This Nov. 2004 article concerned the American elections and collective responsibility for Fallujah.

I just saw a political cartoon. Captioned Aprés la vote (After The Vote), it showed a ballot box, turned over, pouring bombs onto Fallujah. A succinct, though inadvertent, condemnation of collective responsibility.

Are we complicit? By voting for these governments and reaping the benefits, or by not voting and allowing the susceptible masses to dominate, are we culpable? If our government is representative, then are we responsible for its actions?

“As so few people take part in the electoral process, it could be argued that America gets the president it deserves. But given the importance of the U.S. President in world affairs, you sometimes might be forgiven for wishing that the Americans would exercise a bit more caution about who they inflict on the rest of us.”

Malcolm Brabant, BBC News, on the 2000 US Elections.

Even with the coming ecological disaster, will Americans ever vote to have less? Considering the vicious circle between voting for politicians who fund less, and the desire for more green policies without being taxed for them, can we ever save our environment from North American consumption?

While individual Americans are as diverse as any other country’s, their collective conduct is that of a sheltered, ‘infantilised’ populace. Uninformed, and conditioned to navel-gaze haughtily, they can barely be held responsible for the actions which have brought them so much wealth….Yet we are to believe that they killed the natives and somehow founded the way to happiness for the world’s peoples!

‘No-one ever lost any money under-estimating the intelligence of the American public.” H.L. Mencken, iconic American journalist.

“Democracy just doesn’t work!” Kent Brockman, contemporary American journalist.

The evil done by a system, can function independently of the nature of the people working for it. Milgram’s people do the system’s bidding. As they stand, they are little more than consumptive drones. The citizenry reduced to vegetable matter, we essentially have a system in which a small set of people exist as the consumptive market for the exploited loot of the planet. The home base of the corporations is kept sufficiently stable for the purpose.

If they were marched past the misery they cause, most may change. As they stand, however, they are as compassionate outside their borders, as an uninformed public can be democratic within their borders.

With all the letter-writings which Europeans are doing to the Americans, hoping to influence their vote—or to vote at all—one cannot help but think of this 5% as a ruling oligarchy. Indeed, as so few of them vote, it is a mere 1% which determine the fate of the rest.

It may be argued that the US election has more impact on the lives of the citizens of other countries than those countries’ own national elections is even perceived to have. Thus, short of the world’s electorates being allowed to vote in the US elections, they will continue trying the inevitable route away from impotence, and taking their lot away from American influence.

Judging by the inability of the US electorate to discern reality, and their stupefying indecision, one cannot but consider them disqualified for the task.

Rah Sabs

Nov. 2004