Once again, I find myself with the dreaded Election Day blues, having to vote for the lesser of two evils, the evilest being the Mormon anti-Christ Mitt Romney, and the lesser evil for me, Barack Obama, despite his branding by many Democrats and liberals, myself included, as too weak to take down the Republicans.
Perhaps it’s because Obama visited the victims as well as governors of New York and New Jersey so promptly after Hurricane Sandy, and ordered a generous relief program from FEMA to go to work post haste, speaking daily with Governor Cuomo, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the Republican New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie. Whether or not most of this is politics, I frankly don’t doubt. But I couldn’t see Romney here unless to help Bain Capital line up the governments of these states for chopping up, the way he raped corporations from his CEO days.
Obama’s presence here gives me some reason to vote for him, in the self-interest of my family, neighboring states and all the storm victims I’m seeing on TV from morning to night. They’re suffering the loss of homes and everything they owned—in a state of shock resembling 9/11’s victims’ families. Though the deaths have not been nearly so high, the trauma of shock is there, particularly because the thermometer has plunged quickly as food supplies leave many hungry and in the cold, refugees of the storm. But help is on the way, help is here, and more is coming.
The government members assembled as a team numbers Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, Michael Bloomberg, NYC Mayor, Senators Chuck Schumer, Kristin Gillibrand of New York and Joseph Lhota, the head of the MTA, who has performed miracles in getting the subways up and farther reaching in a matter of days.
This is far cry from Katrina and the half-interested Bush staring out the window of an airplane five days after the monster storm hit. FEMA was nowhere in sight while citizens of New Orleans floated on and in the risen waters, largely on their own for days and days. The death toll was massive as was the administration’s disinterest. I can’t imagine the wax-faced Romney and his mean minion Paul Ryan, doing much of anything, but rather letting as much go wrong as possible.
What’s more the two, like all Republicans, forget to mention Obama received a $700 billion ransom note from Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, on his first day on the job. He also received the bill for trillions in Bush tax cuts to the rich. Worst of all in 2010, he received a Republican House whose main mission, as per the dictate Senator Mitch McConnell, was that Obama was to be a one-term president. The Republicans come from a long line of selfish spoilers, including Bush, Cheney, the neocons, Bush Sr., all the way back to Hoover.
Yet, I already hear liberal voices rebutting, decrying Obama is a drone murderer, has done nothing to buttress the storm of financial violence that has hit and paralyzed our economy. Yet, as I said, there is Obama on the tarmac with Christie, thick and thin, and action is being taken to help millions of people in Jersey. Romney is in action trying to gobble up as many of the last-minute votes as he can, even as his old company, Bain, owns a company that produces vote-hacking machines. Read this article in full. Here is some of it . . .
“Several tanker trucks full of political ink have been spilled on Mitt Romney’s tenure as a vulture capitalist at Bain Capital,” Bello and Fitrakis wrote. “A more important story, however, is the fact that Bain alumni, now raising big money as Romney bundlers are also in the electronic voting machine business. This appears to be a repeat of the infamous former CEO of Diebold Wally O’Dell, who raised money for Bush while his company supplied voting machines and election management software in the 2004 election.”
“Lee Fang at The Nation recently confirmed the Free Press reporting in a story of his own on the ‘crony capitalism’ of Tagg Romney, whose father’s money and high-profile connections present a number of troubling corporate conflicts of interest should Mitt Romney become President. The Daily Dolt also followed up with a very well-documented article on the H.I.G. group, their connections to Bain, and their takeover of Hart Intercivic.
“Hart’s announcement of the deal describes H.I.G.’s role as “co-investors”, though the financial services firm which brokered the deal described it in their own announcement as a full-fledged acquisition: “Hart Intercivic was acquired by HIG Capital late last week. The deal caps off a 2+ year relationship with Hart! Congrats to both Hart and the HIG team. . . . it’s going to be a great partnership!” Great of course is meant ironically here, given the skullduggery that’s going on.
If I had to choose these felons over Obama, despite his faults, his NDAA, his “Kill List,” his surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, the remaining mercenaries in Iraq, the doubt surrounding the real date of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the general police-state cloud that has descended on us—and everything Abby Martin from RT.com’s BreaktheSet could assault me with, I would still stick with the Obama I see in action, helping our people, than take on the devils I don’t know.
As to the Independent Presidential Candidates, as excellent as the four prominent contenders I saw on RT sounded, I realize that in this finely-honed two-party system of ours, the operative response would be “fuhgeddabodit.” Traditionally, the two-party system has meant, choice is impossible, unless it means from dumb to dumber, mean to meaner, rats to rattier, Uncle Junior to Tony Soprano. It’s the Capos and Capos de Capos in the catbird seats that chose the party members and the presidential candidates.
If we could break this choke-collar that the two-party system put around America’s neck, so it’s true voices couldn’t he heard, my election-day blues would vanish like Hurricane Sandy. At the bottom of all this voting suffering is always the Monopoly Party, made up of Republicans and Democrats, the lone party of the banksters, their lackeys, and varying shades of evil protagonists.
Then there is the Electoral College voting system, from Article II of the Constitution and amended by the 12th Amendment in 1804, the days of rampant racism. It can deny the presidency to the candidate with the most votes. How cynical is that, a candidate who can attract several races or ethnic groups (including whites) to give him a plurality can be denied victory, because party hacks are voting with blocks of Electoral College votes, too often in redistricted precincts, to favor their choices? Recent cheating techniques also find ways to prohibit seniors, students and minorities, with bogus registration regulations, special voter I.D.s, short polling hours, even robocalls that tell voters they can vote with the phone call. Not.
But, just rolling all this out for you and me is alleviating some of my Election Day blues like a bad headache. I want to vote my conscience. And the fact that I still live in a city, a state that did not, will not drown in the merciless surge of a hurricane, I have a presidential choice, despite his various faults, a choice that is not totally tone-deaf and indifferent to the voice of the people—at least this time.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
