On the eve of the 57th quadrennial US presidential election, I am amused. Why? Because the world is about to bear witness to one of the most expensively-assembled Punch and Judy shows in living memory and very few are aware that what is taking place, is a charade. Staggeringly, in this age of unprecedented austerity, it is estimated that the total cost of the election could be just shy of $6 billion. I suppose it would be less grotesque and more palatable to me if there was any fundamental difference between the two candidates on offer. That Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama are mere puppets controlled by the real power brokers – the likes of Kissinger, the Rockefellers, Soros, Zbrinski, the Rothschilds and the rest of the shadowy wealthy Zionist elite – sits ill at ease with me. However, America stands proud and its citizens declare to anyone who’ll listen that they live in the land of the free, the land where anyone can become president (just as long as they have the backing of AIPAC). All hail the greatest democracy on earth where every four years they shuffle some shit around and let the people choose between two cheeks on the same arse.

Today, I heard Mitt Romney make a speech and amidst all the inane waffle, familiar clichés and psychobabble, he uttered the phrase “we can begin a better tomorrow, tomorrow”. Seriously, who really believes this crap? Four years ago we had Obama, the autocue president, pontificate about change. What this change was, he refused to say. But because change was perceived to be coming, people got a little excited and embraced this change without knowing what it really was. Many then realised that Obama was full of shit, like Bush was before him, like Clinton was before him and like poppa Bush was before that. Just how long does this cycle have to continue for people to realise that at no point does change ever arrive, and that the majority of election pledges go unfulfilled? As the late, great George Carlin once sarcastically said “as soon as the election is over, your country will improve immediately”. Except it won’t and if, in four years time, Romney is the incumbent president, battling for re-election against a backdrop of disaffected voters, just as Obama is now, there will be hordes of betrayed people voting for the other guy. The other guy who too will doubtless renege on his promises over another four year period. And the cycle continues, ad infinitum. Just look at “Mr. Change”, Obama, the man who was supposed to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention centre (still open for business), repeal Bush’s tax cuts for higher incomes (tax rates extended in 2010), and sign abortion rights legislation immediately (still not enacted). If one needs just a smidgen of evidence of the degree to which presidents like Obama are controlled, one need only listen to the great man speak without the aid of a teleprompter. I’ve heard the pissheads down my local talk more sense. Such is the man’s reliance on other people’s words, he once thanked himself for appearing alongside former Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowen. Obama had read the autocue meant for Mr. Cowen.

I wish you well America, but like us over on the other side of the pond, you’re being conned. All of this is an illusion of democracy, of freedom, of choice. Whatever the agenda is, it will be enacted, whether Romney or Obama is elected tomorrow. And to the woman, who I heard interviewed on BBC Breakfast news this morning, bemoaning the fact that Obama had broken all of his promises and would now be voting for Romney instead, I’ve got news for you. In four years time, you’ll be in exactly the same position. Just as all the people who voted for the “real change” Tories are in the UK – waiting for change that will never come. Truly, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.