by
LINH DINH
Vietnam just sentenced three dissident bloggers to 12, 10 and 5
years respectively. Their trials were preposterous. The lawyer for Nguyen Van Hai, aka Dieu Cay, was only allowed ten minutes to
defend his client, for example, and no opportunities to cross-examine
government witnesses. That same day, Hai’s ex-wife and teenaged son were also
detained for several hours to prevent them from showing up in court. At the
police station, the son was stripped of a T-shirt that said, “Freedom for
Patriots,” and had to walk home bare-chested. Hai has written, “Vietnam does
not have the rule of law; it only has the rule of the Party.” The purpose of a
trial is to allow the accused an opportunity to defend himself, to convince a
jury of his peers that he is innocent, but since there is no jury in a
Vietnamese courtroom, and since a lawyer can be ignored or neutered, as
happened here, there was really no trial for Hai, only the appearance of one.
Hai and his co-defendants haven’t gotten much attention, not as much
as Pussy Riot, for example, because the US is not currently harassing Vietnam,
as it is Russia. In fact, America is courting Vietnam to act as buffer, pest
and possibly even a military staging ground against China. This past year,
American naval ships have docked in Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang. So much for the
war against communism, for democracy or whatever. Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho! What the
hell we fightin’ fo’? Within this larger geopolitical context, Hanoi knows that
its dissidents can be shut up without much of a fuss.
Oppressive governments are also skilled at staging meaningless
elections, where candidates are well-vetted and troublemakers prevented from
running or ignored, if not discredited, by the establishment media. Cheering
and voting, gullible citizens lend a false legitimacy to the choreographed
proceedings. In the American case, voters are also baited by secondary issues,
like gay marriage or abortion, for these don’t threaten the war profiteering,
corporate looting and banking fraud agenda that really defines this nation.
In spite of not infrequent miscarriages of justice, the American
court system is still relatively intact. Unlike in Vietnam, one can still
expect to be defended by a lawyer, and judged by a jury, though technically,
the President, whether Democrat or Republican, can already declare one a
terrorist or enemy combatant, to be imprisoned indefinitely without charge,
tortured or simply killed. The US, then, can be said to no longer have the rule
of law, but the misrule of its chief executive, a lackey of the military
banking complex yet a dictator to you and me, for sure, since he has the right
to order the kidnapping or killing of anyone on earth.
Through drone strikes in Pakistan alone, Bush and Obama have
killed thousands of people, many if not most of them civilians. These Pashtuns
didn’t, don’t and simply can’t threaten the US, and even the “militants” among
them are only guilty of defending their homeland, but most Americans apparently
don’t care about mass murders committed in their name, for they display loving
signs and bumper stickers, wear adoring T-shirts, cheer and vote for their
mass-murderers in chief, one after another. “Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em
out” has become our unofficial motto.
In two recent articles, I’ve called for the boycott of the coming election. This is no sign of
apathy, but revolt. I’ve suggested that on Election Day, Americans show up in
massive numbers, in all cities and towns, not to vote but to protest and, very
importantly, show the world that we’re not sanctioning a mendacious, lawless
and obscenely corrupt government that kills, loots and bankrupts with impunity.
Teasing out niggling differences between our two bank-bought and war mongering
mafiosi, many Americans believe that voting for one party or the other will at
least benefit them personally, if not the country in a substantial way, but I’d
like to point out that sacrifices are always necessary in any boycott, strike
or revolt, and that the larger aim of delegitimizing this unrepresentative and
immoral government is worth foregoing personal cookies, which are likely to be
small, if not illusory anyway, judging from the American politicos’ past
sampling of promiscuous promises.
Lured by a signing bonus and steady paychecks in a collapsed
economy, our soldiers have become mercenaries willing to kill “bad guys” for a
bogus and cartoony reason, “They hate us for our freedoms,” but if a man is to
retain his character and soul, he must be able to say no to injustices and
crimes, even if he himself suffers from this refusal. I’d like to think that no
amount of money could induce me to shoot, on order, any Pakistani, Yemeni,
Afghan or Syrian, etc., even if I was declared a bonafide hero and shown,
what’s left of me anyway, on TV for a few seconds shaking Collin Powell’s hand
on Memorial Day. Similarly, whatever benefits you think you may get for voting
Democrat or Republican should be dwarfed by the terrible complicity of
sanctioning, again, habitual and systematic mass murder. To those whose loved
ones have been killed or maimed by American imperialism in recent years, the
sight of a “BAD GIRLS LOVE OBAMA” T-shirt or“PENNSYLVANIA LOVES O’BAMA” sign must be stomach turning.
It’s telling that illegal war, killing and torture are no longer campaign
issues.
As for third party candidates, your vote for Jill Stein, for
example, won’t get her elected, but it will create the illusion that our
electoral process can entertain candidates from outside the major parties.
Stein’s tiny vote tally will only confirm the Green Party’s unpopularity, if
not its irrelevancy in this system. Twenty-one years after its founding, the
Greens have no representatives in Congress, none in any state house even, and
no governor. A vote for Jill Stein will actually be a vote for the legitimacy
of an Obama or Romney victory, since he will have won fair and square, you see,
with a vastly larger number of votes. This rigged system isn’t too bothered by
fringe candidates, since distant losers magnify the greatness of its chosen
winner.
A government that ignores not just international laws, but its own
foundational legal framework, the Constitution, is no longer legitimate but a
rogue entity, but its serial crimes are trivialized and covered up by our
farcical media, since they are owned by the same power brokers that manipulate
and jerk around our servile government. If news peddlers also push planes,
bombs and guns, would they protest war? Of course not, so the bank-funded
politicos won’t bite the hands that feed them either. Serving the uber rich
that control banks, weapon factories and our zombifying media, our national
“representatives” earn their keep by working against us, so it’s time we stop
consenting to this ghastly death dance masquerading as a democracy.
Courting votes, smarmy candidates evoke the American Dream, tout a
non-existent economic recovery, and promise a future that’s even more
prosperous than ever before, but those who aren’t too smug, deluded or
tranquilized know that inflation and unemployment figures have been fudged for
years now, and that living standard and wage will continue to plummet thanks to
unchecked offshoring and the import of illegal or legal foreign workers,
because they’re cheaper than homegrown versions. As an immigrant myself, I’m
sympathetic to those who want to come here, since living in a world
manipulated, bankrupted and bombed by America, they must do what they can to
survive, including sneaking into the bossman’s house, but what’s often painted
as an issue of ineptitude by the right, as we can’t control our borders, and universal
brotherhood by the left, as in no human beings are illegal, is in fact a
calculated plan by our ruling class to keep wages down here, there and
everywhere.
The reduce the need for foreigners to come here, the US can start
by respecting other people’s borders, but that’s not likely to happen any time
soon. No way, Mustapha! As the football commentators repeatedly announce on TV,
“We thank our brave men and women serving in over 175 countries around the
globe,” for without their constant shooting, bombing, droning, kidnappping and
torturing, the oil, natural gas, weapons, drugs and fiat money won’t flow so
freely. This snuff film will be over.
Last year, an American college fair in Iraq was lauded by USA
Today as “U.S. Opens Its Doors to Iraqi Students.” It’s supposed to be this
great, heartwarming story, right?, until one considers the million or so we
killed there, and the wreck we’ve made of their country, making emigration
extremely desirable, if not a necessity. During the American invasion, hundreds
of thousands fled to neighboring Syria and Iran, for example, and only a
fraction have returned. An alternative headline would read, “After Bombing
Iraq, America’s Stealing its Best and Brightest,” so it’s a boffo deal for
Uncle Sam. Go, USA!
To vote for Obama or Romney is to sanction the continued
degradation of the USA, an accelerating collapse of the economy, further
erosion of your basic rights and more wasteful and immoral wars. Keep in mind
also that an open-ended quantitative easing, supported by both parties and
unquestioned in the press, is a sly, open-ended bank bailout that will deflate
your dollar and increase your cost of survival. Instead of signing your own
death warrant by voting, however, you can withhold your consent and protest
this murderously corrupt system. As we reject their sham elections, we must
also say no to their bogus wars, by refusing to fight them, and boycott all of
their other mad schemes and poisons, for without our cooperation, this
suffocating beast will buckle, then die. That’s the only recovery worth aiming
for, for only then can we begin anew.
Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a
novel, Love Like Hate. He’s tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his
frequently updated photo blog, State of the Union.
