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Last month, Jimmy Carter called America’s process “one of the worst… because of the excessive influx of money.”
The entire system is corrupt and dysfunctional. It has no legitimacy whatever. Presidential races constitute the apogean extreme of illegitimacy.
The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP: OpenSecrets.org) predicts a $2.5 billion Obama/Romney contest. Combined with congressional races, it estimates $5.8 billion. Super PACS and other outside sources raise much of it. Donors can contribute as much as they want anonymously.
According to CRP executive director Sheila Krumholz:
“Although a lot of money still remains to be raised and spent, the data already show that we’re on track to break the extraordinary, record-setting sums spent in 2008.”
“That cycle was the first in which we crossed the $5-billion mark, and the big question now is whether we will already reach - or surpass - $6 billion just one cycle later.”
“At a minimum, we’ll come close. More important than the total spent, the real difference this cycle is how great a portion of that money will come from purportedly independent, often secretive groups.”
“An arms race driven by the outside money keeps incumbents and challengers alike desperately seeking funds and even more grateful to the donors that come to their aid.”
Donor-friendly legislation, deregulation, and other scurrilous practices repay contributors manyfold.
On the stump, candidates deliver prepackaged, prescripted slogans, sound bites, and other rehearsed rhetoric to win votes. Focus-tested commercials proliferate. Candidate virtues and opponents’ shortcomings are exaggerated for maximum effect.
Debates are worse. Issues are avoided. What matters most isn’t discussed. A duplicitous charade substitutes. Voters are left entirely uninformed.
Until 1988, the nonpartisan League of Women Voters ran the process. Thereafter, both major parties usurped control through their Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Corporate money funds it. They get what they pay for.
Independent candidates and opinions are excluded. In 2000, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader was shut out and threatened with arrest for showing up for the first debate. Having a valid auxiliary viewing room ticket didn’t matter.
So-called presidential debates constitute scripted theater. They feature prepackaged questions and answers. Issues mattering most aren’t discussed responsibly if at all.
Massachusetts state police accosted Nader. They forced him to leave under threat of arrest. CPD officials left instructions to exclude him even from a separate University of Massachusetts sponsored viewing area. Others without tickets got in unopposed.
Nader sued and achieved partial vindication. CPD co-chairs Paul Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf apologized.
Nader calls CPD’s agenda “a deplorable, exclusionary tool of the two-party duopoly, performing an antidemocratic screening function in our system, and forcing excluded candidates to the sidelines in media attention and public appraisal.”
On October 2, Nader headlined his CounterPunch article “Rigging the Presidential Debates,” saying:
Obama and Romney control the CPD. Secret back room deals are made. Prescripted arrangements are consummated. Formats exclude debates.
Everything is negotiated in advance. If done “between two corporations, they could be prosecuted for criminal violation of the antitrust laws.”
Voters aren’t told about the “backroom” Obama/Romney “fix.”
“Of course, (independent) party candidates are excluded.” In 2000 and 2004, national polls showed most people wanted Nader included. He was threatened with arrest for even showing up to witness the charade.
“Nothing seems to motivate the mainstream campaign press into challenging the two Party duopoly, its definition of important questions, or the rancid corporate sponsorship of the debates down to the hospitality parties the corporatists hold at the debate locations in Colorado, New York and Florida this October. The reporters must like the free wine and food.”
Self-censorship is policy. Rules of engagement exclude truth and real debate. Media scoundrels have their own rules, said Nader. “(A)void pressing questions… beyond what (both) major candidates are” discussing.
“(I)gnore what major civic groups or (others) with credible track records propose for the candidates to address.”
Exclude what matters most to ordinary people. Vital issues include war and peace, corporate empowerment, crime in the suites, political corruption, public education, worker rights, health and safety, clean air and water, safe affordable food and energy, environmental protection, equity and justice, and government of, by, and for everyone.
The nation’s “foremost expert on the politics of presidential debates - George Farah, author of No Debate” can’t get on TV, corporate radio, NPR or PBS. Anyone able to explain electoral realities is excluded. So are legitimate independent voices on all major issues.
Nader said Walter Cronkite and the League of Women Voters once called CPD-controlled debates “unconscionable fraud,” “mockery,” and “charades devoid of substance, spontaneity, and honest answers to tough questions.”
On October 3, 16, and 22, media scoundrels were chosen to run cover for debate theatrics as hosts. PBS News Hour’s Jim Lehrer, CNN’s Candy Crowley, and CBS chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer lack credibility.
So does ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. She’ll host the October 11 vice presidential debate.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/05 ... l-process/