CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER Vote for Than Shwe
By Muhammad Cohen
HONG KONG - Despite the record voter turnout forecast for Tuesday in the United
States presidential elections, it's easy to understand why Americans may be
tired of the campaign. After all, it began way back when US stocks and property
seemed like good investments. The campaign blew in with the political fresh air
of a woman and an African-American each making appealing bids for the
presidency but concludes with too much focus on a fringe female who'd do for
women what Clarence Thomas has done for blacks.
Perhaps you've grown fatigued with the candidates, even though Democrat Barack
Obama and Republican John McCain flashed real allure to overcome
standing-room-only fields to capture their
party nominations. Obama beat Hillary Clinton, whose anointment seemed
inevitable. Now he's acquired some of Clinton's air of inevitability, losing
freshness that made him so appealing initially.
McCain has always been the straight-talker, the guy who would rather be right
than liked, and the torture victim who stood up against torture. But he's been
stretching the truth with tortured readings of his opponents' positions since
January, now calling Obama un-American for supporting progressive taxation. He
also keeps insisting Sarah Palin is ready to be president. Perhaps it's
unavoidable that candidates who spend nearly two years on the campaign trail
sound and act like candidates.
Two wars and more
If you don't like the candidates, consider the issues. The US is fighting two
wars on the other side of the world that cost taxpayers nearly US$500 million a
day, plus priceless respect and admiration. The world's only superpower faces a
nuclear armed rogue dictator in North Korea; nuclear armed neighbors India and
Pakistan that have fought four wars in 60 years and both now believe they have
backing in Washington; gas-rich Russia is looking to regain influence over
former Soviet satellites; Iran is anxious to produce weapons-grade nuclear
fuel, and China is holding so many billions in US Treasury securities that its
financial power is a political weapon.
At home, America is mired in its worst financial crisis in 80 years and
exporting its toxins worldwide. Healthcare costs threaten to bankrupt business,
government and families. Fully 35 years after the first Arab oil embargo, this
year's oil price spike finally renewed concern over America's energy and
greenhouse gas profligacy. On these issues and more, from taxation to
education, McCain and Obama offer radically different solutions.
Maybe you've soured on the campaigning. The race began with a frontrunner
trying to extend one political dynasty and ends with an underdog desperately
distancing himself from another. Since its winning streak in February that
clinched the nomination, the Obama side has played defense. It broke a promise
to accept public financing and has used its groundbreaking Internet reach not
to stir the public imagination for Obama, but to raise funds in huge amounts,
supporting a relentless television assault that includes negative advertising,
outspending not just McCain but some of America's top brands. If the election
doesn't pan out, the Illinois senator is positioned to launch a clothing line
or travel website - "Your Obama holiday includes ... "
Kitchen sinking
The McCain campaign picked up the Clinton strategy of throwing the kitchen sink
at Obama, with Joe the Plumber added to connect the faucet. It's also picked up
that campaign's lack of discipline and unity, and added even more name calling
and half-truths about its opponents and, lately, the other half of the ticket.
While Clinton eventually found a successful voice as a fighter for working
people, McCain goes to polling day still searching.
Although racism and ageism have raised their heads - as Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin does over Alaska, according to Governor Palin - things could
have gotten much uglier. To the credit of all, the enduring phrases of this
campaign will be: "the 3am phone call", "Yes, we can, "You betcha" and "Spread
the wealth", rather than "God damn America" and f-bombs on the Senate floor.
Still, you may be reluctant to vote for a candidate who picked Palin as his
vice president or who has shown himself more ready to duck a tough scrap than
fight the good fight.
So if you're having trouble bringing yourself to vote for McCain or Obama, then
vote for Than Shwe. In case you don't recognize the name, Than Shwe is the head
of Myanmar's military junta, once known as the State Law and Order Restoration
Council, or SLORC. I'm not suggesting that you write in Than's name on your
presidential ballot. Instead, if you're thinking of skipping the voting booth
on Tuesday, please consider Than.
Thought W was bad?
Than leads the State Peace and Development Council cabal that keeps Nobel Peace
Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and refuses to recognize her
party's landslide victory in Myanmar's 1990 elections. Since then, the junta
has imprisoned thousands, moved the national capital to a remote site to
insulate itself from the pesky populace, conscripted an estimated 800,000
civilians into forced labor projects, brutally suppressed anti-government
demonstrations, including beating Buddhist monks last year, and prevented
international and internal aid from reaching victims of Typhoon Nargis last
May, a calamity that left more than 130,000 people dead and up to a million
homeless.
When you don't vote, you're agreeing with Than Shwe and dictators all over the
world who proclaim democracy is a farce. Shamefully, while ordinary Burmese,
Chinese, Cubans, Saudis, Syrians, North Koreans, Yemenis and Zimbabweans take
big risks to express their dissent and can only dream of electing their
leaders, millions of Americans can't be bothered to exercise their franchise.
Turnout in the 2004 US presidential election was 60.7%, the highest figure
since 1968. According to the Committee for the Study of the American
Electorate, that robust turnout meant 78 million eligible voters stayed away
from the polls on Election Day 2004.
Each one of those 78 million no-shows bolsters arguments that democracy doesn't
work, that Than Shwe or his political bedfellow North Korea's Dear Leader Kim
Jong-il is right and Thomas Jefferson is wrong. After all, even in America, the
dictators and their cronies laugh, 78 million people don't vote. No-shows have
outnumbered the votes for any candidate ever, meaning the real winner of every
presidential election in America history has been "I don't care" in a rout.
So if you're having trouble convincing yourself to cast a ballot that says
Obama or McCain is right, then vote to prove Than Shwe wrong, and relegate "I
don't care" to a richly deserved last place finish in the 2008 tally. Oppressed
people everywhere will thank you.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America's story to the
world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com),
a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal,
high finance and cheap lingerie.
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