Shit and shit-lite parties

It seems that politics in the English-speaking world has settled on the two-party system.

While it is common in Europe for multiple parties to be cycling through various coalitions of them, the English-speaking world seems to have centred on having two parties whose policies basically support neoliberalism, but with one portraying themselves as being for law and order, while the other posits themselves as being more socially progressive than the other. With this marginal distinction, they keep spinning that they are somehow radically different, pronouncing each other as at the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

While there are a few minor parties, and sometimes one of the major ones have to form a coalition with one of them to be the government, the two major ones endure. While their names may have changed over the years, they have always claimed the same voter demographics. What has changed since Reagan and Thatcher really anchored neoliberalism as the de facto politico-economic system has been the distinct shift of both parties towards taking on significant corporate donations and reciprocating with huge taxpayer subsidising of those corporations.

What this has created is the almost fake dichotomy that The Juice Media coins the Australian duopoly as the Shit and Shit Lite parties. That is, these countries all have political parties that are so similar in how they prioritise corporations over citizens, particular the fossil fuel ones, that there is no real difference in the net outcomes that voting for either of them produces.

This has been the primary reason why tackling climate change has been so ineffective, especially with fossil fuel corporations trying to put it upon individuals to reduce their own emissions, as if those vested interests are not almost totally responsible for the problems of climate change and mass pollution.

Pollution kills about 8 million people per year, which is more than the Nazi Holocaust did in the six years of WWII. These corporate owners are therefore killing more people each year than a regime full of racist homicidal maniacs did. The type of people who systemically ensure that they can do that year after year can only be psychopaths, yet we hail them as centrist, and thus, by implication, the sensible and balanced ones. This is the new normal, and they are the ones who are pulling the levers of the societies in all these countries.

No wonder we are all living in modern dystopias where we are bombarded by propaganda distracting us from noticing that our so-called democracies are a puppet show orchestrated by psychopaths, willingly supported by the Machiavellian Rupert Murdoch character-assassinating anyone who tries to resist. This is modern feudalism masquerading as democracy, while they placate us with their fake idea that we somehow have a choice in how we are governed, yet there is essentially no deviation in the singular methods of obfuscation and their underlying exploitation.

We are in the living playing out of Rousseau's enduring sentiment of Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains. The two-party systems are the ruse that tries to give us the illusion that freedom from their exploitation is possible, and involves a simple choice of which face of Janus we want our freedom to look like, despite that both will throw us under the bus. But there have always been other choices, though they have always been downplayed as pipe dreams or too little to make a difference.

Our choices can make a difference, but that is when they are aggregated. The problem is that we can feel disheartened if we are not aware of where the tipping point is that may just precipitate worthwhile beneficial changes. Societal changes are a series of individual choices that enough people make that leads them to change how they live their lives. Those must start with ideas that make sense enough for people to want to change what they believe is possible for their lives and society.

Changes in belief precipitate change in actions, but the beliefs must be based upon reality and thus what is practical. Progress, even though it may start with some dramatic changes, will need sustained will to achieve outcomes that will actually endure through doubt and distractions, let alone the many willful efforts at sabotage those committed to their path of extreme selfishness will use propaganda to undermine. It is thinking grounded in reality that will help us to see through the fake enticements that attempt to befuddle our thinking.

The essential course of action we must undertake is to disconnect ourselves from the beliefs and processes that keep us entrapped in their delusional world. We actually don't need to bury ourselves in their stressful endeavours. Most of what they want us to be involved in is little more than complicated versions of those mickey-mouse challenges many YouTubers want us to perform for their and others' amusement. We don't need to do bullshit jobs just to survive in their delusion of perpetual growth.

The future is in our hands, but that requires us to step back from what we do that keeps it out of our hands, and do that which will bring it under our control.