Corporate Control

It is a well-known and unfortunate fact in the United States that businesses, corporations, and special interests play a much greater role in our politics and government than we would certainly like it to. There has been, for decades, if not centuries, the element to our politics that is the corrupting influence of money. It has become particularly pronounced in recent years, especially in this 2008 Presidential Election, where candidates of both political parties are raising millions and millions of dollars each in campaign cash. In fact, this could be the first billion-dollar presidential campaign in our country’s history. That is, assuredly, not a positive sign.

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Trade

Trade is an issue which, relative to more prominent issues, many do not feel strongly about. It is an issue upon which the mainstream candidates from each of the major parties agree, so it can not be used as an issue to inflame voters with partisanship and get them to go to the polls to vote against the opposition party. Trade is quite unlike the issues of abortion, or gay marriage, or the War in Iraq, in that respect. However, I believe that Trade is a very important issue which affects all of our lives here in the United States on a daily basis. Specifically, whether the United States assumes the policies of Free Trade or of Fair Trade.

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Hillary’s Record: Progressive Enough?

Since Sen. Hillary Clinton has based much her presidential campaign around the notion of experience and asked voters to closely examine who has the best record, I think it’s fair if we do precisely that.

Top 10 things you might not know about Hillary Clinton’s record. She has:

10. Supported the death penalty throughout her public life and lobbied for Bill Clinton’s crime bill, which expanded the list of crimes subject to the federal death penalty.

9. Sponsored legislation in December 2005 to criminalize flag burning, despite concerns over first amendment violations raised by fellow Democrats.

8. Supported Arkansas’s law requiring parental notification before an abortion, but changed her position on the issue in 2005.

7. Campaigned as a teenager for Republican Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential election, and served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans during college.

6. Hired union-busting pollster Mark Penn as her presidential campaign’s chief strategist. Penn’s corporate clients have included Blackwater, Countrywide Financial,Texaco, and Monsanto.

5. In October 2007, Hillary was the only Democratic presidential candidate to vote in favor of a Senate resolution to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, essentially giving President Bush a blank check to attack Iran.

4. In her 2006 Senate re-election campaign, Hillary received more money from the health care industry than any other U.S. Senator besides Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.

3. Served on the board of Wal-Mart for six years from 1986 to 1992.

2. In 2007 alone, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign received over $400,000 in campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists, more than any other Democratic candidate.

1. Voted on October 11, 2002, to authorize the Iraq war.

Hillary Clinton is a very accomplished woman who has been a tremendous leader on many important issues, but is she really the kind of progressive change that America needs in this election?

Sources are below the fold.
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Corporate Censorship

You may or may not know that Former Alaskan Senator and current 2008 presidential candidate for the Democratic nomination, Mike Gravel, has been excluded from the October 30th MSNBC Democratic debate and will be excluded from the November 15th CNN debate. He met all of the arbitrary requirements for the November 15th debate, except for one: he has not raised $1 million dollars. This only serves to further the corruption and influence of money in our politics, which is ridiculous considering that most Americans believe that there is already an inordinate emphasis on money in politics. (For example, Chris Dodd has about the same amount of support levels as Mike Gravel, and yet Dodd has raised over $13 million total? How is that possible?)

So, Gravel is holding an Alternative debate on November 15th (which will be able to be seen on Ustream.tv). But I am not writing here to simply rally support against Gravel’s censorship. It is my duty to address the full scope of the problem, so I would also like to note the problem of censorship by the media in general, and its implications for our society.

Gravel is certainly not the first candidate to have been censored by the media. Ralph Nader (who I defend against accusations that he is the reason that Al Gore lost in 2000), Dennis Kucinich, and countless others who don’t quite fit the mainstream media’s ideas, or who are not corrupt and don’t take money from special interests and corporations, have been censored or are in danger of being censored.

Because, you see, if a candidate is not in the pocket of the corporation that owns the media, then it is against the self-interest of the corporation to allow that candidate to speak out on the media outlets that the corporation controls. This works vice-versa, as well. Candidates who are in the pockets of the corporations that own the media will be allowed to speak on the media outlets that the corporation owns.

This corporate influence in our media only serves to make sure that the candidates that we elect to our highest offices in the land are the most corrupt candidates. It serves to make sure that the candidates with the most integrity are silenced. It’s no wonder that we have such a sorry bunch of representatives in Washington. It’s no wonder that we have a man like George W. Bush as president. Unfortunately, their lack of integrity is why they win.

It is very dangerous to allow the corporate media to have this kind of power over us, to thin out the field of candidates before a single vote is even cast. It undermines the values which our democracy was founded upon, and it undermines our democratic elections. Are we really such a democracy after all, when the rich and powerful alone decides who runs our government? Our government is not of the people, by the people, and for the people, it is of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

Our so-called “democracy” is currently in a very unfortunate state. It’s time to bring Democracy back.

Manufactured Populism

Let’s play “Guess the candidate!”. I’ll write a few lines about different 2008 presidential candidates (all facts, no opinion, although I am selective about my information), Republican and Democrat, and then you guess who it happens to be. Most of my information comes from whitehouseforsale.org, opensecrets.com, or vote-smart.org (I recommend these websites; you should definitely take a look at them if you would like to know more about the current state of our government).

#1: This first candidate that I will mention has the most money bundlers out of all of the candidates: he or she has 543 money bundlers (or people who funnel large amounts of money to campaigns), one of which is a lobbyist. He or she has raised less than $30 million dollars, but he or she has raised over $8 million of that money from lawyers or law firms.

#2: The second candidate has raised the most from Lobbyists (over $500,000), and he or she has also raised the most from lawyers and law firms as well, at over $9 million dollars. He or she has taken the largest amount from commercial banks ($919,000), the second largest amount from Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms ($970,000), and the first largest amount from the Pharmaceuticals/Health Products industry ($269,000). He or she has 322 money bundlers, 18 of which are lobbyists.

#3: The third candidate has taken over $70,000 from lobbyists, has taken the second largest amount from the commercial banks ($879,000), has taken the third largest amount from Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms ($950,000), and has taken the second largest amount from the Pharmaceuticals/Health Products industry ($261,000). He or she has 314 money bundlers, eight of which are lobbyists.

What’s more, none of these three candidates will pledge to have the United States out of the Iraq War by 2013, the end of their first term.

Who are these three candidates? They must be Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain? No, indeed, they are three supposedly “completely different” candidates. They, in order, are John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. Don’t believe my facts? Check them yourself. Although, to be fair, the Republicans are just as bad (you just expect more out of the Democrats), and, notably, Rudy Giuliani took vastly more money from the Oil and Gas Industry than any other candidate.

It is a direct contradiction if you claim to run a political campaign based on populist values but finance that campaign with the money of businesses and special interests. The supposed populism of the Democratic Party is manufactured populism; it does not really exist, we just percieve it to exist because of how the Democratic Party attempts to present itself. If you broadly survey the two political parties, they look very different, but, if you look closely enough, there are few substansial differences between the Democrats and Republicans when it comes to how they operate: they are all Demoblicans.

The reality of the situation is that, if you want a good candidate the truly represents you, you must not vote solely on the basis of which political party they occupy: you must vote by carefully weighing and examining each candidate’s individual aspects, like a good and informed voter should. You should examine which candidates truly represent the people, not the businesses and special interests, and, in my opinion, the only major presidential candidates (that I know of) who even begin to fit that bill are Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Ron Paul.

You may say that “Well, the Democrats are better than the Republicans though, so I vote Democratic.” Our society presents you with a false choice between either Democrats or Republicans. You do have other choices. Not just the Independent candidates, but the Green Party, Populist Party, and countless others as well. The Democrats and Republicans, however, have made such a good effort to stamp out these smaller parties and the Independent candidates that you really see very little of them. An example of this is Georgia’s very unfair ballot access laws.

In conclusion, the Republicans and the Democrats are not so different after all; the Democrats just present us with a manufactured image of populism, while the Republicans usually don’t attempt to do so. The infighting between the Democrats and the Republicans in our society distracts us from the real fight: the struggle between those who have power and those who have none, the struggle between the people and the politicians.

Money Talks: Where do the candidates get it from, and does it matter?

Earlier this week it was reported that Hillary Clinton’s campaign received over $20,000 in donations from News Corp, the company owned by the same man who owns Fox News, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch and his son personally donated to Clinton’s presidential campaign as well.

Is News Corp donating to Clinton’s campaign in hopes that she’ll get the nomination? Then that means Fox News would try to smear her during the general election. In their eyes, there is no easier target than Hillary Clinton. Well, Hillary has never lost an election, and I don’t think she plans to. Read more