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I guess this track could also have the subtitle (...Or why I don't understand how anyone voting in the 2016 US election isn't voting for Clinton). Like many out there, I have been disillusioned with what passes for democracy these days, and used to be of the "they're all the same" mindset when it came to general elections. And arguably the history backs this up - there is profound continuity when it comes to a shared elite consensus no matter which party a candidate belongs to. At the same time, however, history teaches us something else: that while that might be true on a fundamental level, HOW the powers that be are going to continue to control and dominate us within this general oppression is inarguably determined by the elections that select the particular elite for any given term. At its most basic - a candidate who runs and wins on a liberal platform of inclusiveness, welfare, and generally helping others, allows for a very different reality than a candidate who wins on a platform of cuts, austerity, anti-immigration, and threats to national security. In the rhetoric of each side, a limit is set regarding what the population will tolerate. And candidates are held to account about what they promised and what they delivered. Sure - whoever wins we remain oppressed (this is not utopia!), but the tone of our oppression changes depending on who we choose to give power to. To deny that is to ignore the real impact that election decisions have on real people's lives. I guess another subtitle of this song could be "...or try telling to the people whose lives are actively diminished by the specific policy decisions of your chosen candidate, why you believed they were all the same?"
lyrics
It’s easy to say they’re all the same
Same ideologies under a slightly different name
And I remember, as a kid, thinking Bill Hicks was so deft
With his “puppet on the right” and his “puppet on the left”
I’m just as guilty as him as I sang “vote for change”
Implying the choice is fiction when you’re choosing from a range
Of options limited from pretty bad to even worse
I sang democracy’s eulogy and packed it in a hearse
Because it’s evident to all of us that we’re not truly represented
And if voting could change anything they’d have made a law against it
But while I confess we are being oppressed, I think that history’s shown
When it comes to our oppression each election sets the tone
Because there’s a tone to our oppression
We choose the tone of our oppression
What is the tone of our oppression?
There is a tone to our oppression
Each campaign sets parameters of what we should debate
Do we pick the puppet who speaks of love or the puppet who speaks of hate?
Each candidate has a worldview of what problems we all face
And this worldview is instructive of where priorities will be placed
For while utopia remains a goal, we’re not in utopia yet
And we can’t afford idealistic gambles with our social safety net
Because people actually live and die based on policy decisions
We might agree they’re not perfect but don’t tell me all politicians
Are all basically the same when that is blatantly untrue
The lesser of two evils entails a better of the two
It’s not a lot but it’s not nothing and it’s time we heed this lesson
Their rhetoric sets a mandate for the tone of our oppression
Because there’s a tone to our oppression
We choose the tone of our oppression
What is the tone of our oppression?
There is a tone to our oppression
We choose the tone of our oppression
Real lives will be affected by who is and isn’t elected
credits
released October 16, 2016
All words and music by ANARCHOPHY
