People not voting is the fault of the system and its politicians, not the people

I am fucking sick a tired of hearing congresscritters and other members of our political class, and their news media acolytes, attack the people for exercising their democratic right to give elections the finger.

Never mind this election we just had; look at the big one. For two years before a presidential election we are subjected to a constant 24 X 7 X 365 bombardment about how we get to decide the ultimate fate of life, the universe and everything!

No-one is allowed to say different. There's not even a single letter to the editor, never mind a columnist or TV gasbag that disagrees. When did you ever read a column saying, "don't vote. It only encourages them?" Or hear a TV or radio political pontificator explaining what you can hear on any bus in any American city: "If God had meant us to vote, she would have given us candidates."

Then comes the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of a year divisible by four without a remainder. Almost 66 million vote for Queen Hillary, 63 million for Trumpus Maximus, and six million between them for the Greens and Libertarians, there to show how even weirdos, perverts and the clinically insane can have their own presidential candidates.

And, oh yeah. There's 100 million, give or take, who say, "take this election and shove it!"

Why would they say that? Well consider the numbers I reported above: 66 megavotes for Hillary. 63 for Trumpus, so The Donald is president.

Do you realize that in just about every  other country in the entire world, when they want to cram a president down your throat, at least they have the decency to pretend that the person got more votes?

And then there's the Senate. The nearly 40,000,000 people of California will once again be represented by Diane Feinstein, who will have the same exact status and power as John Barrasso, who is being sent to the Senate by the fewer than 600,000 people of Wyoming.

We have 500,000 --that's right, half a million-- elected positions in this country but the vast majority are not really elected, they're imposed by the dominant political machine in the area. Then there are the contested elections, where politicians sell themselves through a legalized system of bribery known as "campaign contributions" although there's also the modality where the rich people will buy both candidates and then let the people freely choose which one is better at fooling them.

Beyond "elections" we come to the Holy of Holies, John Roberts and the Supremes. It's a dictatorial constitutional convention with nine delegates appointed for life. I say dictatorial in the strictest, scientific sense of the word: an authority bound by no pre-existing laws. They "interpret" (invent) the constitution as it serves the purposes of the majority of these robed reactionaries of the ruling rich ... and whoever holds their puppet strings.

Liberals and self-styled "socialists" who berate the people for not exercising their "democratic" right to vote should concentrate instead on getting rid of our slave owner's constitution and replacing it with one that provides for a democratic republic instead. And I don't even mean a socialist one; just a plain old standard-issue bourgeois democracy would be a great advance.

--José G. Pérez

11-11-11 and the memory of a hundred years

It was on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month that the guns fell silent a century ago. The war to end all wars had ended. It would take but a few years to learn that it had been the overture, not the finale.

The First World War gave us a League of Nations, a ban on poison gas, restrictions on the ships and tonnage of navies. But World War One did not end the arrogance of the Great Powers that were great only in avarice and conquest.

Nor could it stop the advance of scientists. Their accomplishments would be feted in a quarter century by the radiance of a thousand suns burst at once into the sky of a cold New Mexico desert night.

A false dawn. Not dreams but nightmares. Remembrance Day they call it in many countries, that day 100 years ago when they told us it was the last day of the last war. Remember what came after.

--José G. Pérez

Trump's real program: not deporting immigrants, but keeping them 'illegal'

This may sound like an insane thing to say after a couple of weeks when Trump has promoted every anti-immigrant idea that self-hater Stephen Miller has been able to come up with, from overthrowing the most important amendment to the constitution in 200 years to ordering 15,000 troops to the border and telling them to feel free to open fire on unarmed civilians.

But President Trump's real, on-the-ground policy on "illegals" is exactly the same as every other president going back decades: not to get rid of the undocumented, but to keep them "illegal," bereft of rights so they can't defend themselves and can be easily ripped off and super-exploited.

Just look at it, as it plays out in real life: how many "illegals" were there before Obama was elected? More than eleven million. 

And how many were there when he left office, after the Great Recession and three million deportations? More than eleven million.

And how many are there now after two years of "Build the Wall" chanting and Trump's rule? More than eleven million.

And if you think that's going to change, do the math. If you leave aside those caught near the border shortly after crossing, how many people were deported each year under Obama, from the settled undocumented population inside the country?

Give or take, a quarter million a year. And how many are being deported now? Give or take, a quarter million.

So how long would it take to "solve" the problem by deporting all the undocumented? Forty-four years, give or take. And, mind you, that's assuming the government's figure of just over 11 million is right.

Because professors from MIT and Yale, utilizing "standard demographic principles" just published a study saying by the most conservative yardstick, the real number is almost 17 million, but with standard methodology, the number is 22 million, double the official estimate. If that's so, you'd need to be pretty unlucky to get deported before you died.

So has anything changed with Trump? Yes, most of all the rhetoric. Though we should remember Trump is not that unusual as a politician trying to whip up anti-immigrant sentiment. But his deportation policies have been more cruel and arbitrary than Obama's in order to spread fear throughout the entire immigrant community. As were Clinton's in relation to his predecessors.

But as for the rest of it, the real policy has been essentially the same for many decades: not to throw out the "illegals," but make sure that if they stay here, they stay "illegal," meaning super-exploitable and thus super-profitable for the bosses.

--José G. Pérez