Tuesday, November 8, 2016

American Election 2016

Tonight we will know for sure who will run America for the next four years. I have a few thoughts on that, though they are not all entirely connected.

I suppose some of us might feel like we already know who has won. The choice is clear to us. Either a politician who supports big business and capitalist enterprises that disenfranchise the third world, and perpetuate systemic inequality in North America and beyond, or a business man who does exactly that, but is also probably a rapist and a child sex offender. If given the choice myself, I would of course stand with the victims of violence.

At the same time, it is troubling that numerous republican commentators and outspoken advocates for Mitt Romney, and George Bush before him, are now proud supporters of Hillary Clinton. It is only right that we will recognize the inhumanity of the alternative option, but is it not telling that Clinton is so far from left that the right embraces her as their candidate as well? I'm not saying vote for a third party candidate this election... Unfortunately we all know how that might end up. But I am saying that we should be concerned that both candidates in this election are essentially republican, even if one is dressed in democrat's clothing. That said, I hope that a woman beats a woman beater this time around...

But, whoever wins the election, it is clear that this year, the white, upper capitalist class, patriarchy won this year. And they keep on winning. It doesn't matter what face they wear, they have still won. And they win because every four years we become suddenly interested in politics, while the rest of the time we sit silently as rich white men make decisions that affect the whole world. This is not only true of the United States. Canada is equally implicated in this phenomenon.

There are a number of brilliant, outraged, and passionate people who continue to rage against the machine year long, term long, never ceasing. But there are too few. There are too few of us who write letters to our government, who make phone calls, who stand on the streets, who protest, who break things that need breaking and fix things that need to be fixed.

We should, perhaps, take the water protector's example and see that politics is bigger than an election. It is about the real lives of people and peoples. It is about the way that we live together, among ourselves and with the land.

I don't know what more to say.

If you are in America, and you are scared about the outcome of this election, know that, for what it's worth, I, and many others here in Canada and elsewhere in the world, stand with you.

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