Who is ‘the real sucker?’

As one who is not ashamed of benefiting from entitlements (Social Security and Medicare), I do not like being singled-out by the Right as considering myself a victim. But neither do I appreciate being called a sucker by the Left.

Writing in TruthDig ,<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_do_you_take_your_poison_20120924//&gt; and republished in Common Dreams <http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/24-1&gt;, Chris Hedges offers a very persuasive argument for a protest vote that calls for a pox on both the houses of Republicans and Democrats. He contends that Obama is not in power and will not be if re-elected; neither contends Hedges will Romney wield power. Whoever is our next President, Hedges insists, it is corporate power, Big Money, that will call all the real shots. If you do not think so and vote for neither candidate, you are ‘the real sucker.’

I would like to think that Hedges, with his customary hyperbole, is stretching it a bit. I find little evidence though, to take exception with Mr. Hedges. It does appear, that, for all the promises a candidate makes, he or she will be able to keep only those sanctioned by the holders of the only really effective power in the USA, national and international and transnational corporations. A case in point is certainly the fact that none of the Financial Superpowers that precipitated our, and the world’s, current fiscal crisis has been brought to justice or to take any responsibility. Well, Bank of America is paying out billions in a suit brought by investors in the BoA/Merrill-Lynch deceptions, but those investors are themselves among or subsidiaries of the Financial Superpowers. No one is being held responsible for the hundreds of thousands of foreclosures brought on by Wall Street. No one is coming to the rescue of my neighbor  down the street who lived where the weeds are now nearly waist high.

The only reason I can come up with to argue against making a protest vote for a third-party candidate is the Supreme Court and the appointments to it that, in all likelihood, will come about in the next four years. I cannot imagine Romney replacing Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the oldest member of the Court, with a new Associate Justice of her philosophy or gender. That possibility alone, that Romney would appoint Justices who would hold office well beyond my lifetime, is reason enough for me want Obama to be our President for another term.

At the end of his article, Chris Hedges says: “You can dismiss those of us who will in protest vote for a third-party candidate and invest our time and energy in acts of civil disobedience. You can pride yourself on being practical. You can swallow the false argument of the lesser of two evils. But ask yourself, once this nightmare starts kicking in, who the real sucker is.”  That is the wrong question, Mr. Hedges. It is a lot more important to ask yourself whether you want a Supreme Court even more hell-bent in the direction of the kind of judicial activism represented by the Robert’s Court to rule for decades? You can have your protest vote and feel the more self-righteously progressive because of it. I’d rather not see the Supreme Court get even worse, if you do, then I am afraid that you are ‘the real sucker.’