The Election & Beyond, Part II
Part Two: …and Beyond
Like I was saying, if elected to the United States House of Representatives, I will serve as a Progressive. At this stage, I have no insight regarding vote totals, but when folks let me know they voted for me, I tell them they didn’t just vote for me.
They voted for a platform that believes Black lives matter, that climate change is real, that free healthcare is a human right, that our current political system is a rigged game that serves a privileged few, and that American imperialism must end.
For your votes, I offer from the bottom of my heart a sincere thank you.
There is a degree of uncertainty about Election Night, and I’m not just talking about the possibility of my winning. If I win the seat it would change my life inasmuch as it would mark the beginning of a career in public service. It would change my family’s life as I split time between Portland and D.C.
However, I should stress that success for me isn’t necessarily winning the contest. It has much more to do with promoting freedom of thought and providing an alternative platform away from two political parties that are synonymous with evil.
Speaking of, from where I’m sitting, I see the Presidential race as a toss-up. Polls of dubious origin on cable news and actual voter registration numbers are telling two very different and very conflicting stories. Polls suggest early voter turnout — in record numbers — is putting Joe Biden in the lead.
However, as everyone’s reaction should be when presented with poll numbers, I’m wondering how they conducted the poll (phone, text, in person?), how many people, the mean and median income for the district(s) where polling took place, demographics of the participants, and how surveyors approached the participants.
Any poll should have you asking those questions before you believe the data. And if you don’t get an answer, don’t believe the poll. Sometimes the greatest conspiracy is the one hiding right under your nose.
Remember when the entire Western world got tricked into believing yellow cake uranium was flowing into Iraq from Africa? Remember when the news media tried to sell us on this thing that doesn’t exist called “clean coal?”
Regardless of the outcome of the Presidential race, we can anticipate street violence. Donald Trump’s reelection is a guaranteed “night of rage” from the Left with likely counterprotests on the Right. Should Biden win, the Left won’t exactly be throwing him a parade, nor can we expect Trump supporters to go gently into that good night should he lose.
Both are dismal prospects. Biden has promised “nothing will fundamentally change,” in terms of healthcare, energy (when Biden wasn’t flip-flopping on fracking and oil, and on that topic I’m still not sure if he was sundowning or if he really is just that unprincipled), police reform, or foreign policy. We should move forward with the assumption that he means it.
A leaked shortlist of potential Biden cabinet picks promises to us that Wall Street will continue to have a home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. A Biden administration will could possibly, in some ways, be easier to challenge for failing to build on the progressive legacy (however fictionalized) of Barack Obama. With Biden, we’ll at least have that as a measuring stick.
On the other hand, that very legacy could also be used against the Left as a justification to stifle and suppress criticism, let alone resistance. Maybe we can expect the neoliberals to be sore, vengeful winners towards any entity that didn’t contribute to their comeback.
Could we expect the same from a reelected and emboldened Trump? If he wins, will we even be allowed to march?
I foresee an unavoidable slipping into greater, more oppressive authoritarianism in the United States regardless of who is President. We can call it fascism. Using the Merriam Webster definition as a guide, fascism “exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”
Capitalism was too lean and not mean enough for America to stay at the top of the heap, and Trump spent the last four years deregulating trade, energy, and environmental protection while packing federal courts with arch-conservative Constitutionalists. Should he win, watch how few of Trump’s policies Biden actually overturns.
Where Biden is merely pledging to gradually dim the lights on the Left, Trump is promising a looming darkness. We can expect it to get uglier and scarier for many, if not most of us.
But there are glimmers of hope. America’s summer of revolt helped inspire uprisings in other countries against climate injustice, police violence, and authoritarianism. The recent people-powered socialist victory in Bolivia is a moral win for global anti capitalism. Watchdogs on all sides are looking ahead to major elections for head of state in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
Sikhs For Justice, the only organization whose endorsement I sought during my campaign, are leading an international campaign of global significance: a people’s referendum vote on the secession of Punjab from India. Punjab would regroup as the Republic of Khalistan, a self-determined inclusive homeland for Sikhs. The emergence of Khalistan could tip the balance of power in the region, Khalistan acting as a buffer between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers with pacts of mutually assured destruction, and possibly with China as well.
The fact is that resistance to international authoritarianism demands international solidarity as the global axis of power continues to centralize. I’ve long yearned for a Leftist coalition as politically powerful as the United Nations but as committed to upholding its cause by any means necessary as the Central Intelligence Agency.
Bernie Sanders and Yannis Varoufakis of Greece’s Hellenic Parliament helped establish the Progressive International. This is that Leftist coalition, certainly the best we will have for the foreseeable future. I will be directing my efforts toward the Progressive International.
Membership page for the Progressive International can be found here.
As a Vedic Anarchist, I’d be a fool and a hypocrite to invest my conscience in something as flimsy and as fallible as a constitution. My loyalty rests with my Creator and my family, relationships predicated on love, trust, and support.
The government of the United States is already shambolic and corrupt, and I do not entrust any person or group of people to do any better at the helm with even more money and power at their disposal. This is why I am not a Socialist or a Communist.
My resistance is against the oppression of all people, everywhere.
My ultimate calling is to act in service of others both as an advocate and as a spiritual counselor. As I ramp down my stint in politics, I am reviving my pre-campaign work as an ordained Hindu minister and trained counselor for those in need. Life often leads us to some very heavy questions. While I don’t purport to have the answer, I have found in the wisdom of Vedic Dharma an answer that works.
As we confront an increasingly ruthless material world, one where “the cruelty is the point,” to quote Sarah Iannarone, Vedic practices like detachment and upholding dharma should be common knowledge in Leftist circles. I don’t believe any worldly cause in human history has had success without the reinforcement of faith as the basis for a moral argument.
I intend to be a voice of faith and support for any willing ear or audience that has a desire for human rights, the liberation of the oppressed, and the global cause of decolonization.
My prayer, invoked to God as Ganesh, the remover of obstacles, is for strength, wisdom, devotion, ferocity, and guidance.
May I be blessed with the strength of Hanuman to resist mockery, criticism, and bullying. May I be blessed with the wisdom of Krishna as he preached Vedic Dharma to Arjuna. May I have the devotion of Shiva, the ever-meditating family man. May I have the ferocity of Durga, the demon slayer. May I bask in the guidance of your all-pervading Light.
🐘🐵🦚📿🔱
“Lead us from the Unreal to the Real.” — Vedic invocation
Om Sai Ram,
Rev. Alex C. DiBlasi 🕉
Pandit, Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya Sampradaya 🕉
