If Human Hopes are Dashed

By Manuel E. Yepe

http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico. 

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann. 

An eventual re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States would once again frustrate the expectations of many. These are people who, throughout the world, have believed it possible for the American people, on their own, to be able to condemn the policy contrary to international law and the rules of coexistence practiced by the governments of both parties representing the oligarchic interests that alternate in the presidency of that North American country.

The 2020 presidential election will be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, and will be the fifty-ninth (59th) presidential election in the United States. On November 3, 2020, voters will elect the electors who will in turn choose the new president and vice president through the Electoral College.

Only about half of Americans – because most who are eligible to vote are not interested in or don’t trust the political system that calls itself the most democratic in the world. They will go to the polls to complete the ritual of voting for the man who will govern the most powerful country in the history of our planet for the next four years.

The usual thing is that there is not much difference between the options presented to the voters. They are always two billionaires who identify very little with the interests of the average citizen and much less with the needs of the lower income population, which has never been taken into account in that very rich country.

But what is unusual about these 2020 elections is that the comparison regarding the candidates’ finances has been replaced by ideological approaches, since one of them has broken with the rules that have governed candidates’ speeches.

As Obama’s vice president, Biden was characterized by support for Obama’s policies on international relations and social issues, especially in designing the strategy for troop withdrawals from Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.

His negotiating experience was useful during negotiations with the Republican Party in Congress on tax policy, the economy and budgets, and was vital in the passage of the 2011 Budget Control Act and the 2012 Tax Relief Act.

In addition, there was his role in the Obama administration’s efforts to limit gun sales, fight sexual abuse on college campuses, and seek remedies for the lack of health insurance in the low-income population.

But let no one be fooled. There’s an opulent economic oligarchy that no one has ever elected and that has never been put to the test. It’s a plutocratic oligarchy of big corporations, which is the real core of real power. It will continue to rule the destiny of the great American nation and will remain the determining factor in American national and global political life.

It is well-known that at the head of the empire there would still be that US economic hierarchy that would only formally cede its power to a political leadership that -using the government- would make the oligarchic morality and laws prevail, while taking care of internal order and neutralizing the internal conflicts.

Although this supreme power of the enormous transnational corporations also determines domestic policy, it is in the sphere of foreign policy that its control is most clearly expressed.

It was American businessmen and bankers who determined the transformation of the world into a marketplace. They also wanted the replacement of diplomacy by the system of pressure, threats, blockades, aggressions and occupations of entire countries that currently characterizes US foreign policy.

It was they who introduced the practice of relations between countries under their imperial domination through proconsular ambassadors and puppet presidents.

Unlike politicians – who must face up to electoral contests and exercise administrative tasks in which they show their faces – the economic hierarchs exercise their power without individual commitment, without pre-determined limits and without being subject to ethical or moral standards.

Paradoxically, large corporations tend to be appreciated and respected because they theoretically generate jobs that bring well-being, while politicians, who collect taxes and repress with their police, courts and prisons, wear themselves out, degrade and take the blame.

April 29, 2020.