What a hullabaloo about the possibility of a woman president in America. All those women shouting about feeling empowered, remember Thatcher? As one woman put it, "I fell as empowered by a woman president as I do about women cops". Then of course we had that other earth shattering empowering moment in America, when the first black man was was voted in as president. Suddenly all the people of colour in America were empowered, my arse. Things will go on as before, the financial Mafia will rule, the new figurehead might indicate a slight difference in emphasis, but not direction.
How much money was thrown at Hilary to get her where she is? Well it was a cool $296.4 million, that's what you need to be empowered in the capitalist world of America. All those big backers that threw their money at her will be waiting in the wings to get their pay-back if she gets to the Whitehouse. and that's where the empowerment goes, never to "the women", "the people of colour" or any other group of ordinary people.
Every four years we are subjected to this grand illusion, this spectacle of mass insanity, where millions think that by all voting for one person, the system will change. Out goes one figurehead, in pops another, but the power moguls still sit with their hands on the power levers. Of course there might be a few titbits thrown here and there, some crumbs for the peasants, a sort of window dressing, but not necessarily so.
Think of the number of presidents and prime ministers that have been ushered in on a wave of misplaced belief that this would bring change, here we are, in the twenty first century, and the result is a planet facing destruction, a world at war, poverty rampant, and the gap between rich and poor ever widening. Can't we wake up to the fact that this system doesn't work. There is an alternative, first we have to get rid of corporate power, dispel the illusion of capitalist representative democracy and take power into our own hands. We don't need presidents, prime ministers, CEO, and other hoarders of wealth and power, we can have a fairer system of distribution and see to the needs of all our people, if we really want it to be that way.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
