Can any serious observer look at the state of the nation or the world in general and say that everything is going well? War and unrest plague the globe. Politicians in Israel and the U.S. pound the drums of war against Iran. Not to mention the global economy is a giant mess.

And what choice do we have this November? We are faced with Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. Neither Obama nor Romney offers a substantive difference from the status quo that has gotten us where we are today.

Both Romney and Obama are for increased government spending in a time where the deficit is out of control. Sure they bicker over the details of their convoluted and bizarre tax plans but when it comes down to it the government will still grow under both of them.

Both Obama and Romney support the rising police state around the country. Both support the NDAA or National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the military to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial if they are even suspected of supporting terrorists. How anyone can vote for a person who supports such an idea is beyond me.

But wait; it gets worse. Both Obama and Romney believe that the president has the authority to assassinate anyone — even an American citizen — without due process. I know this sounds unbelievable but it has already happened.

Anwar al-Awlaki was born in America as was his 16-year-old son. Yet, both were purposefully targeted in drone strikes that resulted in their deaths in Yemen. People claim that this is acceptable because they were terrorists, but that is of no consequence.

It is unprecedented in American history for American citizens, even those who have joined enemies of the United States, to be executed without trial; yet, here we have a president who has done so and another who supports doing so. What next?

These unmanned drones regularly rain death and terror down upon innocent people around the world. Even when a bus full of women and children in Yemen was blown to bits and the government even acknowledged its mistake, was there a peep of outrage? As long as the people who are dying are far away and distant we here in the United States do not care one bit. It is simply shameful. Yet both Obama and Romney support this policy.

Police forces around the country are becoming more and more militarized. Police misconduct is seemingly rampant and yet rather than being concerned about mentally challenged homeless people being beaten to death in the street by police, politicians are more concerned about restricting people’s ability to catch such heinous acts on camera.

Thanks to programs by the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security which provides surplus military equipment to local law enforcement, we have a disturbing increase in the use of SWAT teams for situations in which they are entirely unnecessary.

Not only that, but now the government has okayed the use of unmanned surveillance drones within the U.S. Do you want the government to be looking at you from thousands of feet in the air through your roof? I certainly do not. And yet despite neither Obama nor Romney decrying this practice millions shall vote for each one come November.

Often among pessimists like me there are two ways of looking at the future of mankind. One is the Orwellian future which can be summed up in a quote from George Orwell who says “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

Orwell says that governments shall continue their trend towards more control and domination over mankind through the use of pure brute force.

However, another bleak vision of the future of mankind is that of Aldous Huxley who says that government shall not need to use brute force to subdue humanity, but rather will inflict pleasure instead.

Huxley says that because mankind has a great appetite for distractions, we shall simply let go of more and more control of our own lives in order to enjoy more pleasurable distractions.

It has become increasingly clear that neither of these two visions is entirely our future. But rather it appears that it is a combination and collusion of both ideas that awaits us.

No matter how many outrages the government perpetrates, no matter how much corruption, no matter how many people are killed American’s sit idly by and do nothing. Many people would rather go back to watching Jersey Shore and Honey Boo-Boo and ignore the problems of the world. People are inseparable from their screens whether it be their televisions, their computers or their smartphones.

But this increase in passivity is accompanied by an increase in government repression. More and more freedoms are taken away all the time and yet the vast majority of the populace sits idly by content to ignore the world. Yet the world shall not ignore them for long.

This presidential election is nothing more than a continuation of the endless entertainment which our society demands to be satisfied with. Rather than discussing actual policies and programs after debates the media cares more about who had the best zingers and who had better body language.

Rather than rational intelligent discourse instead we have one person portrayed as the incarnation of Marx himself and the other portrayed as a crazed maniac throwing grandma off a cliff while simultaneously chopping off Big Bird’s head. But this hyperbole must go on for without it and the entertainment it brings, the masses would not care about the election one bit.

The time has come to wake up and realize that things need to change and they need to change soon. Everyone must wake up to the fact that come November 6 no matter who is elected we shall all lose and only the unsustainable status quo shall win.