Aside from issues like refusal to raise the minimum wage to a livable wage, or failure of almost half of the states to accept the federal government’s free expansion of Medicaid to give millions of more poor people health care, or President Obama’s behind the scenes, secretive effort to impose another “free trade” agreement on our country and others in the Pacific, aside from all this. .  . what really burns my ass and sickens me right now is the sense of hopelessness I feel when the seemingly inevitable match-up between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush for the presidential election of 2016 is brought up.

It’s bad enough that even before the mid-term elections, there is so much early speculation of who will run for president in 2016.  Part of what is driving this, besides a pathetic, mainstream media infra-structure engaged in continual propaganda, is what could be termed America’s infatuation with celebrity and dynasty.  If Hillary Clinton, wife and first lady of former popular President Bill Clinton, were not preparing for a likely run; and if Jeb Bush,  former governor of Florida and more importantly, brother to George W. Bush, America’s former most un-popular president in modern times, and son to the first President Geogre H.W. Bush. .  . perhaps there would not be as much interest in the 2016 contest.  Americans may not really care all that much about 2016 yet, but if it involves all the superficial trappings of a bad reality tv show, then by all means, let CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and all the rest beat the horse into the ground.  And in the process, beat it into our heads that our political oligarchy has already settled on a handful of puppets to serve them in the future.

Polls indicate that American voters continue to feel more cynical and apathetic than ever.  “Hope and Change” worked good for one group since President Obama took the helm at the start of the Great Recession:  the Wall Street financial industry.  They are doing fantastic.  Their architects of the economic melt down were appointed high level positions in the Obama Administration, or received huge bonuses after the bail outs.  Their stocks are soaring.  The financial regulation that was threatened was watered down to a level tolerable to them, and the too big to fails are even bigger now.   And they have no need to fear any politician reigning them in too much, so long as one of their two puppets, Hillary or Jeb, gets the next presidency.  But Americans DO have a choice to not accept this, they just have to be willing to look a little harder and a little more closely at alternative choices, and reject the media’s narrative and guidance towards more of the status quo.

I talk with many people on a regular business who feel passionate about the state of our society, our laws, our economy, our politics, but who feel utterly hopeless or cynical that any solution is possible politically.  There is good reason for this, as what our government does is not reflective of what the majority of our country wants, no matter how we vote.  Polls show most Americans think that our political system serves a very small group of wealthy, special interests, and they are absolutely right.  But what we must not forget is that the corporate interests that have currently hijacked our democracy, still do so with our votes, for the most part (although the Supreme Court has been known to install a president who did not win the popular vote or the Florida recount).

We know how they do this.  The mega corporations, oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, banks, weapons of war manufacturers, insurance companies, tele-communications companies, and their incestuous lot of billionaires holding multiple positions of power within these industries, throw hundreds of millions of dollars towards the candidates’ campaigns and then their lobbyists to shape government policy to enrich  themselves even further.   All this money is spent to buy our votes.

Let’s stop giving it to them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve experienced the frustration before of supporting a third party candidate for president, from Ross Perot to Ralph Nader.  I’ve now twice experienced the letdown of having voted for a winning mainstream candidate – Barack Obama – and watching him not come close to living up to his rhetoric.  I voted for Obama because it seemed to me at the time that the American people were never going to support anyone other than either the republican nominee or the democratic nominee.  Despite American’s cynicism towards the corrupt two party system, American voters seem paralyzed to vote for a third choice.  Having been made so afraid of the other side winning, most voters have become conditioned that voting for anyone other than the two parties is wasting their vote.  I was blamed by many democrat voters for getting George W. Dipshit elected over Al Gore by voting for Nader.  The undemocratic electoral college that allowed the popular vote candidate to lose, the Supreme Court who stopped the Florida recount that Gore was later shown by independent analysis to have won, were not blamed.  Voting for someone like Nader, outside of the two corrupt parties, was to blame, according to the mainstream media propagandists, and accepted by the majority of voters.

It would now seem that after the disappointment of Obama’s performance vs. the expectations, and the already shaping up contest between the  two old political dynasties of Clinton and Bush, and with the Supreme Court now affirming that cash is equal to free speech, that now is the time for voters to say enough is enough, and soundly reject anymore business appointed puppets like Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.  I’m not saying we have to have a third party candidate to win the presidency, but we do have to have the courage and good sense to elect someone who is not completely bought out by the big money interests that rule our country.  This will mean seeing through the propaganda and cosmetic political talk, and not accepting that if Hillary wants the nominee, it’s “her turn.”  It’s been the super rich’s turn for a long time, that’s why we have the least egalitarian society since before the Great Depression.

There are good democrats in the wing that I think would make a fantastic president, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren.  But it is unlikely she or anyone else will challenge Hillary if she choses to run, as the big money is already behind her and it would be an uphill battle.  It is understood that the candidate with the most money usually wins, and Elizabeth Warren threatens the financial industry’s monopoly over our economic policy.  Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is considering a run and would make an excellent choice, but cosmetically the media will tell people how he is not electable, he isn’t cookie sheet cutout enough looking.  Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio would be a good choice, but cosmetically speaking, he sounds as if he’s gargling glass when he speaks, so he will deemed un-electable too by the media.  The media, and the massively deceptive marketers of the campaigns will instead shape meaningless images for us to vote on, based on phony personality and dynasty infatuation.

Please, America, let’s vote issues and the people behind them, and not live out a self-fulfilling prophecy of electing an appointed oligarch like the war mongering, power hungry, corporate queen Hillary Clinton, or the chosen heir of Big Oil and war, Jeb Bush.  I can’t take it anymore.