because the parties can set it up that way." -Hunter Thompson

Thompson expanded on this theme in his book "Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72."

That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”

The argument was familiar, I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame, but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?

Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.

"From bad to worse to rotten." If he were still alive, I wonder what Mr. Thompson would say about the current pair of duopoly offerings? Perhaps he would update that quote to say we've gone from bad to worse to rotten to toxic to radioactive. And what's next? Flesh-eating ghoul-ish? Or maybe we're already there.

In my estimation, Jill Stein is absolutely correct when she says:

Average citizens are clearly voting against their self-interest if they cast their ballots for Donald Trump - no less so if they vote for Hillary Clinton. Both the Trump and Clinton agendas very blatantly favor those at the very top of the wealth/income pyramid, at the expense of just about everyone else.

Think about it - Muslims all over the middle east are being bombed, massacred, terrorized and oppressed on a daily basis. Poor people of color in America are being routinely subject to what amounts so summary execution by police with virtually no repercussions. The US prisons are full to overflowing with other victims of poverty who are reduced to being the raw material for what has become a very profitable and politically powerful industry. Decent paying jobs have been steadily flowing overseas as a result of bogus "free trade" agreements.

And so it goes. All these trends will continue regardless of which of the two oligarchy foxes is tapped to be the new chicken coop guardian-in-chief.

How to get off this nightmarish merry-go-round to nowhere is the big question. For sure, the PTB don't really give a shit if you choose not to participate in the election. Voter turnout in the US has always been low relative to other industrialized countries, as the following graph makes clear.

As I see it, what the de facto ruling class craves most is a sense of legitimacy, which is not derived from encouraging participation, but from doing everything in its power to ensure that the overwhelming majority of those who do participate accept the proposition that the Democrat and Republican candidates represent the only "viable" options. That to refuse to accept that construct and support an alternative candidate represents a protest vote, a vanity vote, a "throwing your vote away" vote, to quote Larry David on last week's SNL. And they've been phenomenally successful at pushing this meme, as witness the presidential election results from 2012.

The self-described Masters of the Universe have known for a long time that they were going to have the outcome they desired in the 2016 election, and that the next Leader of the Free World would in fact be the person they anointed probably as far back as 2009. Hillary Clinton's ultimate victory has never been in serious doubt. And with the Donald's latest venture into the depths of crude, frat-boyish misogyny, it's virtually a done deal.

So why, one must ask, are the establishment media organs still going hammer and tongs after Jill Stein? Surely no reasonable person can possibly believe that Stein poses any credible threat to peal off a sufficient number of wavering Clinton supporters to "spoil" the election for Hillary. No, what's really going on is that the PTB want to make sure that 2016's third party numbers look a lot like 2012's.

Dead in the water. A complete non-factor. About as relevant and important as the Flat Earth Society. That's what they want to see happen, and that's what they want people to believe.

Because the fact is, candidates like Stein and Johnson are a threat. If a critical mass of voters decides to get off the duopoly wagon and vote for what they want, as opposed to voting against what they don't want, then it conceivably might start registering as something more than a meaningless blip on the political radar screen. Next time around, others might be inspired to follow. There could actually be a snowball effect that would ultimately represent a credible threat to the duopoly monopoly. That suddenly more than just a few hardcore malcontents might begin seeing options beyond choosing between two wings of the same predatory bird.

And that's something that would not sit too well at all with the Masters of the Universe. They've got a nice scam going, terrorizing the chickens into embracing a choice between Ravenous Fox and Slightly-Less-Ravenous Fox, and they're doing their damnedest to make sure that nobody interferes and spoils the fun. So before pulling the lever for Fox #1 or Fox #2, or simply throwing up your hands and saying screw the whole lot of them, I recommend doing the following:

Think carefully about what the status quo interests want you do, what they are indifferent to your doing, and what they positively don't want you to do. And then choose option number 3.

Jill Stein is not going to get elected president, that's obvious. At this point Hillary Clinton is as good as sworn in. What's really at stake in this election is whether the Green Party showing is another mere flyspeck, ridiculed and dismissed by the Serious People, or whether instead, it can begin the process of extending its appeal well beyond the confines of the terminally disgruntled fringe left.

That is why the slightly hysterical anti-Stein hit pieces, in both the establishment and (allegedly) alternative media, have begun to fly thick and fast, despite the fact that Stein poses no threat whatsoever to Hillary Clinton's ascension to the throne. It's not about that at all. What it's about is demonstrating in the most dramatic and unequivocal way possible, as in figuratively tattooing it on people's brains, that in the immortal words of Margaret Thatcher:

There is no alternative.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter. Resistance is futile. Since rape is inevitable, you may as well relax and enjoy it.

For the sake of a future that is something other than one long, nightmarish, slow-moving train wreck - not just for those now living, but for all generations to follow and for the very Earth that sustains us - it's imperative that those of us who possess a soul, a conscience, and a voice do everything in our power to put the lie to those statements.