One thing is for sure,
you have to feel sorry for America! Imagine the choice they are left with for
the post of President! This is what happens when you tweak the elections,
manipulate the mandate and defeat a genuinely good and wise candidate, Al Gore.
The ghost of Florida recount is revisiting America. Why should good and decent
people want to join politics when they see the election stolen away from the
deserving and the very best.
Democrat Albert Gore
won the most votes, a half million more than his Republican opponent George W.
Bush, but lost the presidency in the electoral college by a count of 271-267.
Even this count was suspect, dependent on the tally in Florida, a state ruled
by the younger Bush sibling, where many minority voters were denied the vote,
ballots were confusing, and recounts were mishandled and manipulated. The choice
of their leader came not from the citizens of the nation, but from lawyers
battling for five weeks. The final decision was made not by 105 million voters,
but by a 5-4 majority of the unelected U.S. Supreme Court, issuing a tainted
and partisan verdict.
President George W.
Bush entered the presidency without any mandate and with half of the nation
questioning his legitimate title to the White House. He shared power with a
Congress essentially evenly divided between the parties, and confronted the bitterness
of disappointed Democrats. That partisan divide still continues till date. How
can you unite a divided nation? By war…..and that is what Bush did.
You say India is a
divided country, look at the U.S. In this very election we have seen it being divided
into:
• the poor and the
rich
• single and married
people
• working women and
homemakers
• gays and straights
• nonbelievers and
frequent churchgoers
• Catholics and white
Protestants
• Hispanics, Blacks,
Asians
• Jews, white
Christians and others
• other voters and the
religious right
• residents of large
cities and rural areas
• high school dropouts
and college graduates
• union members and
nonmembers
• pro and against gun
control
• pro and against
‘black lives matter’
and they all intend to
vote differently, considering what suits them best and not what is best for
their country. When an election throws up two equally undeserving candidates it
does not need Albert Einstein’s IQ to understand that whether it is the
Republican or the Democratic party, there is no inner party democracy and the
power brokers in Washington have won by manipulating their candidates to the
two respective pedestals. The public is now more knowledgeable and more cynical
about political maneuvering today than it was 16 years ago in 2000, but alas it
is powerless because it has to choose between the stooges of two rival power
camps! America, you are paying for your past sins! Hillary or Trump, you are in
the dumps!!
Imagine, with an Al
Gore presidency there would have been no Gulf War and America would have
thrived with green energy, better environmental protection laws, infinitely
better education policy and an affordable health plan. Bush on the other hand
provided no clear policy direction and for governing a divided nation had to
invent a phantom enemy. Now if that was a bad patch in history, can you imagine
what is in store for them in future!
America’s social,
political, economic and environmental systems all appear to be in acute crisis.
At their heart is the growing inequality and sense of disenfranchisement
among the population, socially, politically, economically, academically, health
wise and environmentally. This election season has done nothing to inspire me
with confidence that America will become more equal after November 8. Donald
Trump has built his campaign on the exploitation of the social, economic, and
racial anxieties of, predominantly, white men without a college degree. ‘I know
what is good for you’ Hillary Clinton too knows that this inequality is a
significant national concern, but she has no solutions for it. Instead, she
keeps on telling that Donald is a novice and has not played the game and so
will not be able to deliver!
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