Thursday, October 20, 2016

When This Election is Over

This election has been one of the most interesting in history. Contrary to popular belief we have in fact seen more contentious ones; but, this is right up there. After one election Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. That was a bit more contentious than today and quickly forgotten by our current media.

This election will be over in a scant few days and there will be much to ask about what it all meant and what it means going forward. For me my focus has been the corporate globalist media and their aversion to discussing the issues and choosing to focus on scandal and personality. Their assumption is that the issues will go away after the election, they will not.

Lets start with the simplest thing of all, what do the people really care about. The truth is illegal immigration, the economy and the middle east are at the top of the average persons concerns. Should we secure the border, should we allow illegal aliens to have citizenship while making legal aliens wait years and what effect does this have on employment. Those are real questions, your answer to those questions will vary; but, these are real issues. As for the wars in the middle east the questions are also simple. Should we get out of the middle east, should we accept hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants from these countries, should we become more active in the Syria civil war. Again these are all valid questions and attitudes will vary.

The biggest issue is always the same, it is the economy stupid as was said in previous years. Do Americans benefit from the trade deals we have been making? Can we and should we stop outsourcing of jobs overseas, should we put limits on the banking system, should we change the tax code or continue allowing multinational corporations to hide money overseas to avoid taxation. These are long term questions that will affect your children and grandchildren.

When Trump and Sanders jointed this election I said that it was an expression of the same frustrations that led to the Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party movements are they are. The derision that both these movements were met with by the corporate globalist media continued with the Trump and Sanders campaigns. I regret that the media has avoided these issues as it spells the death of well funded news media. While the aging baby boomers may have an inordinate number of voters, the reality is that the future will be determined by the millennials long term and they are not getting a fair deal and they know it.

Regardless of which candidate you personally like, we are not voting for a person, we are voting for the policies they represent and that will tell out. If Hillary wins, we will see the banks continue to go unregulated, an increase in "free trade" agreements that allow jobs to be shipped overseas and an anemic limited reduction in school loan costs at best. If Trump is elected we will see the congress pass trade agreements, he veto and congress override the veto. The neocons in congress have already made it clear that they want more immigration of people into the tech industry and trade agreements that limit the power of the federal government to regulate industry regardless of what Trump proposes.

The reality is that Presidents do not make the laws, congress does. My readers may have noticed that I rarely discuss the current President, that is because he is just one cog in a much bigger machine. That will not change. The truth is things will not change until the parites change and become more democratic (this is true even if new parties emerge).

After this election serious discussion still needs to be had about how the party establishments wanted to ignore the publics vote. If anything the resentment by the corporate media and the party establishment over the citizens having the right to choose what their government does highlights just how little respect they have for democracy and that may be the single biggest issue that has not been addressed.

There is one more thing that will continue to be addressed after this election and that is the media taking sides. It has come out that certain people passed on debate questions to Hillary Clinton in advance of the debates, that is pretty serious and disturbing. I believe it is going to be impossible for the media to claim that they are even remotely objective when it comes to elections and that is sad. The alternative media does not need to or even attempt to claim objectivity; but, the mass media is only paid attention to because we believe they will at least attempt to provide the facts, that has gone by the wayside. As I have said before, I do not believe it is a liberal media and that is certainly the wrong lesson to learn from this. It is a corporate media owned by globalist interests and has become monopolistic with six companies owning 90% of the media in all of the United States. The nation needs an objective media if it is to be a healthy democracy and after this election, no matter who wins, their bias and slant will still be discussed and remembered even by those who agree with them.