I no longer care how popular the voting concert is, I refuse to pay homage to those untalented, tone deaf rockers! Every four years we are regaled with the very same quadrennial political tour, the same Evil Brothers, whatever names they may go by this time around, giving us the misconception that there is political choice in our lives.

Sorry, folks, but I have had it with those two brothers engendered by an incestuous relationship. Greater and Lesser, as far as this writer is concerned, although not twins, carry almost identical DNAs. And it is precisely our covering up for all of Lesser�s misgivings, election after election, that we are where we are -- politically -- today. After the snow dust settled in Iowa�s caucuses and New Hampshire came undone, I finally made an irrevocable resolution, not just for the New Year but one to honor for a lifetime: Never again! Never again will I be shamed into voting for that lesser evil candidate -- or party; for evil, of any kind, does not deserve anyone�s vote, certainly not mine.

While America�s Fuehrer tours the palaces of his moneyed-buddies in the Middle East, ranting incessantly -- and stupidly -- about Iran . . . and the inconceivable and �personal� promise of regional peace, the present Democratic pretenders to the Pennsylvania Avenue domicile, who also anticipate dominance over a Reichstag just a short jog away, deliver soft blows at each other as if all these non-sense, non-issues really meant anything. Anything relevant, that is, to the chaotic economic and foreign policies that define the sorry state of our nation these days! And these babbling pretenders under the banner of change are throwing barbs at one another without the slightest clue as to what �change� should be. Obama and Clinton, a total disgrace, yet it�s likely that one or the other, maybe even both, will adorn the Democratic ticket for this naught-eight. Ugh! Lesser evil, anyone . . . to whatever these Republicans will try to concoct in their wrongly rightist ways?

As in the past, it is America�s media �aiding� in the decision as to what politicians make the acceptability cut, and for Democrats, whatever the reasons, people like Biden, Dodd and Richardson never had a chance. And the press made sure that Kucinich�s peace message was kept as short as his physical stature. So from the very start it was just a beauty contest with three semi-finalists: Clinton, Edwards and Obama. And now, to make it more interesting -- in the tradition of American Idol -- it�s beginning to look as if the media judges have decided that Edwards is beginning to look too angry, maybe too controversial for our �centrist� politics. So it�s down to Obama and Clinton, Clinton and Obama . . . the man who can deliver a spirited message from the pulpit, just like an emotive evangelical preacher, but who to date has not shown us any �beef�; and that warrior, bionic woman who could have the White House renamed the Clinton House if she were to add two terms to her husband�s. America�s centrists both . . . from the center of America�s corporate money!

And the only hope and compromise for American progressives that Edwards� candidacy might represent appears to be gone. Edwards is by no means what many of us would consider a true progressive candidate, but he seems trustworthy enough to help change the direction of America, domestically and internationally, and not just talk about it. No sacrilegious talk (on peace) like that expressed by Hillary, after her victory in New Hampshire that would have us leave Iraq only under the proper conditions . . . definitely the language one would expect from a transvestite Dubya.

Of course, Iraq has ceased to be Americans� main concern, and now the headlines are starting to tell us that voters are far, far more worried about the economy than any war; naturally, as long as it is waged elsewhere. And the economic bloodbath soon to come in snowballing fashion, unstoppable by any so-called economic stimuli -- which would entail additional borrowing from our already bankrupted future generations and nothing but a temporary postponement of the inevitable -- will uncover a third stage of a cancer that has been with American society for too long: we consume, or waste in unnecessary weaponry, far more than we produce . . . and we elect government leadership that enable us to do so.

Only thing that the Democratic Party presumably had going all these years, as stupidly as it sounds if you believe it, was having a �big umbrella� for diversity. Except that when it came to the moment of truth, those who advocated social justice, domestically, and peace in the world, were never represented in the party. They had neither voice nor vote. Yet, at election time, the Democratic Party apparatchiks would always come to that 5 to 10 percent of progressive voters, asking us with a sardonic smile to vote for them . . . the Lesser Evil! And most of us have succumbed to that totally flawed rationale.

Had progressives stood firm to their convictions during the past quarter of a century, and had organized as a true �umbrella party� to the many advocacies for a better and more just and peaceful society -- even if small in numbers -- this 2008 presidential election could have turned out to be one to really change America. Instead, we�ll have an election where our citizenry is insulted once again . . . with more of the same.

If anyone approaches me prior to the November 4 election sermonizing why I need to vote once again for �Lesser Evil� my answer will be fulminatory and terminal, and I will say it without fear of remorse: Go f . . . yourself!

� 2008 Ben Tanosborn