The metaphorically unstoppable 300 thousand ton ship has been launched and has left the shores on a voyage which will inexorably and irreversibly provide the United States which a genuinely functional progressive participatory democracy which in some ways will emulate  the governance of our highly respected former “loyalist” neighbors to the north, namely the progressive democratic government of Canada, which experiences no terrorism reprisal attacks, which provides its citizens with an excellent single payer health care system, and which does not allow its citizens to acquire automatic human beings killing machines, through rationally regulated gun laws enacted without the toxic influence of such toxic undue influence lobbies as the American NRA is.

“We the people” owe Bernie Sanders tremendous recognition and credit for having catalyzed, galvanized,  and organized the democratic progressive movement which will now begin to evolutionarily sweep out establishment corrupted neocon and neolib politicians from Congress, will work to reverse the Citizen’s United v. FEC bizarre Supreme Court decision, which BTW, has not only opened the floodgates for the corruption of our already decaying democratic governance, by allowing U.S. money be used to give us “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” but, to boot, as revealed via Lee Fang of the Intercept, and elaborated on by “Democracy Now ” – two of the most prestigious independent and progressive news and investigative journalism organizations of the United States – how corrupted foreign money is now flowing and contaminating further our  electoral system from such places as. in this exemplary case, Singapore, as documented by Fang’s  “Foreign Influence” .

The pollution of our democracy must stop NOW.

The way forward was available long ago, was heralded by Ralph Nader, yet its discussion by national conversation was ignored as well as suppressed.

The mechanism called “Instant Runoff Voting” (aka “IRV”) can and will be established to prevent the present unacceptable state of affairs characterized by the corporatist-militarist take over of our democracy by neocons and neolibs representing the top elites of the 0.1% to the 1% or slightly more multi millionaires of multi billionaires which have in effect rendered our present election a mockery and an exercise in futility.

This writer is mindful of the plethora of discussions ad nauseam as regards to the personalities of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both of which represent a non-choice for the American voter, since as regards to our evolution into a harmonious, equalized, crime-free, terrorism-free, prosperous society since these candidates represent the least popular candidates most probably in the history of country.

The choice they represent is analogous to a choice between Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola, and both are unhealthy.

So, to cut to the chase, this writer posits the following.

Starting immediately, it must be understood that an  end to the discussions about the pros and cons of the personalities of Trump and Clinton must take place.

These discussions are literally infantile, since they are not focused on the underlying structural flaws which have been interwoven into our eroding democracy going back to the war on Vietnam or even further back.

It is only by an in-depth examination and analysis of the systemic and structural disfunctionalities of our capitalism run amok system that we will be able to undertake the reforms we need to survive as a society which will inspire by the power of example.

Personalities during one or two as one electoral cycles will not only not change anything but they  will ensure that given the dishonest and corrupted and backgrounds of both candidates, the undue influence of such toxic lobbies as the industrial-military one, the big dharma-hospital one, the NRA one, the AIPAC one, will endure and business as usual will continue.

There will no viable and sustainably evolving public option in our so-called “Affordable Care Act” , there will be no end in our perversely corporatist-militarist foreign policy which is geared to continue to interfere in the sovereign affairs of all nations, and wage wars throughout the planet, something which will eventually lead to a major confrontation with Russia and China with consequences which may end life in this plan.

There will be no end of the mind numbing Citizens United decision, no end in the suppression of the valuable public service whistle blowers have provided, for which they have been egregiously punished instead of being protected and heralded as heroes.

There will no end in U.S. companies dodging taxes and registering in tax sheltering countries

There will be no beginning in the generation of jobs by programs to re-industrialize the U.S. and to prioritize and render affordable both vocational and academic education, or in the beginning of massive infrastructural maintenance, and railway modernization projects, since these projects will need as well government funding.

There will be no end in Republican obstructionism in any constructive government spending, since the right wing extremist neocons count with the support of their neoliberal cohorts who together will continue to use demagogically fear and hate mongering propaganda to continue funding a monstrous defense budget which is largely offensive in that its consequences are the hemorrhage of blood and treasury funds, such as $ 1 trillion dollars during a decade to modernize our atomic bombs, and  $ 80 billion dollars a year for Israel to continue to carry out its Palestine Ethnic Cleansing Process in defiance of International law, in the pursuit of its warped hegemonic designs and its sociopathic obsession with a modernizing, evolving, and democratizing Iran.

There is a track record of support for dictators which candidate Clinton has had the temerity to demonstrate by supporting Saudi Arabian war intervention in Bahrain (where we have naval base) when the Saudi’s dictatorship oppressed murderously democracy activist in Bahrain, of support for authoritarian regimes which she further demonstrated when in 2009 she refused to call a “coup” the abduction in the middle of night of the democratically elected President Zelaya in Honduras (where we also have a military base), and when she referred to the 30-year thief and murderous dictator of Egypt, namely Hosni Mubarak, as someone she not only likes, but feels as if he is ” …a friend of the family(sic)…”, the same way she demonstrates to feel about the megalomaniac delusional misleader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who in the Summer of 2014 carried out a massacre in Gaza which today is the world’s largest concentration camp.

To those who ask why is this writer singling out Clinton for criticism but not Trump, the answer is simple.

Clinton is an intelligent, shrewd, highly experienced politician.   She is also a dishonest, chameleonic, flip-flopping, hawkish politician low on principles and high on self-interest who was for 6 years on the board of directors of Wall-Mart as the retailer waged a major war on labor unions, she also was an active young Republican.  She supported the war on Iraq, opposed same gender marriages, and endorsed a whole other regressively conservative perspectives and actions, but her self-interest made her ditch these whenever it seemed to be convenient.   In fact when it came to Obama’s first mention of his determination to pursue diplomacy with Iran as regards to the nuclear issue, she strongly opposed it and during her campaign against him said “…have you no shame, Mr. Obama…” as relates to principled stand which reached successful fruition via the P5+1 agreement.

In other words, the mainstream media did not fulfill its duty of inform the American public in -toto about her background, as this independent writer and many others are doing.

When it comes to Trump, in contrast, he is his own worst enemy and speaks for himself, but he mainstream media now makes it sound as if the other gang of Republican candidates were so much more suitable for the presidential quest when in reality they simply are more reserved in expressing who they really are and to boot, the whole Republican party has been into a state of terminal intellectual, ethical, moral, and political putrefaction which is fairly obvious.

So, given this stark reality this writer poses that the firs priority is the establishment of the Instant Runoff Voting system (aka “IRV” system)

This system, used by genuine democracies in the world, will allow for United States voters to finally be able to vote for that Third Party of progressive democrats whose time has not only come but is long overdue, while at the same time not be accused of, or feel guilty of, thereby favoring one of the worst of the two other presidential candidates.

Voters will then vote either solely for the Third Party candidate, or they will have the option to vote for him (e.g. Bernie Sanders) and still designate either Trump of Clinton as the recipient of said vote in case the Third Party candidate did not get the majority of votes.

Pure and simple.   And much more democratic than the charade we have now.

In the “Unprecedented 2000” election when Gore won the democratic vote but then the Supreme Court decided to stop  the vote count in Florida and gave the election to the looser George W. Bush, Ralph Nader was abused for having run and having siphoned off votes from W.   Had we not had the obsolete Electoral College system which must be abolished in tandem with the Instant Run Off Voting provision, then we probably may not even have the fraudulent war on Iraq which brought Al Qaeda and later Daesh into Iraq and beyond.

This article ends with the provision to its readers of a fascinating debate video between two highly respected scholarly Americans who argue about minor differences they have, but  differences which would be rendered mute if we had the IRV system, because both agree that Trump and Clinton are a bad choice, but one maintains that, as this writer does, that the option of not voting must then be exercised while the other maintains that it is a must to vote for Clinton only to help defeat Trump.

The debaters are Chris Hedges and Robert Reich.  The forum is the prestigious Democracy Now news show, and the interviewers are the legendary host Amy Goodman and her co-host Juan Gonzales who recently received the prestigious Polk Award.

Chris Hedges supports no one.  He is a Pulitzer Price Wining author and investigative journalist.

Robert Reich supports Clinton.  He is the former Secretary of Labor now is teaching in academia.