Happy Birthday, America

I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for human rights or constitutional liberties. Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which says that all of us have an equal right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The history of our country, I point out in my book, is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make those ideals a reality — and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that.

 Howard Zinn

The fate of Western civilization relies on this?

There was a time when the quadrennial clusterfuck that is the US presidential election would have interested me. As a committed world citizen, albeit of the Marxist variety, what happened on election night across the Atlantic did seem to be of some significance, even if, in reality, it boiled down to a choice between two fatal diseases: one that killed you in a week, the other in a fortnight.

However, since that unfortunate business with the chavs, the chards, the chads, or what ever it was they called them down in Florida, I have simply given up. The American people, whom I love as one would a sibling, (albeit a slightly edgy one with a penchant for nunchucks and hand-guns) just sat back and allowed a coup to occur and did feck all about it. I was disappointed in them to say the least.

See, unlike most of the Irish people that I know, I actually love America and its people. I love their optimism, enthusiasm, their boundless faith in the idea, if not the practice, of democracy. Even speaking as a Marxist, should the revolution ever happen, the document I would use to frame my post-revolutionary, socialist utopia would be the American constitution and the Bill of Rights. But the last time around when they allowed their democracy to be stolen from them without the merest protest I began to have me doubts.

Since then, I couldn't care less about who they elect because despite all the fuss it really doesn't make a difference. Not just to me as a resident of this small fucked-up outpost at the arse-end of Western Europe that is Ireland but just generally. Should Obama win, he's not going to do anything to rock the boat of US corporate capitalism, like introduce a decent health or education system. Unless he's been lying through his teeth, the black communities aren't going to see any change in their lot any time soon. And despite what they said on RTE tonight, Obama probably does know who and where we are and could care less.

I love you America, but it strikes me you're like lions led by donkeys and you're so seduced by the notion of your own democracy that you can't be bothered to defend it or even look at how it's used against you.

As the old Revolutionary Communist Party slogan said 'If voting could change anything, it would be made illegal'. Nowhere is this truer than the USA tonight. Whoever wins.