The truth is that it doesn’t matter who wins this election, the real winner will be the same winner as in every election. The same Canadian Council of Chief Executives clique that helped shape the SPP negotiations in secret backroom negotiations with the “elected officials” who supposedly govern the country.
And the results of the hotly contested Canadian election are in. Even as we speak Canadians are digesting the news that they have a different governing party right now. Or maybe the same one. Or maybe it’s a minority government and we’re waiting to see what coalition will be constructed. Or maybe the results aren’t in yet, or maybe it’s too close to call, or maybe something happened and the vote was postponed…
OK, OK, I’ll admit it: I haven’t actually looked at the election results yet. Don’t worry, I will. Once I swallow down the bile and plug my nose and put on my propaganda-deflecting goggles. But even so I can tell you exactly how the new (or same old) government is going to effect the status quo in Canada.
It isn’t.
I say this because my thesis is that no one will ever vote their way to freedom. Not true freedom, anyway. Oh, sure, there will be cosmetic changes here and there. There will be political football issues (even ones that the public are passionate about) on which there is some leeway for difference. But if you’re Hoping for Change through the ballot box…well I think you know how that script goes by now. And yet, people still turn out to the polls in droves to cast their ballots. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
Of course, I claim no originality for my thesis. It’s certainly been articulated well enough by others in the past.
There was famed 19th century American author Henry David Thoreau. In his 1849 class on Civil Disobedience he excoriates the “patrons of virtue” who “give only a cheap vote” to ease their conscience that they are doing something about the problems of the world. He goes on to say:
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency.”
There was the turn-of-the-20th-century anarchist Emma Goldman who is supposed to have come up with the famous turn of phrase, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” Regardless of whether or not she really did coin that phrase, she certainly had no love for voting or the political process as it has been presented to the masses. In “Anarchism: What It Really Stands For” she writes:
“One has but to bear in mind the process of politics to realize that its path of good intentions is full of pitfalls: wire-pulling, intriguing, flattering, lying, cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby the political aspirant can achieve success. Added to that is a complete demoralization of character and conviction, until nothing is left that would make one hope for anything from such a human derelict. Time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust, believe, and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to find themselves betrayed and cheated.”
Or there’s Carroll Quigley, the distinguished Georgetown professor (and Bill Clinton’s mentor) who wrote the secret history of a powerful hidden Anglo-American establishment. As he revealed in Tragedy and Hope the shifting of the political pendulum from left to right through the election cycles only serves to fool the masses into believing that they actually have control over the course their country is taking:
“The chief problem of American political life for a long time has been how to make the two Congressional parties more national and international. The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.”
Or, as listeners of my recent podcast on agorism will know, there was Samuel Konkin. He argued against political action in favor of counter-economic action, and in an instructive exchange on the subject with Murray Rothbard (who argued that if slaves could vote for a slavemaster who would treat them better they would be foolish not to do so) Konkin retorted:
“Can you imagine slaves on a plantation sitting around voting for masters and spending their energy on campaigning and candidates when they could be heading for the 'underground railway?' Surely they would choose the counter-economic alternative; surely Dr. Rothbard would urge them to do so and not be seduced into remaining on the plantation until the Abolitionist Slavemasters’ Party is elected.”
Yet despite all of these thinkers who have seen through the charade of voting for centuries now, we still have masses of people getting excited about the idea of going to a booth once every four years and changing society with the stroke of a pencil. It is not difficult to understand why this idea appeals to a public that has been thoroughly propagandized to all their lives, but it is no less disappointing.
The truth is that it doesn’t matter who “wins” this election, the real winner will be the same winner as in every election. The same Canadian Council of Chief Executives clique that helped shape the SPP negotiations in secret backroom negotiations with the “elected officials” who supposedly govern the country. The same Canadian International Council cabal that, like its Royal Institute for International Affairs and Council on Foreign Relations sister organizations, is working toward a New World Order of global control. The same Power Corporation executives and associates who have been behind the career of nearly every Canadian Prime Minister for decades. At the end of the day the name of the party in control of parliament is almost irrelevant; the same forces are still pulling the strings.
I realize this is a point that the incredulous average Canadian will not be easily convinced by. For those fellow Canucks who have been swept up by election coverage, I offer some bold predictions based on my thesis. Let’s see how they turn out.
1. No matter who is elected, Canada will still continue to support American aggression in theaters around the world, including Syria.
2. No matter who is elected, the Prime Minister will be a staunch ally of Israel and will use every opportunity to stress just how important the Israeli relationship is to the interests of Canada.
3. No matter who is elected, the Bank of Canada will continue to allow private banks to create the vast majority of the money supply as interest-bearing debt instruments, despite the BoC’s history of and ability to fund public financing with interest-free credit (let alone any of the other proposals for reforming the monetary system).
4. No matter who is elected, the Canadian government will continue to parrot the official line on 9/11 and the war on terror, and the increasingly invasive police state panopticon that has been set up in Canada in the last decade and a half will continue to function as before.
5. The new Prime Minister will not repeal Bill C-51.
6. The new Prime Minister will sign off on the TPP.
Well, there we go. Some predictions. Now let’s see how things turn out under whoever won. OK, I’ll bite…
…I just checked the results. It looks like the Liberals have won a majority and Trudeau is the next Prime Minister. And that fact doesn’t change one word of what I have written in this article.