[col. writ. 10\21\12] © ’12 Mumia Abu-Jamal
It’s just a few days before the election; and passions are rolling like a river in spring.
For politics in America has become a bloodless sport: my team versus your team; my guy against your guy. And like sports, it’s a perverse form of entertainment: “American Idol” – without the singing.
There are, of course, winners and losers.
But for most people, in their day-to-day lives, after the confetti falls, after the cameras stop rolling, and the lights dim, they return to a life measured more by loss, than gain.
For both candidates are globalists, both are more beholden to big business and Wall Street, than to voters; in truth, both are more alike than they differ.
That’s because both were born outsiders, far from the wealth and power they now enjoy.
Obama was born in Hawaii – the farthest state, to a biracial couple, of modest means.
Romney was born in Mexico, the son, grandson and great-grandson of Mormons – a persecuted sect that almost went to war against the United States in the 1850s, because of a Mormon massacre against Americans in a wagon train –headed for California.
Neither of these guys were born to wealth, and few would guess at their birth that they would reach the pinnacle of U.S. political power.
And yet – in essence – both men are alike. They differ in style, not substance.
Both are trying to manage an empire in decline.
Both are trying to prop up a failing, falling system.
Both men are dyed in the wool capitalists who have profited handsomely in the existing system, as both are millionaires.
Whoever wins, besides symbol, the question is: Have you won?
–© ’12 maj