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Progressives now have a candidate for president in 2008 in Dennis Kucinich.
The corporate media made him their enemy during his 2004 run, when they either ignored him or attacked him. But despite opposition by the powers that be, progressives can only win by his running.
The corporate media have made their choice clear, as in this Associated Press statement on the day Kucinich announced, “New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is considered the party's front-runner, closely followed by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.” Considered by whom?
Ahh, there’s the rub. Considered by the transnational corporations and their Democratic Leadership Council filter on behalf of transnational investors who don’t give a damn about this country or its people, other than what they can steal from both. Hillary and Obama are going to be buried in cash and favorable media coverage as the backup plan, in case the transnational investors can’t cram another Republican down the throats of the electorate.
The corporate media have convinced the American public that candidates such as Kucinich are “out of the mainstream,” which is an outright lie. Their own polling shows the views of Kucinich are indeed mainstream. He wants universal health care, as do the majority of citizens. He wants to cut defense spending, as do the majority. He wants to clean up the environment, as do the overwhelming majority. He wants to bring the troops home from Iraq, as do the majority. You couldn’t be much more mainstream than Dennis Kucinich.
But the mass media have little to do with the mainstream. They represent their owners, board members and advertisers. These are connected to those making billions from war, billions from pollution, and billions from the cruel “health care” system whose primary function is to produce profit, not care.
The corporate media see Kucinich as their enemy and will savage him if he should get decent polling numbers, otherwise they can be expected to try to destroy him with silence, not covering anything he does from fear that he might become a blip on the electoral radar if a profile is raised.
Howard Dean showed that in the Internet age, it is possible to get financing without kneeling before the Big Boys and kissing Big Boy butt. It scared the establishment so much they echoed “the Dean scream” for days throughout corporate media in belittling him in an attempt to destroy his credibility. They won as Dean sizzled to toast from their flames.
It wasn’t that they disagreed with Dean on much outside of the war. It was more the fact that he hadn’t taken their money and they weren’t sure they completely owned his soul. How could such a man be trusted to hold the White House for them?
Now we have a wonderful choice with Kucinich. Old leftists like me, knocked down and knocked out so many times I’m sure there are those who think we must be punch drunk to keep trying for an outbreak of democracy, are urging people to get behind Kucinich in a Can’t Lose Campaign.
Already liberal friends are braying at me that Kucinich doesn’t have a chance. Corporate media echo this suggestion every four years in keeping the sheep in the fold. Stray from the corporate-backed candidates and the world may come to an end. The lesser of evils is the way to go, my man, vote evil -- let me assure you that evil is the way to go.
But Kucinich is not endangering the sacred “two-party system,” staying within the lesser-of-evil shuffle, so at least we don’t have to listen to the whimpering, “If you vote for a Green, the Republicans will win” (so vote for an evil Democrat, who will then stick bamboo shoots under your fingernails, but only nine fingers, unlike his greater evil opponent, who will go for all 10).
I believe Kucinich can actually win the primary if only two things happen. First, he has to raise big bucks on the Internet as Dean did. And second, a massive campaign of education must take place, much like what I do daily at Liberty Underground, informing liberals and leftists of the news beyond the corporate crap which passes for news in the Land of the Free, often framing it within the historical context ignored by the corporate media.
An informed voter must learn early about what will come from the corporate media to savage Kucinich: that he will be accused of being out of the mainstream, a lunatic, a man who will bring down the republic, cause economic doom and despair.
And they will have to learn about the lies told by the corporate media about his opponents. That, for example, Barack Obama is a “peace candidate” who wants out of the war in Iraq. The magnificent black writer Glen Ford pretty much popped that balloon with his recent article.
Obama is for leaving when the Iraqis are trained to be more obedient, like the Bush plan, but we don’t call Bush a man of peace for some reason (could be those hundreds of thousands of innocent dead who kind of stink up that kind of propaganda, or corporate media would go for it). The Bush/Obama plan ends when we have a replacement for Saddam in power, responding to “fetch boy, now roll over, now turn on the oil spigot -- good boy, here’s a biscuit.”
The Kucinich plan is to cut off funding for the war, except for enough to finance bringing our troops home. Now, as a combat vet, that’s what I call supporting the troops!
“Peace candidate” Obama has stated he would bomb Iran or even Pakistan under the right conditions. "Indeed,” he said, “given the depletion of our forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will probably need a somewhat higher budget in the intermediate future just to restore readiness and replace equipment." Citizens are not getting defense cuts from Obama.
Senator Hillary Clinton of the leadership of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the DLC, we are told by corporate media columnists, wants socialized medicine! Wouldn’t that be wonderful, except again, the corporate media are lying. The then First Lady’s program was to roll up managed care insurance companies into giant Wal-Marts of medical care for efficiency. The efficiency might not have resulted in any additional medical care, but it certainly would have created increased profit for the big insurance companies. Which is why, when she announced it in New York, representatives of the big medical insurance companies gave her a standing ovation.
Dennis Kucinich is pushing for an actual single-payer system like Canada’s, in which even the poorest workers have a shot at getting their broken arm set without having to wonder if they’ll lose their lodging in the deal.
The corporate media are hyping Obama insanely because he drew crowds of hundreds in New Hampshire. Shouldn’t a Democrat draw hundreds of Democrats in local city meetings, let alone meetings hyped nationally by all the major TV networks? You would think he had accomplished another Woodstock phenomenon from the coverage he got for this.
Although Obama is not a member of the Democratic Leadership Council like Hillary, Lee Sustar recently wrote, “In fact, Obama's book explicitly endorses Bill Clinton's "Third Way" - -the attempt to shed the Democrats' supposed leftist excesses and borrow pro-business policies from the Republicans.”
The corporate media know Obama, like Hillary, will sell out the American people on behalf of the owners, who keep these two as their backup plan. Sure, they want a Republican if they can get one. Republicans have shown themselves to be better lackeys, more savage and cruel. But Hillary and Obama heel well on command, and have proven their service by backing the transnational investors who run the planet and finance the political campaigns, often through their “American” corporations.
Dennis Kucinich cannot lose, and every progressive should put their weight behind him now. At the very least, a message will get out that Obama, Hillary and the Republicans will most of the time be on the opposite side of, a message citizens should be allowed to hear. The only way progressives lose is by not backing this dark horse, thusly allowing a field of butt-kissing sycophants to run unchallenged.
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