Which ever candidate they vote for, the president gets in

Today millions of Americans vote to choose their next president.  But what choice do they really have? Both candidates are agreed on many key issues, ensuring there will be no real change (the big buzz word in America these days). In the "mid-east" for instance, both parties have once again thrown their weight behind Israel, which doesn't bode well for the Palestinian people, who are under the yoke of an apartheid regime. (By the way, if you think that's an exaggeration, remember that a recent poll there supported the idea of Israelis and Palestinians using separate roads! And I think you can guess who would get to ride the dual carriageways and who would be left to bump along dirt tracks)

And neither party has had anything to say about gun control, the greatest shame of that great nation, because the slightest suggestion that guns should be even slightly harder to obtain would lose them millions of votes from voters who are locked into a pioneer mentality that was actually out of date more than a century ago. Similarly there has been no debate about capital punishment or the fact that the US locks up a bigger percentage of its citizens than any other "democratic country", and that a worryingly disproportionate amount of them are from ethnic minorities. Don't go there, they have been told by their advisers: it's electoral suicide. Hence in reality, very little changes.

When Obama won in 2008, it emerged that his campaign, estimated to cost over $76 million, was the most expensive in history. Mitt Romney, a man who himself is worth over $200 million and pays tax at less than 13% (significantly less than the average American), as well as believing in a made-up religion (actually I suppose all religions are made up really), has learnt from this and spent even more on his campaign this time around. Obama's supporters have had to invest a similar amount (some estimates put the price paid as high as £1 billion) just to keep up.

And what do we hear them say? The same, meaningless little flash-phrases, over and over again until like some Pavlovian dog the electorate heads towards the food bowl that suits them best. Romney accuses Obama of presiding over the world financial crash, but as I remember it it had happened by the time Obama took the oath of allegiance. And as for him not fulfilling his electoral promises, it's not surprising since every change Obama tried to make was opposed every inch of the way by a congress determined to thwart his every initiative. In his turn Obama points the finger at the GOP for helping create the crash, though it is plain that democratic party supporters were equally implicated in what was one of the biggest displays of greed the world has ever seen.

So, good luck America, you enjoy your day of so-called "democracy". Just one thing, a word to the wise, as it were: whoever wins, please don't invade Iran. The American public is easily conned (as are the rest of us), and it might do wonders for your approval ratings at home, but I fancy it might go down rather less well with the rest of the world...