Progressive Ponderings: Editing by Omission
"Progressive Ponderings"01/05/2008
Joe Mayer
Jan. 5, 2008
"How can you have a debate if you don't have a voice that challenges the others?"
The above was spoken by Dennis Kucinich on the Bill Moyers Journal (Jan. 4) as he and Ron Paul were interviewed separately. They have much in common. They are close in their positions of the occupation in Iraq and our foreign policy, among other issues. But the greatest similarity is that the major media players in America don't want them and their alternate positions on issues on the national agenda. Both candidates have been kept from debates and will be excluded again this weekend.
Both candidates have done well in national polling on issues of concern with the U. S. public – Iraq, military spending, health care, civil rights, foreign policy, etc. Both candidates when allowed into the television debates have won or placed high in voter preferences regarding debate issues. Still the major media intentionally downplays or negates their viability.
This same media monopoly pontificates perpetually on "free markets." Yet, in a market owned by only five or six major corporate conglomerates we find that the "free market" answers only to financial interests and to maintaining the status quo than prompting a "market of ideas." Both major political parties, tied to the corporate oligarchy, benefit from this monopoly. The Green, Libertarian, and Independent parties which frequently form around ideas to change the status quo are denied access to the public stage.
Ron Paul had the audacity to mention fascism. He kindly called it "soft fascism" but then went on to describe it, "A loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business, military-industrial complex, medical-industrial complex, financial industry, communications industry – that's where control is. Soft on fascism is dangerous." How will we awaken to this danger if our media doesn't allow it?
Dennis Kucinich, with no ties to the "fascist controllers," stated, "I'm the Democrats' Democrat. I'm the kind of Democrat that resonates with the New Frontier, The Great Society, the New Deal." He then called on the media to divest all other interests. "Media ought to just be media" which is doable. The airways are public and the licensees must follow federal guidelines to obtain and retain their licenses. Under fascism the licensees would have co-opted the licenser. Sound familiar?
In this national presidential campaign some political parties are omitted, some candidates are omitted, new ideas are omitted that would inform the choice of voters. Iraq, military spending, single payer health care insurance, militaristic foreign policy, civil and Constitutional rights, economic inequality, fascism – "How can you have a debate (or democracy) if you don't have a voice that challenges the others?"