The American democratic elections soap opera delivered its climax that rivalled the Dallas television series that had the world gripped with the question, who shot J R Ewing? The leading protagonists in this charade were Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and we now know that the “arch-villain”, Trump, triumphed.
A whopping $7 billion was spent to lure viewers, or the voters, to watch them hurl insults at each other week-in and week-out. Those monitoring the razzmatazz found in their speeches that Hillary Clinton lied once every three minutes, whilst Donald Trump told a lie every minute!
This, then, is what Western democracy is about. A population of 320 million people spat out two adversaries of such dismal quality resented by most people. Trump is a bigoted, perverse and overtly racist candidate that appealed to a constituency of Whites who are economically marginalised.
He took up the anti-establishment mantra pandering to the hopes of the mainly white electorate, promising to “make America great again”, which read as make America white again. No Muslims, no Mexicans or Latinos, and no brown immigrants. These are the type of people that have sullied the USA.
Clinton, on the other hand, was packaged as representing America’s elite. An experienced, suave and committed agent of the establishment, she was a prized candidate for the Multi-National-Corporations and their paid media outlets, the Military-Industrial- Complex, and the political aristrocacy.
Her loyalty was evident in her enthusiastic bombing campaigns, invasions and occupation of many countries, her pliability to powerful Washington Lobbies, and willingness to cosy-up to despots and tyrants in the Middle East and elsewhere.
This election fiasco has surely exposed America’s claim to be the model and champion of democracy. The Booker-prize-winning author Arundhati Roy wrote about democratic elections stating “It’s not a real choice, It’s an apparent choice. Like choosing a brand of detergent, whether you buy Ivory Snow or Tide, both are owned by Proctor and Gamble.”
There will be no drastic change under a Trump presidency. Democracy is essentially a tool in the hands of the rich and powerful to legitimise their ill-gotten gains. It is a system designed to perpetuate the dominance of the West to enrich the chosen elite by war, invasion, killing and plunder.
Democracy is used as a tool to create the illusion that the masses have a say in who should govern them and to administer their affairs. A further illusion is that people are ‘free’ to choose their leaders -when the options offered have already been pre-determined. The masses are essentially treated no better than mice and told they can choose between a black or white cat to “protect” them.
Many of the so-called democracies are bad examples of projecting human rights and sound values. India claims to be the “largest” democracy but occupies Kashmir and practices a rigid caste system akin to religious apartheid; Zionist Israel claims to be the “only” democracy in the Middle East but invades and occupies Palestine with impunity and is an Apartheid entity; and the UK the “oldest” and USA the “strongest” democracies wage global wars to rape and pillage the resources of poorer countries in violation of international law.
There is little difference between the silver-tongued and smooth-talking president Barack Obama, who has launched more wars than his predecessor George Bush, and the racist demagogue president-elect Donald Trump cranking up anti-immigrant hysteria among ill-informed Americans already pre-conditioned by corporate media outlets.
So, whilst we watch the shenanigans of the best democracy America can buy, we also wait for the next billion dollar soap opera, and who knows, J R Ewing may just be resurrected.
(Dr) Firoz Osman
EXECUTIVE MEMBER: Media Review Network
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