Anyone who doubts the downside of hubris should think of the losing campaign of Hillary Clinton.  Like cholesterol in arteries, extreme arrogance can block seeing political realities.

And Barack Obama is exhibiting horrendous hubris by, for example, flip-flopping on his pledge to use federal campaign financing for the general election, and for displaying an Obama seal in public events that closely resembles the official presidential seal.

Welcome to the audacity of arrogance.

The biggest political issue receiving no attention by the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates is the powerful plutocracy that has captured the government to produce rising economic inequality.

Both major parties have enabled, promoted and supported this Upper Class plutocracy.  Myriad federal policies make the rich super-rich and the powerful dominant in both good and bad economic times.  Meanwhile, despite elections, the middle class sinks into one big Lower Class as the plutocracy ensures that national prosperity is unshared.

Long before the disastrous George W. Bush administration, I had been waiting for profound, systemic changes in our political system.  Perversely, I saw the upside of Bush as motivating more Americans to demand political change.  And that happened.  But the national yearning for change was co-opted by Ron Paul on the right and Barack Obama on the left while John Edwards with the most authentic populist change message fizzled out early.

This general election more than most will test the courage of voters to avoid lesser-evil strategic voting that has propped up our two-party plutocracy.  People with intelligence and conscience must resist peer pressure and the temptation to vote against John McCain by voting for Barack Obama.

Of course, a McCain presidency that pursues much of the same policies and values of the totally inept and morally bankrupt Bush administration is something to loathe.  But lesser-evil voting sustains our corrupt political system.

Many say they are voting for Barack Obama in a most enthusiastic and positive way.  For me, this does not work.  I see no compelling evidence in Obama's history that he has what it takes to be a true, solid reformer.  All I see is a young, inexperienced terrific talker that has used slick rhetoric to sell himself.  With intellectual and ideological elitism and an aura of superiority and academic smugness, he has successfully fooled millions of people who are so disillusioned with our corrupt political system that they have let themselves be manipulated by poetic promises of change.  In reality, he is just another super-ambitious, lying mainstream politician that has taken considerable money and support from all sorts of corporate and other special interests.

Never have so many hoped for so much because of rollicking rhetoric and pulsating platitudes.  A tsunami of hope has plunged America into electoral euphoria.  In its path is the wreckage of critical thinking about what ails the US and what bold, revolutionary actions are needed.  Barry Obama has accomplished semantic alchemy, turning justified but grim distrust and outrage with government and politics into hallelujah hope.  But most hope never materializes and is a terrible predictor of reality.

Hope mongering has been working much better than experience mongering.  Now, the rest of the story....

As befits American culture, politics is all about slick selling to the masses.  Hillary Clinton is selling Day-1 help to victims and sufferers.  Barack Obama is selling effervescent hope to yes-we-can dreamers.  This media hyped horse race is like a fight between diet Coke and diet Pepsi, artificially sweetened candidates devoid of real nourishment.

Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.

Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and tyrannical governments have evolved.  Just as human knowledge and science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers, elites and plutocrats.  By learning from history and using new technology they have smarter tools of tyranny.  The best ones prevent uprisings, revolutions and political reforms.  Rather than violently destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of nonconformist and rebellious thinkers.  Real revolution remains an energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.

Here comes another inconvenient truth.  Despite all the attention to Oprah for Obama and the pundit blabbering about the Democratic primary horse race the outcome has been predetermined.  What people do not want to know is that power elites control what the Democratic ticket will be.  When the primaries end the winner will be the reigning plutocracy.

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine's Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/T HOMASPAINE/?p=277

"The other kids were all into black power," Oprah told the Tribune in the mid-1980s. But "I wasn't a dashiki kind of woman ... Excellence was the best deterrent to racism and that became my philosophy."

Excellence indeed. Few would deny that Oprah Winfrey has achieved an extraordinary degree of THAT, at least by our society's warped standards. Witty, articulate, attractive, beloved by tens of millions, and fabulously wealthy, she is the "I pulled myself up by my bootstraps" queen of a vast media empire. Oprah is a living embodiment of the American Dream. What is perhaps most inspiring to her genuflecting disciples is that Oprah rose to her stratospheric position of wealth and influence from an impoverished start in a socioeconomic hierarchy still largely dominated by white males.

By Jason Miller

Bursting forth with renewed intensity, the "War on Christmas" is back in 2006.

So just what does this alleged war against an impalpable enemy entail?

Have "Islamofascists" captured and decapitated Santa Claus?

Did a US-made IDF "smart bomb" strike Bethlehem and obliterate baby Jesus as he lay in the manger?

Did the Grinch go global with his nefarious thievery?

by Jason Miller

[I dedicate this essay to the untold millions who suffered as a result of Milton Friedman's creation of an intellectual bulwark for economic brutality. On 11/16/06, Friedman died of heart failure, an ironic cause of death for a heartless individual.]

"We have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure a very powerful few are in possession of the earth's resources, the land and its riches and all the franchises and other privileges that yield a return. These positions are maintained virtually without taxation; they are immune to the demands made on others. The very poor, who have nothing, are the object of compulsory charity. And the rest -- the workers, the middle-class, the backbone of the country -- are made to support the lot by their labor."

----Agnes George de Mille (granddaughter of Henry George), New York, 1979

We the people once owned our democracy.  We elected "representatives" to run it for US.  Have you noticed?  Somewhere along the way we lost our democracy.  

It was foreclosed by wealthy and power elites that corrupted our "representatives" who literally sold us out.  Our homeland was foreclosed right in plain sight.  Sure, we citizens still reside in the USA, but we no longer own our democracy.  We pay rent through our taxes.  But we no longer have any equity.  Our democracy is owned by the rich, and their partner foreign elites and governments, which is why in a strict sense it no longer is a democracy, but rather a plutocracy.  

Modern day aristocrats - an apt terms considering the many political dynasties in our ruling class - maintain the charade that America is still a democracy by letting us vote.  They also give us many freedoms to distract us from our dire political conditions. They're smart, so they limit our choices to the main parties that constitute the two-party duopoly.  Even smarter, they convert consumer spending (that they spur) into economic inequality, making them, the rich, even richer and everyone else, all of us, poorer.