From The Ramparts

                                                  

                                                 From The Ramparts

                                                Junious Ricardo Stanton

                                                  

            Both the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Ohio and the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia are fraught with controversy and hypocrisy but with recent events: the attempted coup in Turkey, the bombings in Nice and the shooting of Blacks and police officers here in the US we will see just how deranged corrupt and megalomaniacal the American political process really is. The two major political parties are really two sides of the same coin a corporate owned duopoly created and put in place to do the bidding of the 1%.

              In Cleveland the Republicans nominated Donald Trump a wealthy real estate mogul with no governance experience whatsoever as their standard bearer. The Democrats will nominate the consummate 1%er, Washington insider and warmonger Hillary Clinton. Trump is the fly in the buttermilk for the Republican Party. The ruling class hates Donald Trump because he openly proclaims the system is rigged against working stiffs and routinely lambasts D.C. politicians for their ineptitude, greed and malfeasance.  He mocks their sacrosanct positions on war, NATO, and the economy.

            Trump frightens Republicans with his off the cuff, ill thought out rhetoric. The party even went against the will of the people, tried to dump him but failed. How can a party that nominated an idiot like George W. Bu$h, who only won because the US Supreme Court packed with Reagan and Bu$h appointees interfered with the vote count fear someone like Trump? If the bland totally white bread Republicans could nominate lames like John McCain and Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan how in the world can they not want an attention grabbing,  pop culture icon like Donald Trump? He's the perfect circus ringmaster. Obviously the reason they fear Trump is because he is an outsider, he's not one of the political class good ol' boys.

            Hillery Clinton doesn't have that problem. She is the consummate 1% insider, crook and warmonger. She is the candidate of Wall Street, the military industrial complex, Big Pharma and fast money. For her that's a problem and Trump will blast her to high heaven for it, is her entitlement attitude and her long record of cronyism and deception.

            Hillery Rodham cut her teeth working for Barry Goldwater an ultra conservative who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights legislation and all other progressive social legislation. Ever the opportunist Hillary married Bill Clinton and embarked on a life of "public service" that has made them rich beyond their wildest dreams.

            As president Bill Clinton sold out the traditional Democratic Party constituency: organized labor, Blacks, women and progressives when he and Al Gore replicated Nixon's Southern Strategy, courted corporate money and pivoted towards a neoliberal globalist agenda that facilitated US jobs being shipped overseas. That corporate partnership and their years of access to the rich and well connected both legal and illegal have made Bill and Hillery super rich.

            Both national conventions are circuses. They will trot out their most eloquent speakers, hoop, holler, lie and make promises they have no intention of keeping. Both parties will attempt to soothe the angst, anxiety and contempt the masses feel towards the political process. They will try to convince the American people they are sincere, that they feel our pain and will make things right again. They will put on a great show, spend lots of money then hit the campaign trail determined to maintain the status quo.

            Don't fall for the okey-doke. Neither party has our best interests at heart. Neither party is going to redirect the trillions currently going to the military industrial complex to rebuilding the crumbling American infrastructure. Neither party is going to reevaluate US foreign policy, to go from war to peace, neither party is going to disengage the US from NATO and neither party is going to minimize the influence of the NRA, Wall Street, AIPAC or other special interest group money in politics. Neither party is going to embrace the desire for real change or do something for the people for a change. Hey be happy the circuses will give us some very entertaining moments.