U.S. global dominance, economically, politically and militarily to further enrich America’s rulers with no regard for the democratic rights of peoples. Just look at how many democracies the U.S. has overthrown to install dictators.
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With a capital Z
The NATO world is the Vikings merged with the religious Roman Empire out for raiding, plundering and displacing other people and stealing their resources. Now with wild eyed dreams of full spectrum dominance and permanent war profiteering. Wars are now for corporate takeovers of displaced peoples after the destruction of infrastructure via WMD’s for them to rebuild and repopulate.
The migrants of dispossessed indigenous people by the Spanish religious rule have more in common with Native Americans who too have been displaced and dispossessed of rights and territory. They should not support the religious powers urging them but stand for real rights.
I would argue that there isn’t any real difference in domestic issues . The wedge ,identity politics issues are and have always been a smoke screen. The real owners of this country, and the politicians that they hire, could not care less about abortion , guns, gays , God, trans, and crap that is great in dividing the country who really think there is a difference in parties.
Let’s get to the domestic issues that are really important to the ruling class. You won’t get medicare for all, remember ending welfare as we know it, all employees in all companies forming a union, democracy in the workplace , writing off student debt in bankruptcy . I’m sure we can think of a few more economic domestic issues that are important to the power elite, and hence both parties are united in not giving average citizens what they really want and need. BTW, I guess consortium news didn’t get the memo…. abortion is no longer an issue . Anyone can get the 2 meds that you need to have a safe and successful medical abortion . You can get these meds online from India or through family planning facilities.
Agree totally.
Abortion is a good issue to point out.
Both Obama (in 2008 at a Planned Parenthood speech) and Biden (in 2020 about an hour and ten minutes into his March 15, CNN debate with Bernie) made essentially the exact same promise: “if elected President, the first thing I will do is codify Roe vs Wade into federal law”. Both entered their Presidencies with full control of Congress. Both did nothing. When called out on it, Obama said it was “low priority”. More importantly abortion access is a Democratic talking point that can never be allowed to be resolved. What could they run on then?
Now that SCOTUS has turned the abortion issue over to the States (and scheerpost had an article a year(?) ago saying Ruth Bader Ginsburg wanted the states involved), the Democrats have doubled down and AFTER THIS ELECTION they claim they are really going to do something! Risible.
Thank you for this excellent information.
If I may introduce and Add:
Who was abraham lincoln and does he deserve a statue?
See:
Watch native news online: Native Bidaské with Mark Charles (Diné) on Abraham Lincoln and the Narrative of White Messiahship Jul 11, 2023
And:
Medium: The Faces of Colonization Making the Case for Treaties at Mount Rushmore
Jenni Monet Jul 5, 2020
Along with:
Lakota People’s Law Project Action Center
Return Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills to the Lakota!
.
Ultimately we All need to absolutely understand, this ‘constitutional’, profit driven, corporate, evangelical government Is Absolutely what the usa is and has always been. This governing system is what we All have been supporting, hiding the fact and denying. All while the managerial class bask in their comfort of denialism.
As corporations are people and money is speech; The constitution must be addressed. See Move to Amend.
Sadly folks–including the likes of the big greens themselves–are comfortable playing the game. After ALL we are in a ‘democracy’ and the usa has absolute pride in defending the world by supporting the lesser of the two evils. usa, usa, usa.
Time we stop blaming the ‘system’ and realize it is ‘We The People’, ‘ourselves’, who are accepting our plight. This is our/your ‘elected’ government.
Hitler cited Lincoln’s policies toward the Native Americans, specifically the Long Walk of the Navajo to Bosque Redondo, as the model for his concentration camps.
And of course the Declaration of Independence includes the complaint of George III:
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
That said, the biases and discriminations in countries have changed markedly over the last 300 years and must be looked at in the context of the times. The Irish and Chinese were the lowest of the low after their immigrations started, but despite continual mistreatment were never slaughtered with the world’s condemnation, like the untermenschen in NAZI Germany and by the ZioNAZIs today.
I wholeheartedly agree.
One footnote: At least Jimmy Carter admitted after the Citizens United decision: “the US is an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery”
(The Intercept, Rolling Stone)
I’m so glad to see Carter in that picture. He was every bit as bad as any of them. Just look at East Timor, or Father Oscar Romero. If Reagan hadn’t won and created the Contras, Carter certainly would have.
The problem is 99% of Americans still understand him as the “Human Rights President”, they gave him a Nobel Peace Prize after all. That just shows how deep this is. He’d be better known as the Southern Gentleman Butcher of Central America. Clearing up that confusion for Americans would be far more productive than proving the next Republican is a right winger. Everybody already knows that. But Carter was a far right wing genocidal maniac? That’s news people can learn from.
Like Carter, Barack Obama got his participation trophy from the Nobel cognoscente. In a world with any justice, he would have faced prosecution for war crimes over his frequent use of drones for assassination operations. Who exactly are these people who rule on morality for the rest of us? They are either not terribly bright or deluded. Something to remember when anyone anywhere is given an award.
True Barack Obama arguably possesses the greatest gap between what the public think he is and what he really is than any president of the last 100 years. How many women and children did he burn alive, for fun and profit? He’s demonstrably a true 100% corrupt psychopath with no ability to feel empathy towards anybody. Forget Bush or even Trump, that’s a much more important story for American’s to learn. And one day we will, but it might be 100 years.
Also started arming and training mujahideen with all the consequences that followed.
I am delighted to see this posted as it has never been truer than it is today, The venal empire has superseded the Republic and Americans must take back what is there’s, stolen in the rolling insurrection of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The power structure is defined by those individuals and groups that can do things, can make happen what they wish to happen. Forget political parties as defining goals and ideologies; that is the stage set, the play for the media to perform for the masses. But at the same time the plutocrats that prefer to do their business behind the curtain of public political stories and language wish to be seen as omnipotent and omniscient.
This dance has been going on for a very long time; and will continue on successfully as long as the Great Many can be kept fighting each other over what are ultimately insignificant details. The ‘madness of the King’, even when fully exposed, is seldom enough. Information sources like CN must keep trying— are deeply appreciated by its slim readership — but ‘grand performance’ will go on.
The two-party system – regardless in which country, is NO democracy. Voter(s) have the choice of: take it or leave it – OR – pick the lesser of two evils. Many more political parties are needed to give voters a REAL CHOICE.
Now that we’re officially into 2024, the mob of lesser-evil guilt-trippers are out in full force, punching-down but mostly punching-left, extrapolating on how and why the 2 parties are “totally different” and voter-shaming/blaming anyone who doesn’t agree. We’ll be bombarded all year with faux-hysteria about how this is “the most important election in our lifetime” and how “freedom and democracy is on the line,” I realized some time ago that there are differences between the two, but that they are mostly superficial and, as one poster already astutely noted, only on issues that won’t affect their major donors’ bottom-line negatively. Those of us determined not to be shamed into voting for either ever again, best be prepared. No matter what happens we will be blamed for the results.
Thanks CN for the great work, you’re a beacon of light in a sea of darkness.
The time has come to hold the Uniparty, represented by this photo lineup, responsible for their abject failure of leadership.
Of this group only Bill Clinton had any common sense whatsoever in how he lead the country. Notably, he was the only one who produced a budget surplus while in office. The rest were all beholden to their donors or God knows what.
Having built a disgraceful national debt of over $34 trillion, there is plenty of blame to go around. It used to be the norm to hold some reverence for past Presidents. But the first step toward recovery is to recognize and admit that you have a problem. The failed leadership of each of these men, with the possible exception of Clinton has led us to where we are today. These men should be shamed and scorned for their inability to deliver as much as the smallest innovation or lasting change to Uniparty dominance.
We are a nation blessed with every opportunity for success. Abundant with natural resources, bright minds and sitting safely apart from most of the rest of the world’s problems and turmoil. We would have had to labor to mess it up. And owing to our consistently poor choice of leaders, we are doing just that.
If you keep electing the same incumbents, while expecting change in Washington D.C. then you are part of the problem. We shall reap what we have sown. Our time has come for an honest evaluation of how and why our failure is so thorough and lasting. We have the benefit of knowing all of what hasn’t worked. The men in this photo are the face of that epic leadership failure.
There is a difference between the political parties on guns, abortion, gay and trans rights, and guns. The difference being that the Republicans actively hate gay and trans people and want women barefoot and in the kitchen. The Democrats, by contrast, don’t care if gay and trans people have any rights nor if Republicans keep women from controlling their own bodies, so long as they can fundraiser off those people and do nothing. See, if those issues were actually solved, the money well would dry up.
Exactly!
Thank you CN for reminding us with such clarity why we need you so much.
The late Glen Ford left us with the best description of how the two US political parties really differ. The Democratics, he often said, were not the “lesser”, but “the more effective evil”. As many of the comments have pointed out, this applies just as much “domestically” as it does in “foreign policy”.
The most insidious fiction over two centuries of American history is the idea that elections have anything to do with democracy.
This same US ruling class with the same political aims and agenda has in fact exported this geopolitical model to Europe, only worse. These tame euro lapdogs start to salivate whenever their American masters throw them a bone or two. One visit to the (empty) euro Parliament is enough (measuring about 1 to 5 on the Richter scale) of the euros’ gutless visitation. The largely empty hall was only brought to life by that female Irish firebrand, Clare Daley, who is about the only functioning human being present. Let them have it Clare with both barrels if possible.
The corporate elite has a left and a right wing, they only differ on how to go about increasing profits. Wedge issues, mostly sex related and some social issues are great for election campaigns, keeping up the look of democracy. Gun control is great, there is lots of talk and no real action.
Noam Chomsky used to say (back when he said things that make sense) that the two parties are allowed to differ only on issues that do not affect the bottom line of corporations. That is supposed to sound obviously false to the mainstream democrat voter who measure differences on the level of rhetoric, not actual enacted policies.
Abortion does not affect corporate profits, gun control (except for gun manufacturers), gay marriage (even though the democrats were late to that party).
The democrat party is still gung ho on the death penalty and other issues where they could differ without corporate pushback. So they are more than just economically right wing, the democrat party is philosophically right wing as well.
The one issue that’s hard to fit into this is global warming. To be in the democrat party you have to accept without question that it’s caused by burning fossil fuels and to be a republican you have to doubt that. Yet on the level of policy, the democrat party is in full support of maintaining hegemony over Middle East oil however possible, even if it means fighting multiple wars and spending $1 trillion dollars of taxpayer money. How many innocent women and children (and men too) did Obama murder? So their stance on global warming falls on deaf ears.
the situation will not change with awareness alone. When the media does its job (like Consortium News), the public becomes aware of injustice, problems in the system, issues in the community, corruption etc. There is a missing third step: analysis and reporting by the media, awareness created in the minds of the people… I would say that currently, the third step is a sense of impotent rage and powerlessness. The people are defeated. The third step must be organizing, protests, some type of non-violent action with the threat of violence always present. The United-States needs a third revolution. The one that was stopped in the 60s. It was not difficult to use a combination of assassinations of leaders combined with an avalanche of ideology to infiltrate, distort and destroy the left. Thus, a revolutionary today is a certain brand, a person who campaigns for the margins. Rainbow Reaganomics is not radical. If the people of the United-States do not organize and demand democracy, they will be the victims of the destructive foreign policy of elites. Those elites will escape justice. The only duty of western politicians should be ensuring that the decline of the western order does not completely plunge the population into a post-Soviet style misery.