The danse macabre of US-style democracy

This is a good article from John Pilger. Granted, it's much like a lot of other stuff I've read before, but that doesn't make it any less enlightening. This passage, in particular, deserves to be repeated:

"What struck me, living and working in the United States, was that presidential campaigns were a parody, entertaining and often grotesque. They are a ritual danse macabre of flags, balloons and bullshit, designed to camouflage a venal system based on money, power, human division and a culture of permanent war."

That so echoes how I feel, that these elections every four years are an elaborate form of smoke and mirrors to obscure war and class divisions.