Third Party is a “Spoiler” – This is a “Politically Bigoted Word” ~ Ralph Nader
Muncie, Indiana NEWS – Well, the first fraudulent presidential debate was on center stage this week at Hofstra University with all pundits pointing to a clear victory for Hillary Clinton. She prepared for the political debate, whereas Donald Trump prefers improvisational style. How did the Green or Libertarian Party’s candidates perform? They weren’t allowed to participate. The corporation owned by the Republican and Democratic Party’s, funded by large corporations, deny third-party candidates unless they reach 15% in the polls. Since the other corrupted industry – media – dictates who gets exposure and who doesn’t, it’s almost impossible for third-party candidates to reach 15%. Yes, it’s just another rigged part of the fraudulent political system.
Now that the primary is over, and the Democratic National Committee was exposed for working against Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton, the entire left side of the political spectrum is told to unite behind Hillary Clinton to defeat the “mentally challenged” or “psychotic”, Donald Trump. Fear tactics galore have been cast upon progressives and independents. Even liberals and working class are told that Donald Trump will be, “a disaster for this country”. Military commanders and long-time republicans vow to vote for Hillary.
What’s odd is Donald Trump didn’t just win the GOP presidential primary…he dominated the primary. The GOP establishment, and anti-establishment Tea Party, threw everything they had at Trump, but he smoked them all. In fact, the challengers officially raised the white flag of surrender after Indiana’s May Primary vote. Indiana handed victories to BOTH anti-establishment candidates – Bernie Sanders and Trump. Delaware County voted in line with all Hoosiers.
Let that sink in for a moment. A predominantly conservative red working class state voted for the two populist candidates – two people who weren’t part of the longstanding political class.
You see, for progressives, the problem with our country is rather clear – our public sector is owned and corrupted by moneyed interests from our private sector. The politicians serve their interest, not the interests of “we the people”. The constitution is fine and the structure of our society is okay, but the systems designed are corrupted. Our Founders predicted this would happen, but that’s another story.
Also, our fourth branch of government, the constitutionally designed “free and independent press”, is no longer independent or free. Over 85% of all broadcast and printed media is owned by five publicly traded companies. Therefore, our press is too busy serving at the behest of executives and boardrooms (profits), so serving the interests of the people were abandoned in the 1970’s. Or, at least that is when Walter Cronkite waved the white flag when he said:
“I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.”
Why is this a problem? Quite simply, it means we have no functioning democracy – nobody is holding the powerful accountable and nobody is looking out for the interests of the people.
By definition, the Democratic Party is the party of “people power”, but that definition is a false myth of ancient lore. It hasn’t been valid since the early 1990’s, maybe even before then.
As economists are pointing out today, the origins of income inequality began around the same period. Wages have stagnated since the early 90’s as well. While executive pay has gone through the roof over the past several decades, working class pay has leveled out. There has been no increases in the minimum wage, etc., etc.
The financial industry collapsed the global economy in 2008. In 1990, Bill Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall which was passed in the 70’s. Upon collapse, they received $13-14 trillion in financial aid funded by taxpayers. Since the collapse in 2008, nearly all the economic gains in this country have gone to the Top 1%.
What financial aid package did Americans get for the loss of retirement packages which vanished due to the fraud committed by Wall Street?
Do you remember all the “hope and change” promised by the progressive Barack Obama back in 2008? Obamacare was a gift to the medical, pharmaceutical and insurance industry. Did it bring down costs for Americans?
Last week, our democratic president spoke with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) about his legacy and why black leaders should support Hillary Clinton:
“… My Name may not be on the ballot but our progress is on the ballot. Tolerance is on the ballot … I will consider it a personal insult. An insult to my legacy if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election …”
The CBC endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primary prompting Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, to proclaim, “The media has obviously done a good job of lying to black Americans, if they believe Hillary Clinton supports them.”
Let’s be clear, the democratic power base uses black leaders for the votes they can get from their community. Period. As Michelle pointed out, “The Clinton’s are responsible for putting more black youth behind bars than any other political couple in the country.”
Did the Obama’s work to undo the damage the Clinton’s had done? The private prison industry has exploded and our tough laws on marijuana has only made it worse. Just last week, prison protests took place across the country because of prisoner exploitation – worker camps.
The Muslim, Louis Farrakhan fired back at Obama saying:
“There’s your legacy Mr. President,” Farrakhan starts. ” It’s in the street, with your suffering people … And if you can’t go and see about them, the white people you’ve served so well, will preserve your legacy. The hell they will. You didn’t earn your legacy with us … [Obama] didn’t earn your legacy with Black people. You fought for the rights of gay people. You fight for Israel. Your people are suffering and dying in the streets!”
Obama didn’t even serve the people who voted for him, but he did a wonderful job with Wall Street. How many fraud committing Wall Street executives have been jailed by Obama’s appointed heads in the SEC, FBI or Justice? Zero.
You know what group of professionals he’s been tough on? Journalists. Yes, our fourth branch of government. Internationally, the United States has dropped to 28th for press freedom.
When our government is tougher on journalists and their sources (whistleblowers) than they are on executives who commit fraud and other crimes, we don’t have a democracy. We have an Oligarchy which owns both political parties. Those who rise within the ranks for our corrupted two-party system will not fix the problem – they are the problem. Anyone who claims otherwise, is naïve or ignorant.
Democracy Now recently had Ralph Nader on their program to discuss our political structure, and recommend solutions. He made this comment:
But what Bernie Sanders never talks about is, if we had proportional representation, instant runoff voting, all this spoiler stuff wouldn’t be around. And the idea of calling a third-party “spoiler,” using the First Amendment right to run for office, is a politically bigoted word and should never be tolerated by the American people, because everyone has an equal right to run for office. Everyone is going to get votes from one another. So they’re either spoilers of one another or none of them are spoilers.
I’m still a big fan of Bernie Sanders for what he was able to do, but he’s completely contradicting himself when he begs progressives to support Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Again, if the party is the problem as he claimed hundreds of times, then supporting the candidate they chose through deception, fraud and coercion with media outlets, makes no sense whatsoever. It’s using the same fear tactics both parties have used on the American people for generations – hoodwinked.
As for scapegoating Ralph Nader or Jill Stein with the Green Party, read how Ralph puts that into perspective:
So here’s how it goes: 300,000 registered Democrats in 2000 in Florida voted for Bush—blame the Greens. Thousands of people were misidentified as ex-felons by Katherine Harris, the secretary of state for Jeb Bush, governor of Florida—blame the Greens. The butterfly ballot, which was very deceptive and got people to vote for exactly the opposite candidate in South Florida—blame the Greens. Scalia’s political 5-4 decision, which blocked the Florida Supreme Court’s full recount in Florida—blame the Greens. The Electoral College took the victory in the popular vote from Gore—blame the Greens. Gore loses his Tennessee state, where he represented in Congress for years—blame the Greens. It’s total scapegoating. It’s disgusting that extremely smart people, who happen to be Democratic Party apparatchiks, like Howard Dean, who’s now in a corporate firm that lobbies for the healthcare and drug industry, by the way, and never identified as such by The New York Times and others who quote him—he is now reviving this 2000 nonsense.
Starting to understand why I refer to the debates as a fraud against the American people. Let’s go back to Democracy Now, in a 2012 interview with George Farah, founder and executive director of Open Debates. George said:
The League of Women Voters ran the presidential debate process from 1976 until 1984, and they were a very courageous and genuinely independent, nonpartisan sponsor. And whenever the candidates attempted to manipulate the presidential debates behind closed doors, either to exclude a viable independent candidate or to sanitize the formats, the League had the courage to challenge the Republican and Democratic nominees and, if necessary, go public.
In 1980, independent candidate John B. Anderson was polling about 12 percent in the polls. The League insisted that Anderson be allowed to participate, because the vast majority of the American people wanted to see him, but Jimmy Carter, President Jimmy Carter, refused to debate him. The League went forward anyway and held a presidential debate with an empty chair, showing that Jimmy Carter wasn’t going to show up.
Four years later, when the Republican and Democratic nominees tried to get rid of difficult questions by vetoing 80 of the moderators that they had proposed to host the debates, the League said, “This is unacceptable.” They held a press conference and attacked the campaigns for trying to get rid of difficult questions.
And lastly, in 1988, was the first attempt by the Republican and Democratic campaigns to negotiate a detailed contract. It was tame by comparison, a mere 12 pages. It talked about who could be in the audience and how the format would be structured, but the League found that kind of lack of transparency and that kind of candidate control to be fundamentally outrageous and antithetical to our democratic process. They released the contract and stated they refuse to be an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American people and refuse to implement it.
And today, what do we have? We have a private corporation that was created by the Republican and Democratic parties called the Commission on Presidential Debates. It seized control of the presidential debates precisely because the League was independent, precisely because this women’s organization had the guts to stand up to the candidates that the major-party candidates had nominated. And instead of making public these contracts and resisting the major-party candidates’ manipulations, the commission allows the candidates to negotiate these 21-page contracts that dictate all the fundamental terms of the debates.
All our national media outlets have no problem signing up to “hoodwink the American people”. As CEO of CBS, Les Moonves stated earlier this year, “It may be bad for America, but it’s great for CBS’s bottom-line.”
There are no scapegoats in this election, but there is plenty of shaming the American people. For the past four decades, our government and the policies they underwrite, have favored those who give the most money to political campaigns. Their money is used to buy ad space to convince you who to vote for, or against their candidates. The corrupt media receives those dollars to convince us how to vote. We are allowed to only have two political parties in this country to give the illusion of choice. If we dislike the two options presented to us, we are told, “Vote for the lesser of two evils.”
My favorite shaming technique comes from democrats – you have to vote for Hillary, or it’s a vote for Trump. What did Nader call them…”apparatchiks”. That’s like saying the cure for lung cancer is smoking more cigarettes. It’s why Tea Partiers vote against the GOP establishment. It’s why conservatives are embracing a reality TV billionaire racist – “at least he’s not a politician”.
Does that really work on Americans?
We’ll find out as the charade continues right up to November 8th. Am I advocating you vote for Donald Trump – no chance. Just know this, the dimmer switch in this country has been set on near dark for a generation, but the light is getting brighter. Americans are learning about the scams and the fraud. I don’t think they’ll appreciate the joke was being played on them by a select few. The only question you need to ask yourself is, “Does the existing two-party corrupted political system deserve your vote?”
