Ol’ Mophead Mops up the Votes

Caricature: Bryan Hemming

I don’t know what to say. I really don’t. But, looking for the tiniest ray of sunshine on the cloudiest of days, at least Hillary didn’t win. Now, now, before you all start reaching for the baseball bats, it’s always best to have something in reserve to celebrate. Had she won, I would’ve said: “Looking on the bright side, at least Trump didn’t win”. When all’s said and done, in a two-headed monster election, by chopping off a head you only have one left to deal with. You have to admit, whichever way the wind blew, the world was always going to be a worse place come 11/9.

The result being billed as a shock by the corporate media was not nearly so much of a shock to most of the alternative media. But, in common with both presidential hopefuls, mainstream hacks have great difficulty with the truth, both telling it and facing up to it. Well here it is in block capitals: UNCLE SAM IS BANKRUPT. Economically, morally and politically bankrupt. You can’t get any more proof than this election. The Emperor stands naked, the cupboard is bare and the party’s over. Middle America has spoken, the Middle East is on fire, and the middle classes are fleeing to Canada. Wall Street is about to crash, the reds are under the bedclothes and the Clintons are crying for Mommy. To use that most annoying and hackneyed of clichés: go figure.

One of the good things – and there some – starting to emerge from this election of elections is that Western corporate media has been exposed as nothing more than a bunch of snake oil salesmen. Not only are they in the business of selling us iPhones, exotic holidays, and new cars on the back of even more debt, they are in the business of selling us politicians, austerity and wars. And, as Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit, and now Donald Trump has shown, they’re not that good at it. We can take comfort in the fact that now even more of us know will know where to find the real news. The system is broken. In a true democracy Ol’ Mophead wouldn’t have been anybody’s first choice to fix it. And when look at what was on offer as an alternative; we might just as well have tossed a coin and stayed in bed.

For those in search of a real solution to the economic and political problems of the U.S. and the rest of the Western world, you can’t do much better than starting with Michael Hudson, interviewed here on Meet the Renegades. 

Michael Hudson is research professor of economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.