So today is “Super Tuesday” and I can think of nothing super about it.
Today Americans around the country who actually realize that Presidential primary elections are being held will be heading out to their polling stations to “pull the lever” for one of what has been effectively whittled down to a pool of four candidates among whom the solid differences are so minor as to be a joke. All four candidates offer nothing to change the status quo when judged by their records and their words rather than campaign slogans. All four candidates seem likely to get us involved in more imperialist wars while continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All four will leave our health care system firmly in the hands of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries instead of yanking these parasites out of the system, publicly funding health care, and putting medical decisions back into the hands of the public and their privately chosen doctors.
I was reading the “issues” section of the Atlanta Journal Constitution on Sunday where there was an entire article devoted to comparing the musical selections of the candidates to see what exciting insights this exercise might provide. The same article also subtly observed the importance of selecting a candidate who seems likely to win in November, effectively reducing elections down to the horse race terms in which it is often framed in the corporate media.
These elections are a sham and an obscene circus.
Every four years the American public gets to select its master-in-chief from a narrow field of candidates who fiercely compete and debate within a very narrow range so as to give the illusion of choice and dialog while keeping the true options fixed to those acceptable and profitable to corporate America.
Where is the voice for peace? Where is an opponent of American empire? Where is the defender of civil liberties? Who is the champion for the workers in America living from paycheck to paycheck? Who will put an end to corporate welfare? Who will check the obscene excesses of the military-industrial-complex that President Eisenhower knew so intimately and warned the public about so many years ago?
Don’t look for these voices in an American politician because if you do see such a rare bird, you will get to witness its systematic silencing and the elimination of its chances to fly.
We cannot look to leaders to solve the problems in America anymore than a slave might look to his master for freedom.
Sheesh. You’d think this Ad on Facebook was confusing the primary elections with the Super Bowl:
But you would have considered Kucinich…. Just how differently would he have done things do you think? Just curious.
Yes, I think he would have done things quite differently. Other than Mike Gravel and Ron Paul, he was the only candidate who truly opposed the Iraq war from the start and spoke out against it at every turn.
Obama likes to say that he opposed the war from the start, but he took that stance when he was a State Senator and it was politically expedient for him with his constituents. Upon becoming a US Senator, his criticism of the war morphed into criticism of the way it was being waged and his record in the Senate is a Siamese twin to Clinton’s record.
Unlike the two Senators, Congressman Kucinich was continually fighting in the House for the Democrats to show some spine and oppose Bush’s war and to stand up for the Constitution which Bush’s administration has trashed. Kucinich brought impeachment charges against Vice-President Cheney while the Democratic leadership fought all attempts to do so despite a lot of grassroots pressure.
Unlike the two Senators, Kucinich had a detailed plan to get our troops out of Iraq within three months of taking office along with a realistic plan for getting the UN and a neutral Arab Coalition to help keep the peace in Iraq while they rebuild their country. Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama remain non-committal about when and how they plan on bringing troops home and have said stuff that imply they will be leaving troops there until 2012.
Worse still the two Senators along with former candidate John Edwards, said menacing things about Iran and “keeping all options on the table” while Kucinich has fought against aggressive actions towards that country.
And that’s just the foreign policy differences.
On the home front, Kucinich would have pushed for a Single-Payer Universal Healthcare plan proposed in H.R. 676 that he and Congressman Conyers currently have floating in Congressional limbo land that would cut the parasitic insurance companies out of the equation and put healthcare decisions back into the hands of people and their chosen doctors through public funding and private delivery. In contrast, the two Senators are pushing programs that will ultimately amount to giving corporate welfare handouts to the insurance companies.
Kucinich was not funded by wealthy corporations and lobbyists. Clinton is funded by both including Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch. Obama receives huge corporate donations that allow him to portray himself as not taking lobbyist money even while he is still compromised. Furthermore, Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope along with his many speeches where he talks about talking with and reaching out to corporate America reveal a very corporate, upper-class friendly politician who believes in “proper social divisions and classes” where everyone is in there place.
There are many, many other differences.
In short, a Kucinich presidency would have been night in day from what will get from any of the current candidates.
Our next President no matter who he or she may be will likely show aggression towards Iran (and perhaps get us into another conflict), will continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will not work to reign in the corporations and the growing divisions in wealth between the upper classes and the poor, will not deliver true universal healthcare, and will continue business as usual in Washington.
Kucinich would have gotten us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, introduced an attitude of seeking peace and diplomacy over military conflict, delivered a sustainable and truly universal healthcare system, fought for the working class in America, challenged the corporations and their media, fought for election reforms that make it easier for people to vote for their preferred candidate instead of “lesser evils”, fought for sound environmental policy, and so much more.