THE REAL AMERICA IS NOT AT ELECTION CONVENTIONS

What follows is my English translation of a short article originally in Italian, first published on Movisol.org on 23rd August 2024 and then on ComeDonChisciotte.org the day after.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the clash between the neocon elites and the “real America” is getting more intense. As we prepare for this edition, a typical circus show is going on at the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago: lots of wild applause and pep talks, but nothing of substance is being discussed, even as the anti-war movement protests outside. It had already been decided in advance that Kamala Harris would be elected presidential candidate, and there is nothing to indicate that she would significantly change the course of US politics in recent decades. But on the other hand, until now, she has said nothing significant about anything.

But the “other America”, the one that rejects permanent wars, shareholder value fixation and media-imposed issues, is increasingly joining the Schiller Institute and the International Peace Coalition in trying to reverse course. One example was the IPC meeting on 9 August, convened to mark the special commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945.

At the meeting, Colonel (retired) Lawrence Wilkerson and former congressman Dennis Kucinich (photo) made impassioned calls to action.

Wilkerson is the former chief of staff of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who experienced first-hand how the Iraq war was launched on the basis of lies. “Today”, he said, “in these times of crazy wars overseas sponsored and supported to the bitter end by America,” it is important to reflect on the past five thousand years, which have seen hundreds of empires, large and small, come and go. But the American empire, which he traces back to 1945, is the first to have ‘developed the technology to destroy itself and the rest of humanity’, namely in a nuclear war.

Nevertheless, Wilkerson sees a reason to hope for democracy. The people “must object to its imminent suicide.

The people must object and object and object, and protest and protest, drive out the bad leaders by voting, breed and elect new leaders to take their place, and then protest again”.

Dennis Kucinich was a Democratic congressman from Ohio from 1997 to 2013 and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2003 and 2008.

In his speech, he pointed out that the United States now spends more than $1 trillion a year on war and war preparedness, i.e. “more than half of our budget” goes to defend “the idea that somehow America is still the unipolar ruler of the world”. Kucinich urged people to ‘organise in the streets’ and use all the tools they have on the Internet to wake up others.

He concluded by saying that we must unite and create “a new consciousness that will hopefully overcome this sordid dance with death”.

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