It seems highly improbable, at best, that the media’s declaration that Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination, in headlines across the nation and on the television news, the night before the last big round of primary votes were cast on Tuesday, was a coincidence or an act of poor judgement on the part of news organizations.

In my opinion, and that of many others, what occurred was nothing less than an all out coup-assist by the media to steal the nomination for Hillary Clinton, by knowingly printing deceiving headlines about how Clinton had “just” clinched the nomination before the most populous state of California and five other states had yet to cast their first ballot.  The heads of the Associate Press, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the major television networks are not stupid people, and it would take a pretty ignorant person to not realize that printing such headlines already declaring a winner, right before the polls opened, would suppress voter turnout.

Bernie Sanders was counting on a win in California to keep his momentum going into the Democratic convention in July to make a case to the superdelegates to support him instead of Hillary, who would not have won enough pledged delegates alone to secure victory.  Polls conducted before the vote showed a very tight race, and in such past contests where independents were allowed to vote in the primaries, Sanders usually prevailed.  His past victories were fueled by enthusiastic supporters who flocked by the tens of thousands to his rallies, as they were doing in California, who showed up in large numbers in the primary to vote for him.  Suppressing the vote in California was Hillary Clinton’s best way of securing a win, and the vote was no doubt suppressed by the press calling the election before the voting even began.  It seems obvious that the press assisted, and that the only real doubt lies in whether or not their was collusion from Hillary Clinton’s political machine, and the media.

The lack of debate in the press about whether or not their headlines affected voter turnout, and whether or not it was ethical or professional to print such headlines – which were merely based on the A.P.’s assurance that their count of anonymous superdelegates guaranteed Hillary the nomination – is indicative of a media conspiracy, in which all the major players agreed to pretend as if it were completely routine for a winner to be declared the evening before a tightly contested, close race for a party’s nomination for President.  The lack of willingness by any of the major pundits or editorial writers to pursue the question of the impact on voter turnout by the premature announcement of a winner, is hard to interpret as anything other than a deliberate, coordinated, propaganda feat designed to undermine our so-called democracy and ensure that at least one Establishment candidate, sponsored by one of the two corporate parties, was available as contrived “choice.”

Today, the last of the primary contest is being conducted in Washington D.C.  Even though Bernie Sanders declared as recently as this past Sunday to fight on to the convention, there is sad indications that he is ready to conceded defeat to Hillary Clinton, and help “unify” the party in order to defeat Donald Trump.  Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton have a meeting planned today, in which they will discuss the contest going forward.  The indications and speculation are that Bernie will withhold his delegates at the Democratic convention and cause a P.R. problem for the Democrats, unless most of his signature issues are officially included into the Democratic Party’s platform.  Presumably, he will view this as a victory that will allow him to bow out of the race gracefully, and support the corrupt, cheating candidate who won.

This is disappointing.   Political revolutions, as Mr. Sanders has cast his campaign, shouldn’t end with accepting defeat to a corrupt candidate, aided and sponsored by a corrupt political party, in a rigged system, and assisted from the beginning by the corporate owned media who under-reported, misrepresented, and in the end fabricated her victory, ahead of the  remaining votes.

Now the narrative in all of the media, dutifully trumpets the uniform talking points within the Democratic Establishment (another coincidence?) of how Bernie Sanders and his supporters need to “unify” the Democratic party, and support Hillary Clinton, in  order to stop the dangerous madman from getting his fingers on America’s nuclear weapons.

Sadly, Bernie Sanders seems to be moving in the direction of “party unity” over political revolution.

Given all that we know about the level of corruption within both of the corporate owned parties, both the Republicans and the Democrats, we should be calling for the destruction of both political parties, and supporting independent candidates and third parties that are not owned by the all powerful corporate elite, who have rigged our Presidential elections into a charade of choice between their sponsored puppets, whom their media,m which they also own and control, protects through their choice of coverage, participation in debates, and now, fabricated victories ahead of the votes.

Of course, the professional propagandist are working overtime to stop a real democratic change in American politics from happening.  Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, says “America needs a healthy two-party system.”  (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/opinion/dump-the-gop-for-a-grand-new-party.html) in a recent column.  This is after he longs through feigned moral idealism,  for a “new Republican party,” which in reality means the same Republican Party, with the same wealthy owners and managers, coming up with a new line of rhetoric that tricks their primary voters into voting against their own bests interests, that does not prey upon the fears and divisions that the Republicans have lied on for years to motivate and deceive.

Mr. Friedman’s call for a “healthy two-party system” assumes that only two political parties are the only natural expression of a vibrant democracy.  Since the days of Ross Perot, and every independent presidential candidate to follow, the voters have become aware of the corruption and double talk and selling out of the general public that occurs in the backrooms of the real power brokers of the country.   Now more than ever, Americans understand that “superdelegates” and “arcane” Republican party “rules” are nothing more than thinly veiled mechanisms being orchestrated from atop high by the top one percent of one percent who write the rules for our current economy and society.

The old tools of propaganda and message control, from media blackouts to exclusion from televised debates, that protected the two-party oligarchy from such independent voices as Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, are becoming less effective in the age of the internet and social media.  Donald Trump has exploited the media’s formula for distraction, and at the same time pointed his finger in condemnation to much adoration, that the mainstream media is “scum of the earth.”  The most shameful of the pundits, from Chuck Todd to Andrea Mitchell and Anderson Cooper, appear to act shocked and frightened at what they deem as intimidation by a candidate that plays on the fear and anger of voters.  Given the arrogance and pledge to allegiance to the power structure of the government and its puppet master,  it is hard to discern whether or not their surprise is sincere.  But to the rest of us who don’t who don’t work for the Establishment as the gatekeepers of false history and propaganda, Donald Trump as merely confirming, out loud in front of the media’s camera, what we have already come to realize.

The current play of the Establishment, who earlier openly flirted with the idea of parachuting in a “white knight” at the Republican convention that would steal the nomination from the candidate who won within their corrupt and rigged party system, is to wage and all out war of fear mongering that will hit all the greatest hit notes:  Mr. Trump is a racist, a bigot, an isolationist, a crazy person with no experience in leading the nation into wars based on lies, etc.  The Establishment, including the Republican wing of the oligarchy, prefers Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.  They have made that clear in both words, and actions of the media.

The Establishment is playing their ace card, again, that a vote for the other candidate – meaning either the Democrat or Republican, whichever you happen to fear and loathe the most – would lead to disaster.

AGAIN, we are told we must chose between the lesser of two evils, the “practical” choice, the one closest to our beliefs, even if we know they are full of shit.  We need party “unity.”

Bernie Sanders has shown signs of buying into this useful tool of the powerful, the conquer and divide strategy.  He has made it clear he will do everything he can to avoid electing an extreme “right-wing” Republican.  The problem with Mr. Sander’s logic, is that his fear is overstating the case of Donald Trump being a right-wing Republican.  The Republican Party, and especially the right-wing elements of it, are still fearful of Donald Trump being a Democrat in disguise, based on his previous, pre-candidate statements on policy, such as healthcare.  It is understandable that Bernie does not want to go down in the false history that the media has portrayed consistently of third party candidates, that they are “spoilers” who allow the likes of Bill Clinton – in the case of Perot – or Gorge W. Bush in the case of Nader – to ruin the country.

This time, more than ever, with the unlikely rise of Donald Trump to the top of the Republican ticket, to the suprise superstardom of the media blacked out coverage of the “socialist” Bernie Sanders who raised his historically high amount of campaign contributions from exclusively small donors, is the time for all of us to say that enough is enough of the two-party charade of democracy.  With social media, an awareness of the mainstream’s bias and loyalty to Establishment politics and the truth, and genuine anger felt and understood by the majority of Americans who have been screwed over, lied to and taken for granted, there is a real possibility for a change within the limited system of democracy that we currently have.

Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump had to calculate their odds of success by figuring out if it would be easier or more realistic to change the corrupt system by running within its rigged electoral rules, or as a true outsider.  I think that both men chose practicality first.  Fearful of a lack of party loyalty, the Republican Establishment sought to immediately neuter Mr. Trump by pressuring him to pledge not to run as a third party candidate, should he lose the Republican primary.  He made it clear that as long as he was treated “fairly” he would support the Republican nominee.

Bernie Sanders seems to have made a pledge of loyalty and support to the Democratic party’s nominee, even though he knows in his heart and mind, that Hillary Clinton is the epitome of corruption.  At times, he has acted surprised at the low depths the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Shultz has been willing to engage in to cheat him of the nomination.  His talk now, though not a concession yet, of somehow “transforming” the Democratic party, seems at best optimistic thinking, and at worst, rationalization.  Surely Mr. Sanders already knows, that as Hillary Clinton has been more than willing to lie about her previous positions, and change her previous positions out of political expediency and outright pandering, that any official changes to the Democratic party’s “platform,” is not worth the paper that it is written on.

The fight for real political revolution need not end if Bernie concedes the nomination to Hillary and endorses her.  The grassroots fire that propelled the Bern’s message can continue, and rally behind other qualified and legitimate, independent candidates.  For the “any-one-but-Trump” crowd Republicans and independents, there is a libertarian candidate.  For the Bernie Sanders supporters, the Green Party that Ralph Nader ran under for President, is alive and vibrant, and deserving of our vote so much more so than either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

Here is a video interview of Jill Stein, the  Green  Party’s leading candidate, talking about Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and the state of American democracy.  She is a wise and truthful voice in what we need to remember going forward.  Should Bernie Sanders bow out, I will be supporting her or the Green Party nominee.  The movement will live on if we refuse to bow to the powers that be and “unify.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/9/green_partys_jill_stein_what_we

 

 

 

In a shockingly desperate push by the mainstream media to declare victory for at least one Establishment candidate in the primary process after Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination, the Associated Press declared Hillary Clinton the winner of the Democratic nomination, less than 24 hours before an important round of primary contests in six states, including the largest and most populous state of California, where polls show a statistical tie, with momentum leaning towards Bernie Sanders.

The Associated Press, of course, was merely setting up the false narrative (and providing cover) for other mainstream “respected” media, such as the New York Times, to run with.  The New York Times wasted no time:  as of  Monday evening, June 6, their online headline declared  “Hillary Clinton Has Clinched Democratic Nomination, Survey Reports.”

This must come as some surprise to the millions of voters who were planning to go to the polls today in California and the other primary states that have yet to have their say in our alleged “democracy.”

The Washington Post went with an even more bold headline, choosing to omit from its title the cleverly inserted “Survey Reports” that the Times carefully chose for the end of their misleading headline.  The Washington Post, as of Monday night, June 6, at 8:40 p.m., led with the headline  “Hillary Clinton Just Clinched the Democratic Nomination.  Here’s the Math Behind It.”

Yes voters, no need to go vote today, because apparently Clinton “Just Clinched” victory, and there is “Math Behind It.”   Who can dispute something that has already happened, and in fact “just” happened, and with the hard cold evidence of “math” proving it?

It is hard to believe that the major newspapers -which pick and chose which stories to publish and help create the framework of the news cycle, from which most political discussion follow – weren’t aware of the possibly significant impact on voting that could occur today, if many would be voters were given the wrong impression that Hillary had already won.  Especially independent voters who often don’t vote in primaries, but have shown up in significant numbers, heavily in favor of Bernie Sanders.

The newspapers will undoubtedly deny this as the criticism begins and outrage on social media begins.  They will probably say that if you read their story, they were only saying that Hillary will be the nominee, if the “survey” of unnamed super delegates cited by the Associate Press vote for Hillary at the convention.  But the headlines are deliberately misleading, and the lower you go down the totem pole of what’s considered “credible” and “respected,” from the New York Times to the blowhards of Fox News, the narrative will be that Hillary won the nomination, a day before the primaries were even held.

No one outside of the media Establishment who knows the facts will be able to say with a straight face that this was anything other than the media blatantly trying to sway the voters in a presidential election, through outright and deliberate deceit.

It’s a play pulled right from George W. Bush and Fox News’s playbook, when Fox declared Bush the winner over Gore, paving the way for all the other networks to do the same.  The impact of that narrative of Bush being declared a winner, undoubtedly aided Mr. Bush in the dispute over the final election results.

As anyone following the Democratic primary closely already knows, the media has from the beginning, misrepresented the state of the race by including superdelegates in the count, after each contest, to give the impression that Hillary Clinton had an insurmountable lead.  The media continued to do this, even as Bernie Sanders won nine contests in a row.

But this election cycle is different, with more Americans than ever learning the details of how the two corporate owned political parties have rigged their nominating processes to protect Establishment candidates from the will of the voters, should the voters vote the wrong way.

On the Republican side, the voters began to hear about a messy convention fight that could deny Donald Trump their nomination, as he continued to win the overwhelming majority of early contests.  They learned that the Republican Establishment could use their “rules” – which every major television pundit spoke of as they were a God given, infallible and natural part of democracy and the Constitution –  to amass their delegates in such a way to not only deny Mr. Trump the nomination, but even install a “white knight” such as Speaker Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney as the nominee, even though they were not on the ballots.  Trump supporters were outraged, and Mr. Trump did not take this news quietly.

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders supporters quickly learned about the Democratic party’s own way of rigging their nomination process with superdelegates – party officials, elected officials and ex-office holders who are not bound to primary election results – that make up almost a third of the total number of delegates the Democrat candidate needs for the nomination.  When voters learned that the number of delegates the media kept reporting that Hillary Clinton had “won” and all but guaranteed her the nomination, were actually superdelegates, they were outraged.  As reported here in the Rant previously, the DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman  Shultz explained quite frankly that the purpose of the superdelegates were to ensure that a grass-roots candidate could not come into the party and actually win the nomination.  Calls for her resignation, like my call here on the Rant months back, are now a rising chorus that may actually bring her down, as her corruption has become obvious to everyone but the most loyal Clinton backers.

Something amazing has happened though, and the mainstream media pundits and Establishment politicians are pulling out their hair, trying to figure out how it is, despite their 24 hour, 7 days a week attacks on Trump, and under-reporting of Bernie Sanders, that the voting public is not doing as they are told and anointing one of the oligarchy puppets.  Since Donald Trump officially became the presumptive Republican nominee, and since Bernie Sanders is still winning contests, drawing huge enthusiastic crowds, and vowing to take his campaign all the way to the Democratic convention to battle for the necessary super delegates, the mainstream media is taking desperate measures to ensure that at least one of the two candidates is a corporate owned puppet.

The declaration of Hillary Clinton’s victory as the Democratic nominee in yesterday’s reporting, is the most glaring evidence yet, of the collusion between the corporate owned mainstream media and the owners of both political parties.

The literal contempt for democracy that the powerful elite who own and run this country and it’s political system, is on display in bright, glowing, impossible to miss colors.  The pundits on television seem unaware sometimes that they have dropped their pretense of respecting the voters, as they dismiss both Trump’s victory and Sander’s staying power as some oddity that is hard to understand.  They blame racism on Trump’s success, even though exit polls have shown that illegal immigration was not the primary motivation in most of Trump’s supporters.  They continue to call Bernie Sanders a socialist, and act offended that he refuses to concede before the rest of the votes are cast.  They dismiss his voters as primarily young and naive, and even bristle at criticism  that their inclusion of super delegates in Hillary’s score in the contests since the beginning, was misleading.

Donald Trump continues to say that most of the media are “scum of the earth.”  If by most of the media, he means the mainstream pundits, editors, broadcasters, and propaganda opinion writers, he has hit the nail on the head.  This is one claim of Mr. Trump’s that is supported by hard evidence, and has become blatantly obvious, as the pathetic claim of Hillary’s nomination victory was reported yesterday before the polls opened this morning.  Many newspapers are casting her alleged victory as an historical moment for women in American politics.

All of the newspaper editors knew better.  Certainly all but the dumbest of television pundits knew better.  That they all have obviously, deliberately, tried to deceive the public in such a way the day before the election, unequivocally qualifies them as scum of the earth, and deserving of our scorn and cynicism.

It is an historical moment for sure, but not for women.  It’s historic because the usually sophisticated American propaganda machine may have revealed itself in such a sloppy and desperate way this time around, that the voting public may forever be wiser to future broadcasting of such utter and pure bullshit that currently serves to maintain the illusion of democracy here in the United States.

There is a political earthquake building in this country, with the 2016 presidential race exposing an angry fault line that runs through vast swaths of the American public, cutting through both ideological and political party lines, and producing some very odd bed fellows.  The mainstream media, of course, continues to follow its tried and true script, serving its purpose of maintaining a sophisticated propaganda system that gives us the illusion of democracy, while concealing and protecting the powerful and uber wealthy elite who run the country and give us our “choices” of candidates to chose for president.

The Rant always predicted a ginned up media giving unfair coverage to Bernie Sanders in his bid for the Democratic nomination.  This prediction came from over two decades of observation on how the mainstream media works in collusion with both corporate owned political parties, to silence, ignore, ridicule, and defeat, any truly independent candidate.  The coverage leading up to the first Democratic primary debate, hosted by CNN, as well as the post coverage, could easily have been written in advance months ago.  The corporate owned media, and the corporate hijacked democracy called our “two party system,” had a narrative planned out and they intend to keep it that way.  The narrative is simple: there will be an entertaining primary race in both parties, but in the end, the “moderate” and “electable” candidates will prevail, and they will be our “choice.”  In other words, our choice is between a handful of acceptable to the Establishment choices, so pick puppet number 1 or puppet number 2.

Books have been written by very scholarly and intelligent people who study the U.S. media, about how it is an elaborate propaganda system that serves monied interests.  Books and articles have been written by former award winning reporters, about how the mainstream press censors and buries certain stories from being told to the public.  The bottom line appears to be that our corporate, for-profit “news” media, both mainstream print and television, is owned by some of the most wealthy and powerful people in the world, and the editorial control of these institutions will always tow the line for people of privilege and power, while carefully crafting the illusion of a free press and a robust debate.  This is sometimes obvious in the extreme and farcical “we report, you decide” broadcasts from FOX News, or the comic book style “reporting” from the New York Post (both Rupert Murdoch propaganda productions) but more subtle in other “high brow” papers such as the New York Times.  But it is always there.  Other than periodic calls for war, however, no other news event illuminates such blatant and overt propaganda conducted by all of the mainstream media, both the “conservative” and “liberal,” than the Presidential election every four years.

These powerful elites, and the mainstream media which they also own, are collectively known as “the Establishment.” Although the television pundits and media talking heads generally refer to the politicians and their corporate sponsors as the Establishment, the mainstream media itself is an important part of “the Establishment.”  Calling the politicians, political party mangers, and big business the Establishment, but not including themselves as part of it, is just one example of the countless sleights of hand that our modern propaganda system has produced.

The mainstream media still pretends to be independent and outside of the Establishment, instead of a tool of it.  This helps manufacture the charade of “choice” for President of the United States.  But this choice is limited to the candidates that the real owners of the country donate millions of dollars to sponsor, giving us a stage full of puppets to chose from.  Deviation from their pick of candidates is usually marginalized through a variety of means, which include media blackout of challengers, exclusion from debate, and a constant, ongoing narrative that says that any vote for any candidate not sponsored by the corporate occupied, two party oligarchy, is a “wasted vote.”

This system has worked well over the years.  Despite an all time low of public approval of Congress and government, most politicians are reelected every election cycle.  And despite polls over many years that show that a majority of Americans think our two party system is corrupt and that we need third parties and independent choices for president, when the race to the White House nears completion, a majority of the public always behaves as the media has guided them to do, and votes for either the republican or the democrat, not wanting to “waste their vote” on someone “who can’t win.”  The most stark example I have found of this, was an exit poll after the 1992 presidential election.  Bill Clinton won that election in a three way race between the first President Bush and Ross Perot.  Mr. Perot won almost 19 percent of the national vote, despite major errors in his campaign, and a uniform mantra repeated by the media and the Bush and Clinton campaigns, that a vote for Perot was a “wasted vote.”  The exit poll showed that 35 percent of all voters would have voted for Perot if they thought he had a “realistic chance of winning.”

( https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QrYiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CLUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3419,2936989&dq=ross-perot+polls&hl=en )

The size of Ross Perot’s capture of the popular vote alarmed the establishment.  Conservatives blamed Ross Perot for their loss, calling him a “spoiler.”  This term became regular, familiar, and repeated often by the mainstream media, whenever a discussion of the election was brought up.  Ross Perot, however, with regards to policy, was a cross breed of republican ideas and democratic ideas, with several of his own ideas shaped from the success of other Western countries in Europe, similar in many respects to the examples that Bernie Sanders cites today when explaining what “democratic socialism” is.

Although there was a lot of analyzing, theorizing, and spinning engaged in main stream political discussion about Perot’s impact on the 1992 election, a solid response and neutering of any threat of an independent presidential candidate was put in place by the 1996 election.  Ross Perot ran again for president, but this time around was banned from the televised presidential debates.  According to an article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, ( http://fair.org/article/the-compromised-commission-on-presidential-debates/ ) the Bob Dole campaign sought to keep Perot out of the debates, and cut a deal with the Clinton campaign to ban Perot, in exchange for the Clinton campaign’s choice of time, length, and moderator.  The article quotes Clinton aid George Stephanopolous, in answering a question to tv political host Chris Matthews about why they scheduled the debates when no one was watching, as saying ” Because we didn’t want them to pay attention. And the debates were a metaphor for the campaign. We wanted the debates to be a non-event.”

This is a rare moment of honesty about the mechanical workings of the propaganda of presidential politics, straight from the horse’s mouth – in this case, from one of President Clinton’s inner circle, Mr. Stephanopolous.

It appears that history is repeating itself.  This time, however, it is the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, that appears to be making sure that no one watches the Democratic primary debates, in order to protect Hillary Clinton’s bid for president.  Other challengers to Hillary Clinton, such as Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, had to fight with the DNC to get the get enough primary debates to challenge Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.  They managed to get 6 debates total, down from 15 debates in the 2008 democratic primary, when Obama defeated the presumed front runner of the time, Hillary Clinton.  Of these 6 debates, 3 were scheduled on the weekends, one of which was the Saturday before Christmas, and one on a Sunday night of the NFL football playoffs.  Despite widespread criticism and accusations that Mrs. Shultz, who is supposed to be impartial as to who wins the democratic nomination, as deliberately trying to shield Hillary Clinton from debating any challengers before a wide audience, the mainstream media remains mostly mute on what is obviously a fixed fight.  What is absolutely astonishing, is that this time around, the fight that is being fixed is within the democratic party itself, with the DNC chairwoman trying to ensure that their pre-ordained puppet, Hillary Rodham Clinton, gets the nomination with democratic primary voters being denied a fair contest.  It appears that Debbie Shultz’s ridiculous assertion that she was only scheduling the primary debates when the networks had availability, is the official lie covering up the same truth expressed by George Stephanopolous years before, when former President Bill Clinton was running for reelection:   they don’t want voters paying attention, and in fact, want the primary debates to be “a non-event.”   It’s all a charade, a faked democracy illusion, paving the way for another corporate sponsored Clinton.

When Al Gore faced off with George W. Bush in 2000, Ralph Nader was running on the Green Party ticket and had a large following. I attended a political rally of his at Madison Square Garden in New York City.  Around 10,000 ordinary voters attended this rally, which carried a “voluntary” contribution of around twenty dollars.  My unofficial observation is that like myself, most of the attendees donated the suggested amount to his campaign, or at least some monetary contribution.   This showed an enthusiastic need among average voters to invest whatever they could afford, into a political candidate that could represent their interests first, as opposed to the corporate sponsored candidacies of Bush and Gore.  The rally was not promoted, and barely mentioned by any of the mainstream media before hand.  In 2000, before the dawn of viral social media, only political junkies and activists like myself were even aware that this rally was taking place.  The rally included a star studded list of celebrities and activists, including an acoustic performance from Eddie Vera of Pearl Jam, Susan Surranden, Tim  Burton, and Michael Moore.

Feeling temporarily as if I had been a part of something big, the next day my bubble was popped with the unflinching cynical reality that the main stream media, including the New York Times, on whom’s turf the rally occurred, were committed to a near media black out.  The Times buried the story several pages in, and the most likely reason they even printed the story is because in order to maintain the appearance of legitimacy of free press and democracy, it was necessary to print a story that reported the facts of a huge rally in the middle of Manhattan that couldn’t be completely ignored.  But it was buried behind the non-stories from the campaign trails of Gore and Bush, which were reported as exciting by the press if as few as 300 people showed up, without donating any money.  This was the near media blackout.   And it was obvious that the perception of a media conspiracy to shield the two parties from any competition by denying coverage of any other challengers, was a fact, and not a theory.

At this point in the 2000 presidential race, the Commission on Presidential debates had instituted a safe guard to keep any future third party candidates like Ross Perot from finding their way into the presidential debates, by requiring a nearly impossible threshold of 15 percent support in national polls, before the first debate.  Thanks to the media’s cooperative media blackout, Ralph Nader didn’t reach this threshold, and was excluded from the debates.  He didn’t take his banning from the debates lightly, and filed a lawsuit, unsuccessfully, to be included.  Supporters of Mr. Nader’s held up signs and chanted in political rallies and protests, saying “Let Ralph Debate!”

So serious was the fear of a “spoiler” like Ralph Nader among the two parties, a truly shocking event occurred, an event that remains mostly unknown by most people, to this day.  The University of Massachusetts was hosting one of the nationally televised presidential debates between Vice President Al Gore and George W. Bush.  Attending the event in person required a ticket, and a student of the university gave Ralph Nader his ticket, so that Mr. Nader could at least attend the debate. He was greeted by the Commission of Presidential Debates representatives, and three state troopers, who threatened him with arrest if he did not leave. He as turned away, by police force, acting on behalf of the two parties. When one thinks of totalitarian governments, or sham elections in the Third World, this type of behavior comes to mind.  But when it happens in the United States, to a candidate who was on the ballot in all 50 states, and had national recognition for years as a consumer advocate with an impressive resume of legislative accomplishments, it is stunning to behold.  Especially if you still hold some hope that all is not as cynical or rigged as it seems.  Therefore, the media scarcely reported this ugly event.  Here is a youtube video of the event, feel free to watch and share:

When Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were considering their runs for the White House, both men wrestled with the decision of whether or not to run as an independent or third party candidate, or to seek the nomination of one of the two political parties.  Given the history of third party challengers, from self financed billionaire Ross Perot, to Ralph Nader, and others, I believe that both men made the smart, strategic decision to run as either a republican or democrat.  Bernie Sanders is officially an Independent Senator from Vermont, who usually caucuses with the democrats.  It therefore made sense for him to seek the democratic nomination.  Donald Trump, a former democrat, with an keen eye for his audience, chose to seek the republican party nomination.  Had either man chosen to run as an independent, they would have been excluded from the presidential debates, and Mr. Sanders at least, would have also suffered the usual media blackout.  They chose to run within the rigged system.  It was the only realistic chance either had.  And immediately after they announced their intentions, the mainstream media went to work assuring everyone that Donald Trump would never make it, nor would a “socialist.”

A day prior to the Democrat’s first debate, I turned on MSNBC, the liberal partisan media’s counterweight to FOX.  Chris Matthews, from Hardball, was analyzing the upcoming debate by going out of his way to call, in a feigned, mildly shocked manner, Bernie Sanders as the “socialist!”  Mr. Matthews wondered if Hillary would have to go after Sanders for his “socialist agenda!”

(insert Chris Matthews spittle)  He then gave tacit acknowledgement that Bernie Sanders was referring to himself as a “Socialist Democrat,” to which Matthews incorrectly added sarcastically, that Sanders was only calling himself that “about 2 hours ago.”  Senator Sanders had actually clarified that on the previous Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” more than 24 hours before.  Furthermore, Mr. Sanders felt it necessary to clarify, because of the media’s insistence on calling him the “socialist candidate.”  This clarification, was in fact a clarification, and not some new spin Sanders was adding, as Chris Matthews suggested with his “2 hours ago” insinuendo.   Bernie Sanders first ran as mayor of a Vermont town decades ago on the Socialist Democrat party ticket.  Mr. Matthews seems to forget – or ignore – that the two party system in the United States isn’t written into the Constitution, and that there used to be many political parties, and that in Europe there still are.  But surely Mr. Matthews knows that the term “socialist” conjures up images of the Evil Empire of Russia, when they were called the U.S.S.R. , where their misuse of the term “socialist” came to represent “communists” in the Cold War, replaced with “terrorists” today in the name of the Boogey Man we Americans must always trust our government to protect us from.  Chris Matthews went on this tirade without ever explaining what this “socialist agenda” of Bernie Sanders was.  Expansion of Social Security, fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage, universal healthcare for all?  Of course Matthews didn’t go into policy detail or a background of how Bernie Sanders became known as a socialist, or with clarification that as Senator from Vermont, Sanders is officially an Independent that caucuses with the Democrats, and is seeking the Democratic nomination.  He is not the only tv reporter or pundit to introduce Bernie Sanders in a news segment as “Socialist Bernie Sanders,” or the “Socialist candidate.”  Even the neutered Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press,” seemed to get a memo to refer to Sanders as the “socialist.”  This all of course is coupled quite regularly with the commentary that Sanders isn’t “electable.”

Now however, the mainstream media wing of the Establishment, is flailing in disbelief and trying to figure out how Donald Trump has now become the likely republican nominee, and how Bernie Sanders the Big Bad Socialist, is leading in New Hampshire by a large margin, and in a statistical tie with Hillary Clinton in Iowa.

I heard more than one political analyst on television in the past week, lamenting on Donald Trump’s success and staying power, and Bernie Sander’s insurgency,  that “no one saw this coming,” and that “no one could have predicted this.”  The anxiety in the Establishment media’s confessions of bewilderment about how their normal presidential propaganda playbook isn’t working as well as it usually does, is palatable.  The so-called liberal heavyweight, highbrow newspapers, such as the Washington Post and New York Times,  are weighing in with editorials in an attempt to shut down the “feel the Bern” momentum that is growing.

The New York Times Editorial Board officially endorsed Hillary Clinton on January 30, referring to her as “most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history.”   They repeat the latest talking point on how Bernie Sander’s “bold” ideas aren’t realistic, and then sneak in the absolute lie that was first given to the press by an unusual attack surrogate for Hillary Clinton, her daughter Chelsea, about how Mr. Sanders wants to “start all over” on healthcare reform.  ( http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-endorsement.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region )

The Clinton campaign surprised some of their own biggest fans in the media Establishment when they first began misrepresenting Sander’s plan for a single payer, “Medicare for all” plan as a dangerous scheme to destroy ObamaCare completely, start over from scratch with republicans in control of healthcare again, and then attempt to institute his plan.  This blatant lie has been nuanced since, with Hillary Clinton just this past Friday in Iowa, on a clip that was aired this morning on “Meet the Press,” passionately saying at a rally:  “I don’t want us to be thrown back in to a terrible, terrible, national debate, I don’t want us to end up in gridlock, people can’t wait!  People who have health emergencies can’t wait, for us to have some theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass!”

Mr. Sanders isn’t talking about scrapping ObamaCare and letting people with “health emergencies” wait for an entire new healthcare system to be put in place after a “terrible, terrible, national debate,” about a better healthcare system than ObamaCare, that Mrs. Clinton assures us, “will never, ever” be achieved.  This is an absolute and blatant lie by Hillary Clinton (nothing new about her lying), and the New York Times is happy to go along and help her spread this falsehood.

So take note voters, Hillary Clinton pledges that if you vote for her, you  won’t have to worry about a “terrible, terrible national debate” to improve our healthcare system, because that will “never, ever” happen.

The Washington Post’s Editorial Board has also been participating in the tag teaming misrepresentation of Sander’s healthcare proposal, borrowing a right-wing talking point that demonizes healthcare for everyone, by saying Sanders “would be a braver truth-teller if he explained how he would go about rationing health care like European countries do.”  And by “rationing” they mean providing it for everyone.   ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bernie-sanderss-fiction-filled-campaign/2016/01/27/cd1b2866-c478-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html?tid=a_inl )

As for Donald Trump’s staying power, the right wing Fox News channel fired the first media Establishment shot to take him down during their first republican primary debate, with Megan Kelley leading the charge.  That has culminated with the Donald refusing to participate in this past Thursday’s Fox hosted republican debate.

With both the conservative and liberal facets of the mainstream media Establishment simultaneously failing to persuade voters to accept as a law of nature their preferred, corporate sponsored candidates, tomorrow’s Iowa caucuses could prove to be the start of what the Establishment fears the most:  a “political revolution” that Bernie Sanders is calling for.  Their bewilderment at this potential bucking of the propaganda system was summed up perfectly by a reporter from Iowa who said what she was hearing over and over from undecided Iowa voters was that they were trying to decide on whether they would support Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.

How are these two seemingly polar opposite candidates both possible choices for the undecided?

These people are what I call the “paradox voter.”  In the past, they may have been called “swing voters,” but this term usually applies when the candidates are “moving to the middle, where elections are won” as the media likes to report as another law of nature.  I understand the seeming paradox of supporting Trump or Sanders, because although I have endorsed Bernie Sanders full throttle, I would chose Trump as my number 2 pick, over Hillary.  And although the media would suggest that people like me are just “angry” and don’t understand the issues, they are of course wrong, and struggling to comprehend the truth themselves.

Yes, I am an angry voter, but I understand the issues well.  And I think most of these paradox voters understand something very important:  that Donald Trump, who is running on his own money and not sponsored by major corporations and their owners, is truly independent.  Bernie Sanders is not accepting any campaign donations from corporations or Super Pacs, and has in fact raised record sums of money through individual, small donations.  He too, is independent.  I know what Bernie Stands for, and he has a long, legislative history of voting for what he stands for, unlike Hillary Clinton.  I don’t know what the Donald stands for exactly, because he has changed a lot of his previous democratic positions, like his support for a single payer healthcare system, into more republican sounding ideas.  Either way, I also know what the Establishment stands for, and I no longer accept it.  That the Donald has managed to turn the media’s tools of propaganda against itself is an ingenious feat of media jujitsu, and I am happy to watch the propaganda model implode and burn itself to the ground.

Feel the Bern!  Bernie Sanders for President, 2016!

 

At the risk of sounding like a right-wing talk radio Hillary hater frothing at the mouth, I will just go ahead and say this anyway:  it is hard to watch Hillary Clinton for even thirty seconds announcing that now she is suddenly against the TPP, without becoming nauseous.

The latest, ambitious, “free trade” deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, has cleared almost all final hurdles of passage, now that “fast track” was secured for President Obama thanks to his newfound allies in the Republican party, and the 12 member nations have reached an agreement on the details.  This trade deal, negotiated at a level of secrecy not seen before in past trade deals, has been opposed by virtually all labor unions, environmental groups, and progressive politicians and advocacy groups.  Senator Bernie Sanders has been a strong opponent from the beginning, as was Elizabeth Warren, and as Martin O’Malley, the lesser known Democratic primary opponent of Mrs. Clinton.

The long haul to expand the power of transnational corporations across the globe, destroying organized labor, environmental laws, and national sovereignty, for the sake of opening up more sweat shops employing slave labor to drive down wages globally and create greater worker insecurity, deregulation of financial institutions, as well as the extension of patents and protections for pharmaceutical companies that will kill millions in the Third World by denying them affordable medication, is nothing new.  President Bill Clinton managed to secure NAFTA years ago, proving that Ross Perot’s prediction of hearing a “giant sucking sound going South,” the loss of American jobs, was not prophecy, but common sense, and certainly foreseen by its architects.  Since that wonderful “free trade” deal, we’ve seen many more like it.  The evidence always demonstrates what critics have charged against these trade agreements from the beginning: wages are driven down, national laws are undermined, and millions of poor people die as generic life saving drugs are taken from them in order to ensure maximum corporate profit.

The TPP has been in the works for years.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a huge supporter of it, speaking many times of how this trade agreement would be better.  She even boasted as Secretary of State that it was the “gold standard” of trade deals.  During this time, when the Obama Administration was trying to build support for the deal as members of his own party were opposing it, the deal was shrouded in an unprecedented level of security and secrecy.  The ongoing negotiations of the trade deal were classified, like military intelligence.  To read the rough draft of the trade deal, members of Congress had to read it alone, one at a time, in a basement, without cellphones or the ability to take notes, while being watched.  They were sworn, legally, by executive branch audacity that screams of contempt for democracy, to not revealing any details to the public – you know, us citizens of our country they are elected to represent – at the risk of being punished for revealing classified information.  Many elected officials were outraged at this, and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders spoke out loudly in public against the constraints.  It does not take a genius or anyone with even casual knowledge of politics to know that something that is kept that secretive, before being “fast tracked” to Congress for an up or down vote without any chance for amendments, is nothing but another horrible trade agreement, written in secret by corporate lobbyists and their puppets in the White House and Congress, that the public would never accept if the details were known before hand.

Up until now, Candidate Hillary Clinton, has refused to endorse or oppose the TPP.  As the battle for Fast Track authority played out in recent months, and as primary opponent Bernie Sanders railed against it and fought in in the Senate, Candidate Clinton refused to take a position, unlike Secretary Clinton before.  She gave half-assed excuses of course, just like she did about her refusal to take a stand on the Keystone Pipeline (also until now), about how she didn’t want to undermine ongoing negotigations, and with regards to the TPP, how she suddenly didn’t know what the “details” of the trade deal were, she’d have to see it first.  She didn’t have any trouble promoting it before all the “details” were available when she was Secretary of State of course, and we can assume she was on board with keeping those details secret by classifying the material.  But suddenly Candidate Clinton didn’t know enough to comment one way or the other.

Now that the deal is closer than ever to being passed, and now that the first Democratic Primary Debate is taking place next week, Mrs. Clinton has apparently gained enough knowledge of the details to be courageous enough to take a position against a deal who’s fate will already be sealed by the time she or anyone else becomes the new President.  Recall only recently her answer at a campaign event when told a crowd of her supporters that should she become President and the Keystone Pipeline still be undecided, “then I’ll tell you what my position is.”

She’s gaining a lot of confidence now that it looks like the TPP will already be voted on (and most likely passed) and she won’t have to decide.  It’s now safe for her to speak out against a deal she promoted as Secretary of State.

Even the Clown News Network, once known as the Clinton News Network, formally still going by the name CNN, ran this piece pointing out a mere 45 times that Hillary Clinton promoted the TPP:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/15/politics/45-times-secretary-clinton-pushed-the-trade-bill-she-now-opposes/

I want to be very clear, because I am sometimes asked by nervous liberal or  Democrat friends, “will you at least vote for her if she is the nominee?”

No, I absolutely will not.  I am sick and tired of reluctantly voting for the “lesser of two evils.”  I have supported mostly independent candidates for President in my lifetime, from Ross Perot to Ralph Nader, and in every case was always blamed by the losing side of a two-party oligarchy system for being a “spoiler.”  Let me say loud and clear that this time, any of you who knowingly and willfully vote for Hillary Clinton or one of the Republican party’s Establishment candidates, are the spoilers. Knowing what we all know now, with all the information available, and with President Obama (whom I voted for both times) proving that puppets will say one thing in a campaign while doing as they are told by their corporate sponsors once elected. . . knowing what we know now, and certainly without a shred of doubt as to Hillary Clinton’s true nature as an opportunistic liar and warmonger, you should be be ashamed and recognize how your, mine, and every voters’ cowardice over the years, has played its part in “spoiling” our political system.  I will no longer give any legitimacy by means of my vote, to any puppet candidate, out of fear of the other puppet candidate, in order to continue to propagate the illusion of democracy put forth by the true swine that rules our country and world.

I suggest that this presidential voting cycle, the most important vote you can cast is in the primaries.  If you are a Republican or conservative, by all means, vote in the primary.  At least vote for the candidate that the Republican Establishment doesn’t want, give us a real choice in the election.  If I were going to pick a Republican candidate, I would vote in the primaries for Donald Trump.  Since I want a progressive candidate, I will be voting in the Democratic primary for Bernie Sanders.  Our only chance to have any meaningful choice for President is to participate in the primaries and chose a non-puppet.  This is always an uphill battle.  The corporate owned media will do all they can to dissuade you from doing so.  Don’t fall for it this time.  Register to vote in your state for the primaries.  After the primaries are over, the media will tell you how the puppets from both parties are now “moving to the center” where they will tell you, elections are won.  This “center” they speak of is nothing more than an acceptable choice, either way the election goes, for the corporate elite.  You can vote for either of their two puppets, that is the “center.”  Don’t be fooled.  And don’t be afraid.  If my primary choice loses, you can bet your ass I will not be acting like a slave by saying ‘yes master’ and giving Hillary Clinton an undeserved vote because I hope she will whip me less severely than the other master.

If Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush wins their party’s nomination, I will not vote for either one.  I will no longer be a spoiler by giving a hint of legitimacy to our country’s real owners.  I’ll let the late, great, Mr. George Carlin sum that up for you:

 

 

 

 

 

There are a good deal of historic and important events occurring right now:  the possible Iran nuclear deal, and the beginning of the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba.  Both of these subjects deserve and warrant a detailed analysis on their own, but this week I am focussing on the role of the mass media in the U.S. propaganda system on selecting the next President.  Both the issues of Iran and Cuba, however, provide additional and generous evidence of the false narrative carried out dutifully by our corporate owned, mass-media.

Regarding the first Republican Primary Presidential debate hosted by FOX, it didn’t take a psychic to predict that even the conservative “news” channel would attack Donald Trump in particular.  Hence, the first question from Megan Kelley to all the candidates, was whether or not they would all rule out a third party run, should they not get the Republican nomination, and would they pledge to support whomever the nominee turned out to be.  This was a thinly veiled, repackaged question that was put to Mr. Trump earlier in the week, in which he gave an answer that sent shivers down the two-party system’s corrupt spine:  he would not rule out a third party run.  What the media and two-party system of business elites call a “spoiler.”  Or, what I can an independent, unsponsored voice.  It doesn’t matter to the Establishment whether that independent challenger is a conservative, a liberal, an in-between, or rouge billionaire.  Just ask Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, or now Donald Trump.

It didn’t take a psychic to predict the attacks that zeroed in on Donald Trump for the duration of the debate.  Megan Kelly also asked a version of the question that had already been asked and harped on in the media leading up to the debate, asking Trump if some of his more colorful insults and name calling in public, specifically females, was presidential.  Mr. Trump made a joke of it “only Rosie O’Donald,” and then went on to complain of a too politically correct culture.  He was right on this in my opinion, and I would ad that a lot of the outrageous things he said that Mrs. Kelly was referring too, was said in the context of the Donald being a reality tv entertainer who oversees a real-estate, casino, and branding empire that capitalizes on his pop-culture “reality” tv personality.  Of course, it the argument can be made that this was a legitimate question that was bound to come up sooner or later.  But again, this question had already been raised in the media before the debate, and Fox and its owners didn’t like the answer the first time, so they asked it again, worded slightly different, in front of a larger audience, in a blatant attempt to make Mr. Trump look bad.

In the coverage following the debates, in the major news papers and tv networks, the analysis, editorials, and pundit judgements all agreed that someone other than Donald Trump won the debates.  Most all, in one way or another, found a way to marginalize Trump’s debate performance, seeking in no uncertain terms to explain over another reality the Establishment does not like:  Donald Trump’s standing in Republican Primary voter polls, post the debate, still has him in first place.

The media is of course, pairing each reporting of Mr. Trump’s sustained, early front runner status, with the same accompanying editorial  as they are with reporting of Bernie Sanders’ surge in the polls:  with condescending and dismissive explanation of why these facts will not matter in the final outcome of the Presidential election, because one of the well financed puppets will win.  The reasons the political columnist and tv pundits present, is equally condescending to the voters and their readers and viewers.  The term “populist” is brought up, as if they are holding their elite noses as they say it, to save themselves from the stench of what the term “populist” translates to in reality – “popular,”  or dare we call it, “democracy.”  Another reason they offer is that the voter is “cynical” and wanting to “give the finger to the political establishment” or “make a statement.”  All of these reasons are presented with subtle and sometimes not so subtle disdain.  Then the pundits predict, in the end, when we voters get closer to voting – they dismiss the validity of polls when they don’t like the results – that although we emotionally support these other candidates, we will get “serious” and ask ourselves if either Trump or Sanders can actually hold the office of the President.  Because, following their logic to it’s end that they want to beat into our brains, the only extra special person that will be able to do that job soberly will be one of their well rehearsed puppets.

Bernie Sanders continues to draw even larger crowds, some now topping 12 thousand attendees.  When this is reported reluctantly in the media, it is always with the dismissive attitude that Sanders, like Trump, is “striking a nerve” of us discontent voters, but can’t be taken seriously because in the end of course, we will do as we are told we will behave, and vote for one of the two corporate, Super Pac, media celebrated, sponsored by the oligarchy candidates, Puppet 1 or Puppet 2.  You know, when we get “serious.”

If you listen closely and carefully to how the editorial pages of the major newspapers read, from  either a cheerleader for the republicans or democrats, or the tv pundits, you can hear hear the subtle contempt that the true owners of the country have for the rest of us, especially when polls show us listening to one of their outside-the-elite sponsored club candidates, and daring to vote independence.  This contempt for our popular support for “populist” candidates, exudes from both the right and left corners of our mass media.  Don’t prove them right.

Many of you have seen this video from George Carlin before, but it is worth watching again or for the first time:

 

 

The unfolding of the primary races for the Presidential race in 2016 has gotten really interesting, hopeful, and insightful.  As readers of this column already know, I have fully endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent Senator from Vermont running on the Democratic primary ticket for President.  I have also pleaded with my audience to at least not vote for either of the elite political establishment’s ordained puppets:  Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, regardless of political alignment.  This race, despite the recent disastrous Supreme Court Ruling of Citizens United, which ruled that unlimited political bribery through so-called “political donations” is essentially “free speech,” offers opportunity for the disappointed, cynical, and fed-up voter, to send a resounding message to the oligarchs, by not supporting their sponsored candidates.

While it is true that Donald Trump is a billionaire, he is running on his own money in his bid to win the Republican nomination, and not that of establishment republican donors.  And it has them worried, especially since he remains in a very stubborn first place among republican primary voters in all major polls, leading over Jeb Bush and all the other republican hopefuls by a solid lead.   His first place status has withstood intense criticism from the media and his republican opponents, even after commenting that John McCain wasn’t a war hero.

For myself and many others who welcomed Donald Trump as the most comedic gift possible to be thrown into the Presidential race, he has not failed to deliver.  As someone who does not want to see a Republican win the White House, I also figured Donald Trump would be great at bashing the other republicans, and he has been – he’s great at bashing everyone.  But I have been surprised at his staying power, figuring he would self-destruct very early, especially after the John McCain remarks.  While I disagree with many of his views, especially his insulting characterization of Mexicans as drug addicts and rapists, I would prefer Donald Trump over the other republicans, and suspect he would be a better President.

Before my liberal readers’ heads explode from that comment, consider these points.  Donald Trump made his billions through real estate and casinos and branding, not from banking, big oil, pharmaceuticals, military industries, or transnational corporations promoting slave labor across the globe through “free trade” agreements  In fact, Mr. Trump has spoken out hard against the latest sell-out of American workers and sovereignty, the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade deal.  Mr. Trump called the possible trade deal a “disaster” and pointed out what everyone knows, but proponents and President Obama continue to lie about: that it would further promote American companies to move jobs overseas.

Mr. Trump boasts his business and deal making skills as reason to vote for him.  Given that he is not in one of the more corrupt industries that own our government, or sponsored by them, it would appear this is his strong suit.  Demonizing immigrants will not help his cause, in the unlikely event he does manage to win the Republican nomination, but in the republican primaries it plays well with the anti-immigrant wing, and he has not said anything more horrible than a lot of the rhetoric coming from his republican competition.  Governor Rick Perry sent his Texas National Guard to the border to protect his citizens from the bus loads of hungry children fleeing violence from Honduras.  Representative Steve King said Mexican immigrants had “calves the size of cantaloupes” from hauling dope across the border.

In the coming weeks – and hopefully months – the corporate, oligarch owned media, both tv and print, will do their part to silence any threat from a non-establishment, independent un-sponsored puppet.  The Donald shows no signs of backing down or playing politely, and I look very forward to watching him do battle. From commentary I have heard from a variety of people across the political spectrum, many find Mr. Trump’s style refreshing, after years of phony, well crafted and rehearsed soundbites from insincere politicians.

Speaking of insincere politicians and empty soundbites:  Hillary Clinton.  Her latest public stands on two policy issues, the TPP trade deal, and the Keystone XL Pipeline, are simply amazing to watch, if you haven’t seen them yet.  Hillary was asked at a political even this past Tuesday by an audience member, the simple question of whether or not if she were President, would she approve the Keystone XL Pipeline.  The gentleman who asked her also framed the question with a polite “yes or no please” answer.   Shockingly, Hillary Clinton refused to answer with a yes or no.   Instead, she said, after reminding the audience that she was Secretary of State when the process of approving the pipeline began, “this is President Obama’s decision, and I don’t want to second guess him” and blah, blah blah.  She didn’t think  taking a stand would be the “right thing to do,” and she then concluded her cowardly, bullhit answer with “If it’s undecided when I become President, I will answer your question.”

“If it’s undecided when I become President, I will answer your question.”  As unbelievable of an answer that is on a simple policy position question at a pro-Hillary political event, that was her answer.  So apparently, she expects voters to make her President without knowing where she stands on major issues.   Shortly after that answer, Hillary dug in and re-affirmed her non-position, saying : “I am sorry if people want me to, I’ve been very clear, I will not express an opinion until they have made a decision [Obama and Kerry], and then I will do so.”

Here is a video clip in the Washington Post of her answer, worth watching:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/28/hillary-clintons-ridiculous-hedge-on-keystone/

This is more of the same answer Hillary Clinton gave on her position on the TPP when it was up for a vote granting President Obama “fast-track” authority.  All labor unions across the country are against the T.P.P., as are most environmental groups, and most Americans who understand what the so-called free trade deals are about. The majority of democrats are against the T.P.P.  Yet Mrs. Clinton refuses to take a stand on this major policy issue as well, citing the same bullshit lines about how she was there when that process began, she didn’t want to comment until she knew what was in it, etc.  All absolute lies.  She knows whats in it, and in fact is on camera when she was Secretary of State and she was advocating for the T.P.P.

Mr. Sanders continues to draw enormous crowds where ever he goes to speak, some as large as 10,000 people, far larger than any other candidate for President on either side of the aisle.  The corporate owned media has reported very little about Mr. Sander’s enormous crowds.  In the past, the media has virtually blacked out fair coverage of independent candidates for President, such as Ralph Nader, despite him also drawing 10,000 people strong rallies.  Bernie Sanders wisely chose to run for the democratic nomination, guaranteeing him face time in the debates with Hillary, and at least coverage in general.  The political establishment also fears Bernie Sander as much as they do Donald Trump, and probably more.  Mr. Sanders continues to gain in the polls against Hillary Clinton, and is not accepting money from Super-Pacs and corporations, unlike his sponsored and owned opponent. proving her presumed nomination more vulnerable than many thought.  The Clinton camp has to be feeling the heat, and it appears so far that her strategy is as arrogant as her core – she still presumes herself to be the next President, and she’ll just keep saying “trust me, you’ll find out where I stand after you elect me.”   How any self-respecting progressive, liberal or democrat can support such a candidate in the primaries, having watched her answers, is beyond reasoning.

For those of you fed up with politics, and who feel powerless against the fake democracy we live under, the upcoming Presidential election offers you at least a chance to voice your opinion loud and clear, and not be told by the media and pundits that you have to vote for Puppet #1 or Puppet #2 or otherwise you are wasting your vote.  A vote for more of the same corrupt pawns is a waste of your vote.  This time, prove that Americans aren’t sheep, and support Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.

A serious contender has entered into the one horse race for the Democratic nomination for President, and independents, liberals, and progressives now have no excuse for voting for the status quo of the predicted dynasty showdown between another Bush and another Clinton.  Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent Senator from Vermont, has announced his intentions to challenge Hillary Clinton and seek the Democratic nomination.  Mr. Sanders faces an uphill battle, as anyone going against the multi-billion dollar sponsored oligarchy will face.  Giant money is not the only challenge though; the corporate owned mainstream media is maintaining a constant mantra of the inevitability of Jeb or Hillary.  It is up to voters to prove them wrong.

Mr. Sanders is a blunt and articulate speaker.  By bluntness, I don’t mean abrasive, arrogant and rude like Governor Chris Christie; by articulate, I mean honest and sincere and easy to comprehend, not feel good rhetoric that Obama is the master of, or insincere, rehearsed and heavily polled lines like Hillary Clinton puts forth as dryly as possible, or deceptively slick, like Bill Clinton.  Senator Sanders has a way of framing issues that most Americans agree on, whether or not they are from different political parties.

Mr. Sanders says he has spent the past year traveling the country and speaking to everyday people.  Of course, all politicians say that, and Mr.s Clinton opened her boring campaign announcement video with images of everyday working people, to show you she cares.  The difference is in what they stand for, and what Americans stand for.  Sanders explained that when you ask ordinary citizens if they think it is right to give more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires while cutting social services like Social Security and Medicare, the overwhelming answer is no.  Amazingly, although most Americans support Social Security and depend on it, almost half voted for Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan, who had made attacking Social Security and Medicare, and cutting more taxes for the rich, one of their main policy goals.  Perhaps one explanation to that, though it is a weak one, is that President Obama had already offered to make cuts to Social Security in the hopes of securing a “grand bargain” with Republicans. Mr. Sanders, like Elizabeth Warren, is in favor of strengthening Social Security, not weakening it.

Mr. Sanders also makes wage inequality, the largest it’s been in the United States since before the Great Depression, a major issue.  He favors raising the minimum wage to a livable wage.  He favors spending more money on the infrastructure, educational system, and social services within the United States for its citizens, as opposed to spending trillions of dollars on wars of aggression that leave the United States more vulnerable to terrorism instead of safer.

What’s not to like and agree with?  The right wing pundits will undoubtedly make much to do about Bernie Sander’s label as a “socialist.”  This label comes from Mr. Sanders winning the mayorship of Burlington, Vermont in 1981 as a democratic-socialist.  The word “socialist” in recent years has replaced the tired label and smear of being a “communist” by right wing conservatives.  Obama may be labeled a Kenyan, Muslim dictator by the more comical figures in conservative and republican circles, but in the more mainstream conservative republican circles, he is merely called a socialist.  The term is used to inflame more reactionary and uneducated voters whenever a politician or policy proposal comes along that would most likely help the reactionary and uneducated voters.  Want union representation at your job to protect you from the greed of the trans-national corporations that you work for?  Communist! Socialist!  Part of the language of the American propaganda system that keeps people voting against their own best interest.  As articulate as Mr. Sanders is, he easily handles this trick question about his label as a socialist by explaining that he does believe America would be better off with a single payer healthcare system, more income equality and a stronger middle class like other European countries.  The label is not the kiss of death for Bernie that similar labels have been for more cowardly democratic candidates in the past, who ran from the word “liberal” when republicans attacked them with it, refusing to explain the real definition of liberalism and allowing conservatives to continue to use it in an undeserving negative light.

Bernie Sanders is also very outspoken against the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), the latest and perhaps largest so-called free trade agreement that President Obama is attempting to bully Democrats into supporting.  It is being reported that every single union in the country is against the TPP, as well as the majority of Americans who are familiar at all with “free trade,” understandably so.  When candidate Bill Clinton ran against President George H.W. Bush, he complained about the jobs that had been sent overseas.  As President Clinton, he and his Vice President Al Gore waged a monumental propaganda campaign to pass NAFTA, the trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that proved Ross Perot’s prediction of “a giant sucking sound going south” of American manufacturing jobs.  Since NAFTA and other “free trade deals” that have been passed since, the United States has seen the closing of 50,000 factories, and millions of middle and high paying jobs to other countries with cheap labor forces, little or no environment standards impeding corporations from polluting the air and water, no labor rights, human rights abuses and child labor practices.

Candidate Obama was a critic of NAFTA, and said if President he would not sign any bad trade deals like it.  Like Clinton before him, he has completely reversed this position and become a cheerleader for the corporate interests and their lobbyists that have been writing the TPP in secret.  Mr. Obama assures us that since he has a proven track record of supporting the middle class (a weak record) we should accept his good intentions and trust his judgement that this trade deal is different, and give him “fast track” authority, meaning when his corporate sponsors and their lobbyist are finished writing this trade deal, he can present it to Congress for an up or down vote, without allowing for amendments.

Why is Mr. Obama asking us to just trust him?  Because he knows, and every Republican and big corporate interest knows that  another trade deal that benefits them by driving down wages to the bottom and erodes national sovereignty, would not have any public support.  So they keep it secret.  So secret in fact, that members of Congress who will be voting on the final toxic agreement, are only allowed to view the bill in a secure room, not take any notes, and not speak of any of the details of the agreement because they have been classified – you know, like military secrets.  What we do know about the TPP comes from leaks that were given to WikiLeaks, and so far it appears to be another carbon copy of NAFTA and other free trade deals before it.

Hillary Clinton has been before cameras as Secretary of State, wholeheartedly supporting the TPP.  Now, with House and Senate Democrats as well as Tea Party Republicans fighting the deal, and progressive pundits calling on her to take a stand, she has danced around the issue and refused to give a straight answer.  At first, she carefully said she favored trade deals that promote American jobs- generic non-sense.  Most recently, one of her campaign spokespersons answered a reporter’s question about her position with a joke of “can’t we just make it go away?”

There is nothing surprising in Mrs. Clinton’s dodging of the question of which she gave a solid answer about as Secretary of State, before it became a political hot button.  She wants to run a generic campaign full of empty talk and flattery to the middle class and working poor she pretends to care about.  She doesn’t want to be pinned down on policy positions, because if she is she would not be an attractive candidate.  Her deliberate dodging of questions and bullshitting of voters and the public is sometimes openly admitted by her in comfortable company. In 2014, Hillary was the star speaker at a Biotechnology Industry Organization convention in San Diego supporting Monsanto and other corporations genetically modifying foods, patenting seeds, and fighting mandatory labeling, and offered this advice to her corporate sponsors:

“‘Genetically modified’ sounds Frankensteinish. ‘Drought resistance’ sounds really – something you want. So how do you create a different vocabulary to talk about what it is you’re trying to help people do. . ”

You bullshit them of course, and she’s an expert. Here’s a link to her full speech at that convention, if you really want to know who’s side she’s own and how she encourages them to find more clever ways to lie to the American public:

In an interview by Jeffery Goldberg in the Atlantic in 2014, responding to world wide criticism of Israel’s latest murderous assault in Gaza, Hillary explained that pictures and videos of the slaughter in Gaza by the U.S. backed Israeli military as :

“What you see is largely what Hamas invites and permits Western journalists to report on from Gaza. It’s the old PR problem that Israel has. Yes, there are substantive, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel, because it’s a powerful state, a really effective military.”

Yes, it’s the “old PR problem,” that Hillary Clinton is an expert at addressing,  in this case explaining how to properly frame the brutal suppression and mass murder of helpless civilians as nothing more than resentment to “a powerful state, a really effective military” and anti-Semitism.

(http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/?single_page=true)

Now Mrs. Clinton has an “old PR problem” with progressives.  She began her campaign by trying to adopt some of Elizabeth Warren’s rhetoric.  The problem for progressives is, that she is backed by Wall Street, and does not support policy changes that Elizabeth Warren fights for, instead of merely talking about.  Pundits called this “moving to the left” and generally supported her change in rhetoric about popular causes.  Now her campaign wants demands of her to take a stance on the TPP to “go away” and still refuses to take a stance on the Keystone Pipeline.

Contrast her carefully crafted messages that hide her true intentions with the straight talk of Bernie Sanders.  Shockingly, President Obama had planned a trip to a Nike headquarters in Oregon today to rally support for the TPP!  Nike, the absolute epitome, and perhaps the most memorable poster child for sweat shop operators in Third World countries, is the platform Obama for some reason thought would quell fears about more outsourcing of American jobs.  Or it was a stunt by Mr. Obama to see how flagrantly he could disregard the people and labor unions that voted him into office and still get away it, a sort of testing of the boundaries to see how easily we could be herded as sheep as long as the shepherd was a Democrat or charismatic speaker.  Nike is a well documented global sweat shop operator who is fighting for the TPP, and the best known.  The absurdity of this did no go unchallenged by  Mr. Sanders wrote the President, telling him this and encouraging him not to go.  Mrs. Clinton won’t answer, because she already did with a resounding yes as Secretary of State and is hoping we don’t remember,

With regard to Mrs. Clinton’s messaging (lying) on her crusade to the White House, a good deal of liberal pundits welcome Mr. Sander’s entry into the race as good for the Democrats, because it will force Hillary more to the left.  Really? How does changing one’s rhetoric to tell people what she thinks they want to hear, moving her to the left on issues?  It doesn’t take a cynic to know the answer to that question:  it doesn’t.

It is time for voters to take a stand and support the candidates who actually mean what the say and say what they mean, and not just thank them for forcing Hillary to clean up her “old PR problem” so that we may feel about ourselves if we again elect another corporate, Wall Street sponsored puppet.  Bernie Sanders offers us a real choice, and if progressives, independents, liberals, and ordinary Americans who understand the problems of corruption in our government, chose to obey the media’s prophetic encouragement of either putting another Bush or Clinton in the White House, then we will have no one to blame but ourselves, and should stop pretending that we really want a democracy that represents us.

 

 

 

 

For opponents of Hillary Clinton, the story published two days ago in the New York Times is a godsend:  a money trail of corruption and influence pedalling that culminated in Russia acquiring control of twenty percent of the world’s uranium supplies, including a large portion of those mining rights within the United States itself.  Unlike earlier “scandals” that bitter partisan enemies have spent millions of dollars looking for evidence of wrongdoing and relentlessly pursued unsuccessfully, like the attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, this story does not appear to be a witch hunt.  There is a money trail that is relatively easy to follow, and only the most ardent supporters of Hillary will be able to deny the overwhelming appearance of corruption at the highest levels.

To understand the story and controversy in the political storm that will be unfolding in the next few days and weeks, it is helpful to read the article in  full.  Here is the link to the New York Times article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?ref=politics

In short summary,  when Hillary Clinton agreed to become Secretary of State for the Obama Administration, she was asked to sign a memorandum of understanding with the White House, stating that Bill Clinton’s charity foundation  not accept money donations from foreign governments, and that all donors be publicly disclosed.  This was to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interests, since the State Department forms foreign policy.  It appears now that the public list the Clinton Foundation provided, concealed the true players behind the largest, multi-million dollar donations that flowed, by funneling the donations through the donor’s own “family charities.”  The result was that a relatively unknown Canadian mining company, whom BIll Clinton had accompanied in the acquisition of Uranium mining rights in Kazakhstan, a Soviet satellite country ruled by an authoritarian “president,” was able to grow into a one of the world’s largest mining companies of uranium, the material that is used to produce nuclear energy and nuclear bombs, gaining assets and uranium rights within the United States, that was eventually sold to the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, giving the vilified leader of Russia, Mr. Putin, control over large swaths of the world’s uranium supply.  The sale of the Canadian mining company to Russia had to be approved by the State Department, since uranium is considered a strategic and security asset, and since it involved mining rights within the United States.  The owners and operators of the Canadian company got U.S. approval, while Hillary Clinton was head of the State Department and one of the chairmen of the committee responsible for the decisions, reaping them millions of dollars in profits, of which more than a few million were donated to the Clinton Foundation.  At the same time, Bill Clinton received one of his highest paid speeches yet, to the tune of 500,000 dollars, or, half a million dollars, from a Russian Investment bank with ties to the Kremlin, who was also involved in the sale of the company.

It is no small secret that our public officials are now sponsored with big money from some of the most powerful and corrupt industries and corporations in the world, from the financial and energy sectors, as well as the monopoly protected pharmaceutical companies that control much of the world’s medicine supply.   Dick Cheney stepped down as head of Halliburton just in time to become the Vice President and help lead us into a war based on lies, which in turn reaped Halliburton billions in profits from the war, as well as the oil industry and other weapons and military industries with close ties to the Bush administration.  It is worth remembering that Hillary Clinton is a known war hawk and also voted for the Iraq war, now claiming that she was “mislead” through “faulty intelligence,” a lie that was obvious at the time and has been proven a lie since by a preponderance of evidence.

The response from the Clinton campaign so far been that there is no evidence that Hillary steered anyone at the State Department to approve the sale for the benefit of her husband’s donors.  But the fact that she was head of the State Department conducting U.S. foreign policy at the same time that her husband and their foundation was receiving millions of dollars from people of foreign countries who benefitted from U.S. policy should itself be considered an act of corruption.  The Clintons deliberately, through deceit in their reporting of donors, kept secret the obvious conflicts of interests that the Obama Administration was concerned about from the very beginning, when they had her sign the agreement before making her Secretary of State.

In the beginning of the email scandal regarding Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private server to conduct State Department business, there was reason for suspicion but no real indication of anything that she might have been trying to hide.  But then Mrs. Clinton waited too long to address the issue publicly, and when she did address it, she informed the public that she and her team had separated her personal emails from official State Department emails, and deleted them.  Given the thirst for conspiracy theories surrounding her motives for using a private email server in the first place, this was the worst possible action she could have taken for anyone with nothing to hide, after being accused of hiding something.  The obvious theories that her political enemies were concluding was that the emails must have contained some secret regarding Benghazi.  This seems unlikely, however, since any real conspiracy regarding Benghazi would also involve the White House and the CIA, both of which would have the power to conceal anything from the public they deem classified due to “national security.”

Now there is real reason to suspect that those thousands of “personal” emails that Mrs. Clinton destroyed contained information regarding not family weddings, but family “business:” the flow of millions of dollars to her husband and the Clinton Foundation from donors of foreign countries that the White House would not have approved of, and which the Clintons went to some lengths to hide.

The campaign finance system we currently have amounts to legalized bribery.  It is laughable and makes a mockery of our Supreme Court that recently overturned our already weak campaign finance laws in the Citizen’s United split decision, on the grounds that it was “free speech.”  The conservative hacks on the Supreme Court who delivered this verdict to the billionaire club of private power, actually said that just because a corporation gave money to a politician, it didn’t mean their was any evidence of corruption or policy buying.  That is basically the Clinton team’s defense now: sure we took millions of dollars from foreign citizens, helped secure them uranium mining rights, and were the head of the State Department that ultimately approved the sale of the company to Russia and with it control of  20 percent of the world’s uranium supply; and yes Bill got a half million dollars from the Russian investment bank that helped broker the deal, but that doesn’t prove corruption.

This begs the question on those rare occasions now when a politician is charged with the crime of corruption:  what is the difference between criminal corruption and obvious corruption?  Does Hillary and BIll Clinton expect us to believe that all these donors who gave them millions of dollars, did so out of the goodness of their hearts? Are they really asking us to trust them, and believe that it’s all a series of unfortunate coincidences that their donors got richer after throwing a few million dollars in the Clinton’s direction while Mrs. Clinton headed the State Department?  Millionaires and Billionaires are always looking for a return on their investments, especially the politicians they “donate” to.

Americans are always complaining about how corrupt the politicians and government are, with good reason.  Here we have ample evidence, with an easy to follow money trail exposing the crony favoritism that infects our government.  The fact that the Clintons tried to hide this money trail from the Obama Administration should be more than enough evidence to persuade even the most die-hard Bill and Hillary fans of the greed and corruption that are part of the Clinton’s DNA.  This should be the last wake-up call anyone supporting a Hillary presidency needs.  I have always maintained through numerous policy examples, how Hillary Clinton is a phony liberal serving the needs of the uber rich and powerful.  Now we have a connect the dots road map of their corruption.

I sincerely hope the Democrats wake up before its too late and put forth a legitimate candidate that actually cares about the working class and poor of this country, instead of an oligarch who merely uses average Americans as props in a boring and insincere campaign video to support “their turn” at the throne of real power in the United States.

 

President Obama hopes to join the list of U.S. Presidents who have sold out the American workers to the unfair and immoral practices of transnational corporations through so-called “free trade” pacts that pit American workers against slave wages in the Third World, and erode the sovereignty of U.S. lawmakers to pass laws and regulations that protect worker rights and the environment.  Beyond disappointing, President Obama’s complete turn-around from candidate Obama, who was critical of NAFTA, the first large free trade deal enacted under President Bill Clinton that shipped American factory jobs to Mexico, and led to the surge of Mexican migrant workers driven to the U.S. to look for work as Mexico’s agriculture business was ruined thanks to the flooding of their market by U.S. government subsidized agriculture.

In short, what is called “free trade” by the business community and politicians

If you’re passionate about politics, or at least political issues – not necessarily politicians – you probably have at least one friend or family member who will debate you until you are blue in the face and neither of you end up changing the other’s mind on anything.  I have many friends like that.  And although I enjoy debating, I do get frustrated at not being able to change the other person’s mind on a position they are dug into firmly.  I’m sure they feel the same way when debating me.  However, I have discovered over the past year of intensely debating other people with polar opposite views, that we do share a good deal more of common ground than is often realized in the heat of rising voices.  And that common ground could potentially be exploited to create real political change.

For starters, most everyone agrees that the state of politics in the United States is dysfunctional at best, and obviously full of corruption.  This is reflected in the lack of voter participation and apathy towards politics in general.   For those of us who do participate, we are often viewed as partisan, and there is some truth in this. “Polarization,” as it is often referred to in the media, is then used against the voting public when we complain about the lousy state of American politics.  We are told by pundits “the country is divided,” or “politics have become too polarizing” or this candidate “is a polarizing figure.”  Then, the masters of propaganda tell us that what America really needs is “bi-partisanship” to break gridlock in Washington, and that what voters really want is a “moderate candidate.”  Most Americans aren’t far right or far left, they tell us, that’s why after the primaries the candidate “moves to the center.”  This is a clever lie designed to ensure that no matter who we vote for, in the end we notice so little change, that many of us drop out of the political process completely.  For those who drop out of the process completely, but still follow the news and have opinions, the lament is usually that we have a corrupt two party system in which neither party represents the needs of ordinary citizens, so why bother voting.

It is true that we have a corrupt two party system, designed by the elite business class to give us the illusion of choice, when the actual choice is between their chosen, acceptable list of puppets they have sponsored and paid for.  Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, already the chosen candidates by the elite corporate class, are already being sold by the media as the almost inevitable contenders for the next presidency.  Given the cynicism of the average citizen towards politics, it does not have to be this way.  In fact, on a basic level it seems almost illogical that Jeb or Hillary will be the likely nominees, given how corrupt career politicians are perceived to be, and given that the last Bush presidency was considered a disaster by an overwhelming majority of Americans – and that the wife of a popular ex-president was considered the inevitable nominee last time, before losing to a relatively unknown African American named Barrack Hussein Obama.

So let’s start with what we agree on:  the problems we face.  The old cliche of “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is no longer a cliche or cynical saying: it is a cold hard fact.  The income inequality is at its greatest level since before the Great Depression.  The average worker in America has seen no significant  rise in income for the last 30 years, despite increased productivity and rising corporate profits.  The super rich are really getting more super rich.  CEO salaries have risen exponentially.  The Wall Street bankers who built the house of cards that nearly collapsed the world economy and led to the Great Recession, continue to get multi-million dollar bonuses, and a few even got promoted into the Obama Administration to help with the “economic recovery” as soon as he took office, right after they had just robbed and crashed the American economy.

The average American works more hours than they used to.  They have less benefits than they used to.  It often takes both husband and wife occupying full time jobs, or multiple part time jobs, just to make ends meet.  College tuition is through the roof, and students are saddled with huge debts that by law they cannot bankrupt.  Our healthcare is too expensive.  Pharmaceutical companies write our laws, fleecing us of billions of dollars by holding our lives hostage through their monopoly protected medicines.  Our local taxes keep going up, and our local services keep declining.  Our education system sucks compared to other industrial nations.  Our nation is in a perpetual state of war, despite the so-called peace and democracy loving politicians who continue to send our young people off to wars based on lies and half truths.  There is very little job security.  The real unemployment rate is extremely high.  Cops have too much power and not enough oversight.  The federal government has constructed the most elaborate and powerful domestic surveillance program ever developed in the history of the world.  Can we all agree on most of this?

There are real solutions to these problems, but they never seem to be implemented.  That is because the real brokers of power have also created a very sophisticated propaganda system through their corporate owned media.  Through this system, their chosen puppets rise, backed by billions of dollars in bribes inaccurately labeled “campaign contributions” and “free speech.”  Even as the media says we need bi-partisanship and complains of a polarized country of red and blue states, the issues that matter, the problems and potential solutions, are camouflaged in confusing “debates” and soundbites, resulting in a large percentage of people who support a political party or politician that actually enacts policies they disagree with.  A perfect example of this – and I am not saying this to only bash republicans – was the last mid-term elections in which several red state voters put on the ballot and approved, local laws raising the minimum wage, while simultaneously voting for their Representative or Senator who was opposed to raising the minimum wage.  Another example that existed before the last mid-terms and continues today, is that most people look forward to their Social Security, or depend on their Social Security, and Medicare, yet support candidates who are openly committed to dismantling or weakening both programs.

It seems that political labels, and ideologies that sound good rhetorically, are used to keep us divided, voting for different political parties even though when you peel back the rhetoric and get to the reality and policy, we agree on many things.  We are told we want a “moderate” or “centrist” President, but that is supposedly what we get every time, and we know how well that is working out.

Two polarizing political figures, Ralph Nader and Grover Norquist – political opposites of each other according to most contemporary labels, are working together, personally working together, on issues they see as common ground for most Americans.  It’s what Ralph Nader is calling “the emerging left-right alliance,” and an examination of their collaboration is well worth your reading and consideration.

The magazine The Atlantic reported in an article last September:

“Norquist and Nader are not a new political duo; they’ve been working together for decades. . .Nader remembers Capitol Hill briefings they participated in on the history of corporate welfare in America: tax breaks, subsidies, and otherwise favorable treatment from the government toward large corporations at the expense of other companies (a phenomenon that conservative purists such as Norquist sometimes call crony capitalism).”

Copy and then paste into your browser, any of the below printed in red links (my apologies for the inconvenience of the link not working directly from here)

Link to the full article:  http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/grover-norquist-and-ralph-nader-a-match-made-in-somewhere/380278/

Here is a link to Ralph Nader’s book on the subject of a left-right coalistion: https://nader.org/books/unstoppable

Here is a very good Politico article on Norquist and Nader, from which the above picture is borrowed from:  http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/ralph-nader-grover-norquist-110605.html

Both Nader, the liberal activist, consumer advocate and third party candidate often blamed for Gore losing to Bush II, and Norquist, a staunch conservative famous for getting a large number of Republican candidates to sign his no-new-taxes pledge, find plenty of common ground, such as prison reform, among many others.

There is usually a “fringe” candidate that appeals to both Democrats and Republicans.  This time around, that candidate is Rand Paul, who recently announced his plan to seek the Oval Office.  Rand Paul is often considered a Libertarian, but labels aside, there are some crucial areas he departs from most of the Republican party, of which he is a member of as Senator from Kentucky.  Mr. Paul has been an outspoken critic of the NSA’s unconstitutional domestic spying of our private communications, use of drones, as well as being the only prominent Republican to call for the end to marijuana prohibition and speaking out against the war on drugs and how it has targeted African Americans disproportionately.  Those views appeal across party lines, but are not considered “centrist.”  The media will attack Rand Paul just with just as much intensity as they did his father Ron Paul when he ran for President, attempting to discredit him.  That is the standard media tactic to neuter “non-moderate) politicians who gain enough popularity that they cannot be ignored, like do when they simply enact a media blackout with third party challengers such Ralph Nader in the past, and Ross Perot his second time around (by barring him from the debates.)

I am not supporting Rand Paul for President, as there are more candidates on the “left” that I agree with more, such as Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, who is seriously considering a run against Hillary.  But I am glad that Rand Paul is competing on ideas that both liberals and conservatives can agree on, when they focus on the issue instead of the political affiliation label.  If I had to pick from the Republican candidates, Rand Paul is the only one I could support.  He will have polish up his handling of the media, however, as well as his campaign overall.  He is prone to blunders and sloppy like Mark Rubio, which will sink a presidential candidate quickly.  He can also be condescending and sexist in his behavior, as he recently showed by “shisshing” a female reporter on tv before she had finished her question, even holding up finger over his mouth in a shisshing gesture, telling her to calm down, as if she were his irate wife.  The Republican party will provide much comedic relief before its over, as it did last time, but that will only strengthen Jeb Bush in the end.

On the Democrat side of the aisle, primary voters need to defeat Hillary, as I see know reason why a Wall Street crook, Pharmaceutical CEO, Oil tycoon, or war profiteer would not be equally happy with her or Jeb.  Democrats need to be bold and support a progressive candidate who would have broad appeal to both elements of the left and right, the liberal or conservative or libertarian or anything in between.  I think if most conservative voters, or republican voters or independent voters, were exposed to Senator Elizabeth Warren, they would find her easy to support, and a much better representative of the average citizen.  She is outspoken against Wall Street abuses, wants to not only protect Social Security but expand it, wants to make college affordable and has proposed real action to make it so, and is against the next giant, corrupt “free trade” deal known as the TPP, and has not been hesitant to oppose her party’s sitting President who is promoting it for “fast track” approval.  Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is an Independent, who usually caucuses with the Democrats, and will most likely run on the Democratic ticket in the primaries if he choses to run.  Mr. Sanders has a simple and easy to understand message that should appeal to voters of all persuasions.   He wants to strengthen and expand Social Security, and raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires before making cuts on the backs on average Americans, known as the 98 percent majority.

If we can agree on what we agree on, starting with the problems we all see, and then look away from the so-called “middle” that the media tells us we are a part of, and examine and dare even vote for, candidates other than Jeb or Hillary, we have a chance of breaking up the two party corporate party and enacting real change that we can all agree on.  So the next time you are debating or discussing issues with someone of a different political persuasion, think outside the box of political labels and ideologies, and focus on the problem that you agree on, and on where other alternative candidates stand on specific issues.  This is made easier by the fact that the non-anointed candidates will actually stake out bold positions and specific policy proposals that many of us, across the political spectrum, agree on.  If we do this, we are not doomed to vote for Puppet number 1 or 2.  There are a few decent people in both of the two corporate owned parties that would not be a vote for business as usual.  The fact that our system is corrupted should not automatically exclude us from voting for a Democrat or Republican in the primaries, but it should also not make us afraid to support a third party candidate if we end up with the predicted and pre-ordained dynasty figures in the two parties.  We should also demand that third party candidates be allowed into the network Presidential Debates.

Goodnight, and good luck.