[Peace-discuss] Dr. NO on guided democracy

[C. G. Estabrook]

[From the blog Digital Citizen by Jeff Nicholson-Owens.  --CGE]

2009 01 25  Clinton and Edwards get their wish: “a more serious … 
smaller group” of candidates

Sen. Clinton (D-NY) and John Edwards (former Democratic Party senator 
from North Carolina) got what they wanted—Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) 
announced today he was dropping his presidential bid. The corporate 
media mentions Kucinich’s name now chiefly to draw attention to his 
competitors for his House seat; no need to let issues like challenging 
the Iraq occupation, threatening Iran, corporate hegemony, or the 
ongoing lack of fairness in mass media get in the way of covering a 
horse race that might rid the media of an agitant.

Now the Progressive Left is free to support their favorite pro-war, 
anti-universal single-payer health care candidate of their choice 
without interference from the “not serious” candidates…again…just like 
they did in 2004. Rather than object about poor choices by organizing 
for a third party or independent candidate who reflects the values they 
claim to hold (the values they go on about 3 years out of every 4), they 
can rationalize their Democratic Party vote by arguing the margins of 
difference between the remaining Democratic Party candidates. They can 
tell us how important this election will be, despite how worse the same 
indicators will be in 4 years as a result of consistently voting the 
least worst. No need for a grass-roots campaign of birddogging every 
candidate who voted for the Iraq war and the Iran resolution, no need to 
hound one’s elected officials to co-sponsor and vote for HR676 (the 
Conyers-Kucinich single-payer universal health care plan).

And what do you know: the New York Times accurately “projected” back in 
July 2007 who would be left in the Democratic Party race: Clinton, 
Edwards, and Obama. It’s a good thing the other Democratic Party 
contenders with something different to offer weren’t excluded from any 
of the televised “debates” (high-bandwidth audio, low-bandwidth audio, 
video—currently unavailable, transcript), or else it would be too 
obvious that the corporate media is trying to manage the election, 
rigging the choices to guarantee a corporate-friendly outcome.

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