Every four years and the time in between, political activists spend their energy focusing on particular candidates. The reoccurring trend is that whatever ones opinion might be, the individual politician should get all the credit, or all the blame. Protests against the invasion of Iraq, for example, frequently condemned President Bush for his policy of imperialism. Similarly, protests against drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere tend to make it seem as though President Obama is solely responsible for the attacks. This is not to say that these individuals are undeserving of blame, but that perhaps far too much attention is spent attacking figureheads who will one day be out of office instead of the actual system, and the systems ideology, which allowed them to be elected in the first place, and allowed their policies to flourish without interruption. The system itself could possibly be defined as consisting of politicians and the corporations that support them. Some say that corporations influence government to get their power, but in reality, one cant exist without the other. Corporations donate large sums of money to politicians, and politicians use that money to fund their campaigns. These campaigns are designed to take into account the interests of the public voting flock, at least on a temporary surface level. Once elected, history shows that politicians turn their focus not so much on campaign pledges, but instead, on fulfilling the desires of those who brought them to power. Such desires generally include promoting laws, regulations, and overseas conflicts favorable to the financial interests of their corporate handlers. President Bush and President Obama didnt create this system so much as merely take advantage of it. Both of them were backed by major corporations, and both of them spent a majority of their time repaying these corporations once in office through the promotion of various policies and wars. This is why it seems so utterly useless directing ones energy towards attacking the individual head of the system when they are merely a replaceable cog in it. Calling the invasion of Iraq Bushs war or labeling drone strikes as Obamas drones misses the obvious point that these conflicts are merely the byproduct of the system which allowed them. Any first step at tackling the problems in the U.S. must begin by stepping out of the two-party political paradigm and addressing the actual machinery which has allowed the vast amount of contemporary corruption to take place.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 06:36:27 +0000