US Elections: The Ace of Spades, the Joker and the Trump Card

As the US Presidential election gets going with early indications that there are two clear front-runners for the Democrats and up to five on the Republican side, what difference does it make who wins because the ranks of the lobbies will close like a vice around the first past the post? In the US pack of cards, the Great American Dream is a bluff.

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Remember Barack Obama in 2008? Remember his promises for "Change"? Remember the insightful cartoon released at the time showing a giggling Obama standing among the Elites in Washington laughing their socks off with the caption: "Change! Did you say Change??" Remember when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Barack Obama in anticipation of a "Change" in US direction abroad?

And what was this "Change"? Internally, and let us remember that it is the people of the United States of America who elect their President, not those of the Middle East, Europe, Mongolia, Burkina Faso or Laos - and let us remember that the jurisdiction of the US President is supposed to begin and end on America's shores - "Change" was supposed to mean a move from politics dominated by the Anglo-Irish elites in Washington DC and a move towards today's US population, meaningful policies protecting the homes and jobs and families of grass-roots citizens, going about their lives, obeying the rules, paying their taxes, going to church, doing everything that is asked of them, respecting their communities and expecting something back in return.

The Bush philosophy: Bomb the crap out of them

"Change" abroad was supposed to be a move away from the "Bomb the crap out of them" Bush doctrine, invading countries without a mandate, targeting infrastructure with military equipment, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people, destroying States, rendering over half the working population unemployed, millions homeless, millions of orphans, swathes of territory radioactive, then billionaire reconstruction contracts handed out among the elitist buddy network representing the Evil Six Lobbies (banking, energy, food, finance, pharmaceuticals, weapons) and a few morsels and crumbs tossed to the willing EuroPoodles led by the Heroes of Colonialism, the other two prongs of the FUKUS Axis, France and UK.

If the United States of America were a truly democratic country with truly democratic institutions and systems, then a promise for Change would be held accountable by the people along with the person making that promise. What will happen in November? Barack Hussein Obama will wave his way out of the White House accompanied by his family, grins on their faces as they gracefully walk into a Life-after-the-Presidency chicken run of 100,000-USD after-dinner speeches. He might ask himself how much Change he has brought the USA and he might have to sit in silence for an eternity waiting for an answer.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the United States of America in 2016. There is as much chance of Change taking place after the next election as there is of a Mongolian herdsman suddenly donning a bowler hat and breaking into a raucous Cockney version of Boiled Beef n' Carrots.

Who is who in the US Pack

And now down to the US Presidential Election, 2016. The Ace of Spades should be Jeb Bush, if only to spite his brother's disastrous invasion of Iraq and where it put his country in terms of international derision and disrespect but Jeb Bush is as charismatic as a moribund, leprous slug lying under a tonne of salt, so let us reshuffle the pack and state that if Sanders really thinks he has a shot against Hillary Clinton with the weight of the lobbies behind her, then he is either a delusional fool or else lives in cloud cuckoo land. The Ace of Spades is Hillary Clinton, whose feathers in the cap in four years of foreign policy were to support terrorists in the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafy, siding with those who sliced the breasts off women in the streets and destroying the State with the highest Human Development Index in Africa. Because the lobbies told her to (because Gaddafy's African Union was starting to bite and hurt in terms of loss of revenue).

The second was calling Russia's Syrian policy "despicable" when all Moscow is doing is to apply the law which states that if you take up arms against your elected authorities then you are a terrorist, and as such you are a target. If, say, 50,000 US citizens marched on Washington DC with their guns blazing what would the authorities do? Clinton would obviously back them and advocate for a bombing campaign against Washington, calling the authorities dictators for daring to stand up for the people, for the women and girls being raped, for the military men being tortured to death by demented Takfiri terrorists, for daring to stand up and fight back against hordes of terrorists. Then she blames Russia for bombing this demonic filth.

With Sanders relegated to the Thanks for the Fun, nice game! pile and Clinton labelled as the Ace of Spades, let's take a look at the other side (since the USA stubbornly refuses to create a viable Third Way alternative - where is Cynthia McKinney for example?), with Bush looking as gray as he is sluggish, let us see what say the Polls on the Primaries and the Caucuses: Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.

As everyone knows it is not the Primaries and the Caucuses that elect the Presidential candidate, so it is not the People, it is the lobbies which maneuver two options into place, both right of center, and close ranks behind and around the winner and if the winner doesn't play ball, it is around his balls that the vice starts to tighten. In Hillary's case, she doesn't have any balls but then again she doesn't need any: she is the lobbie$.

To what extent Trump is a free thinker, and everything indicates that he is - he is bold enough to admit that the USA should never have gone into Iraq because the entire escapade was based upon lies, something I have been saying here in this column since 2002 - to what extent he will continue to be a free thinker after an eventual election victory is another question.

The irony would be if he ended up as the Republican version of JFK - because he is a free thinker and because the USA will never change. It can't. In the pack of cards which constitutes the United States of America, the Great American Dream is a bluff and in the political game which has developed since the Founding Fathers, how much use is a trump card in a game with ever-changing rules heavily weighted in favor of the House?

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru 

([email protected])

*Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, deputy editor, editor, chief editor, director, project manager, executive director, partner and owner of printed and online daily, weekly, monthly and yearly publications, TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. He has spent the last two decades in humanitarian projects, connecting communities, working to document and catalog disappearing languages, cultures, traditions, working to network with the LGBT communities helping to set up shelters for abused or frightened victims and as Media Partner with UN Women, working to foster the UN Women project to fight against gender violence and to strive for an end to sexism, racism and homophobia. A Vegan, he is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights. He is Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru.