After all the partisan nonsense, lies, obfuscations and massive amounts of money pumped into the US presidential campaigns, it is time to reflect on some key things, especially on things that have not been said and are being ignored by the political parties and the mainstream media.
First let’s deal with the actual number of voters. The US likes to present itself as a beacon of democracy and its electoral system as a shining example of freedom and self-determination. But when one takes a closer look at the data, it is not hard to see the contradictions and problems with these lofty views.
Let’s do some math:
There are roughly 237,657,645 voting-age adults in the United States.1
Obama got 62,280,959 of the popular vote, or 50.6%.2
Romney got 58,899,127 of the popular vote, or 47.8%.2
The total number of people that actually voted in 2012 according to these results was 121,180,086.
Now let’s subtract 121,180,086 from 237,657,645 and we get 116,477,559. This is the amount of people who did not vote.
121,180,086 is only 50.98% of all voting-age adults!
Roughly half of the people in the US did not vote. This is an embarrassment for a country claiming to be the beacon of democracy and freedom.
Now let’s calculate how much support Obama really has in the US by comparing the percentage of the total voting-age public (237,657,645) to all of his popular votes (62,280,959)
The result is 26.2%
That’s right. We have a president that is only supported by a quarter of the US populace. This is truly disgraceful.
To be fair, this has been the case for elected US presidents going back decades. No wonder that the country is in such a pathetic state. These presidents only have to get 20% support from their base, plus five or so percent of fools naïve enough to vote for them to make a difference in the numbers.
As an aside, counting the TOTAL number of voting-age people in the US is the most accurate and fairest way to determine the true support for any candidate, since that candidate will make decisions for EVERYONE. Counting just the people who actually voted or even the number of people registered to vote gives an inaccurate and hyped up number.
Right after the election, I wondered how many people actually voted. Every time I heard any post-election analysis on the radio and TV, most of it was a bunch of self-serving self-congratulatory PR fluff. But there was no mention of the total number of people who voted.
Then lo and behold, on Thursday morning,, November 8, I was driving to work and heard an anchor on NPR state that the voter turnout in this election was lower than in 2008. But they conveniently left out any numbers, for the obvious reason that it would be an embarrassment to actually mention them. No other news outlet even mentioned the lower turnout at all.
The God Thing
The US also has a very annoying and bad habit of bringing religion and God into the election-year mix.
It seems that each candidate has to prostate themselves before the religious nuts out there and prove beyond a doubt that they are god-fearing and that religion is important to them. If they do not, then they place their chances of winning in jeopardy.
There is just one problem with this religious litmus test: It is illegal according to the constitution.
Article VI, Paragraph 3, of the US Constitution states:
“...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
So
the next time any candidate for political office is pressured to talk
about god and his religion, Article VI needs to be invoked by them,
and the topic of religion can be dropped because it is both
unnecessary and unconstitutional.
As long as we are at it,
let's dispel the whole Pledge of Allegiance which students in US
schools are forced to recite everyday.
The oath, written by Francis J. Bellamy,originally read as follows:
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"
No mention of God anywhere. But judging by Francis Bellamy's background,we can see why.
Bellamy
was a Christian Socialist, who “championed 'the rights of working
people and the equal distribution of economic resources, which he
believed was inherent in the teachings of Jesus.''
In 1891, Bellamy was forced from his Boston pulpit for his socialist
sermons, and eventually stopped attending church altogether after
moving to Florida, reportedly because of the racism he witnessed
there.3
The words “under God” were added in 1954 by President Eisenhower as part of his election campaign and in order to fend off communism. It unfortunately stuck, but the constitutionality of this addition is still in question.
Nevertheless the ignorant religious fundamentalists still mistakenly think that the words God and Christianity are part of the constitution and never cease to pressure candidates with questions concerning their religious beliefs.
This practice needs to stop, as it smears a person who does not show the correct level of fealty to some particular god, and it distracts people from focusing on the candidate's competency and qualifications for public office, which is a secular institution.
What Change?
The saddest part of this election is that neither Obama nor Romney deserved to win. They are both cretins who are supported by a minority of voters. They are bad choices and everyone who voted for them has done themselves, the country, and the world a great disservice.
Nothing will change with Obama still in charge. He will keep on bombing countries, lying, breaking promise after promise while taking good care of Wall St. and the wealthy and screwing the middle class and the poor.
It looks like the country got "Pocket Change" in the first Obama presidency and now he will just move forward over the corpses of the people whose lives he either extinguished or ruined between 2009-2012.
Back during the Bush years, I abhorred the people who were stupid enough to vote for Bush twice. I asked myself how can a people still support such a liar and a murderer? I used to date a girl that considered herself republican and when I told her about the rotten things that Bush has done, her response was that she does not want to think about all that.
Recently, I read an article about an activist confronting an Obama supporter during the 2012 election about Obama's drone killings and the Obama supporter replied that they "don't think about that."
It seems that ignorance and delusion is not limited to the republican side. It is alive and well with democrats also.
And these same democrats who “don't think about” Obummer's killing sprees were very vocal in opposing every single act of violence that GW Bush ordered during his presidency.
Black America is Asleep
The majority of blacks in the US voted for Obama. Traditionally, blacks are concerned about political, social and economic justice.
So why they voted overwhelmingly for Obama a 2nd time is a mystery.
This is a man that left them out to dry after 2008, bombed countries with drones, totally ignored the massacres of blacks in post-regime-change Libya, and sold out his supporters to the Wall St. hyenas.
What is it with black people? Are they truly concerned about justice for everyone, or does the fight for it apply only to their own communities and interests?
What does black America, and especially its leadership, have to say about this? How the hell can blacks in the US expect justice when they ignore the great injustices and war crimes which Obama has committed during the last four years all over the world? What about justice for Afghans, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Libyans, Syrians, Iranians, Africans, and the American citizens whom their idol Obama had killed/assassinated without trial?
Where is the justice in this?
By excusing or ignoring these criminal acts committed by Obama, blacks in America are helping to sow more injustice for the future, for themselves as well as foreigners. Blaming Bush can no longer serve as an excuse, for Obummer has willingly continued the Bush-era atrocities and has even gone beyond them.
In the US, hypocrisy truly knows no bounds.
Sources:
1. https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/01/26/2012-1635/estimates-of-the-voting-age-population-for-2011
2. Obama Elected 2012: President Clinches Electoral Vote Win. Posted: 11/06/2012 11:16 pm EST Updated: 11/07/2012 2:45 am EST)
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy
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