In what many fear will be one of the most predictable and uninteresting presidential contests in recent memory, with two political dynasty figures battling for “their turn” to serve as the oligarchs’ corporate puppet in 2016, the first opposition voice in the Republican party has stepped forward and officially announced his intentions to challenge Jeb Bush and seek the Republican nomination:  Ted Cruz.

Many establishment figures in Hillary Clinton’s campaign camp rejoiced at this news, as did some liberal pundits, mistakenly believing that because the Republican primary field will be crowded with far-right conservatives and Tea Party candidates, that Mrs. Clinton will sail into the White House on a white cloud untouched by the dirty fights that will sully the eventual Republican nominee, whom they take for granted to be Jeb Bush.

While it is true that the last Republican primary race for president was filled with many memorable clowns and laughs during their numerous debates – who can forget Governor Rick Perry’s “oops” when he couldn’t name the three federal agencies he would get rid of right away if he became president – any Democrat who thinks they will win the presidency because of the Republican primary fight is a fool.  It was still a hard fought campaign for Obama to win re-election, even after Mitt Romney was caught on camera at a fundraiser characterizing almost half of the country as a bunch of entitled takers, and dismissing them completely.

But as a progressive independent, I envy the Republican party on a couple of important strengths that too many Democrats view as shortcomings.

First, the Republican base is a passionate group that doesn’t settle easily on a candidate that their party’s corporate owned establishment tells them is to be their nominee.  Mitt Romney was always the republican establishment’s pick last time, and as their primaries drew out into a long and protracted fight, they were forced to out spend all the other candidates by incredible amounts in order to secure his nomination.  This time around, they have already shortened their primary schedule and limited the number of debates in order to secure their nominee quickly, being able to swamp the other candidates with huge sums of money at once, and limiting free media exposure through debates.

Second, elected Republicans collectively have more guts and spine than the timid group of cowards who call themselves Democrats, and it shows in the way they campaign and the way they govern.  I have written about this extensively in the past, so I won’t rehash all of the cowardly deeds and political strategies that Democrats used to lose the Senate and the House, and the squandered opportunity that President Obama once offered them briefly when they had the so-called super majority – before he too demonstrated his weakness and lack of an appetite for a fight.  Ask any diehard Democrat today what they don’t like about Obama or their party the most, and they’ll tell you it’s their lack of guts to fight.

So, what is an independent or liberal voter to do to ensure their voices are at least heard in the 2016 race to the White House?

Number 1, and most important:  REJECT HILLARY.

Number 2:  Support another Democratic primary challenger, or vote for a third party candidate.

I realize that there are many progressives, liberals and democrats in general who already break out into a cold sweat at the idea of rejecting outright, from the very beginning, Hillary Clinton.  She is the presumed nominee, the media tells you so, she has raised the most money, she is the wife of a popular ex-president, it’s her turn, it’s a woman’s turn, if she doesn’t win a Big Bad Republican will.  But does anyone actually like her?  And if you answer yes to that, can you tell me why, other than the reasons I just listed?

When it comes to progressive values, such as strengthening the middle class, reigning in the criminal fleecing of America by Wall Street, protecting Social Security, protecting workers from unfair “free trade” policies, not engaging in more wars of aggression, not being a corporate puppet for pharmaceutical and genetic engineering food and seed companies, etc.,..Hillary Clinton is not only lacking in these values, but damn near souless, as her well documented history in politics proves beyond any shred of doubt  for anyone willing to assess her actions objectively.

The first step, and I reiterate, the most important, is to REJECT HILLARY now. There are other good, potential candidates out there, with real values, that have so far been too intimidated by the perceived inevitability of a Clinton nomination to announce their intentions to run.  A firm rejection of Hillary Clinton by the liberal and democratic base now is needed before it becomes too late to build the campaign infrastructure and donor base that will be needed to compete with the mega-dollars of Wall Street and trans-national corporations that are investing heavily in both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.  Thanks to the split decision of the Supreme Court that declared that corporations are people too and overturned most campaign finance laws, the upcoming election will be dumbfounding in the amount of money spent to elect the millionaire’s and billionaire’s candidate of choice.

Secondly, please encourage other potential candidates to challenge Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.  While Senator Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly told the press that she is not interested in running for president, there are grass-roots liberal efforts that are engaging in a serious effort to recruit her as a candidate.  Last Sunday the Boston Globe ran four different editorials, one from the Editorial Board, encouraging Mrs. Warren to run.  This unprecedented enthusiasm from the Boston Globe this far in advance of next year’s primaries speaks volumes about the desire and desperation for voters to have a real choice for the next president, instead of Puppet number 1 or Puppet number 2.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is considering a run as well.  Mr. Sanders, a progressive independent who caucuses with Democrats, has said he is exploring the possibility of raising enough money to run, if their is enough enthusiasm for someone other than Hillary on the left, and whether or not he would seek the nomination of Democrats or run for president as an independent.  Third party candidates have the laws and media stacked completely against them, so it seems likely that seeking the nomination for the Democratic ticket would be his best chance running for the Oval Office.

This brings up another important issue.  Year after year, and election cycle after election cycle, the American public’s cynicism for politics grows, and its enthusiasm wanes to the point of not even bothering to vote.  Given how corrupt our government and political process is, and how very rarely the public’s will is ever carried out by politicians, no matter who they vote for, the frustration is understandable.  It can become hard to convince friends to even bother voting, which is exactly what the real powers and elite owners of the country really want, a disengaged public that grudgingly accepts the puppets they sponsor as the only viable candidates.

The corporate owned media is so fully dedicated to the propaganda of the “two party system” that you would think it was written into our Constitution.   This is demonstrated by their virtual blackout of all candidates who challenge the two party system, and their refusal to allow any third party candidate into the presidential debates.  Independent billionaire Ross Perot once challenged the all powerful media  and two party propaganda machine when he ran for president by buying up unprecedented 30 minute infomercials on his candidacy, and was allowed to participate in the presidential debates.  After winning 17 percent of the popular vote, the corporate oligarchs issued new rules to their sponsored Republican and Democratic parties and their media, and no third party candidate has been allowed in the all important nationally televised presidential debates since Perot’s first run against Bush 1 and Clinton.   Al Gore was so dedicated to not having to share the stage with Ralph Nader, that state troopers actually forced Mr. Nader off of a public college campus in a viewing room of the debates, for which he even possessed a ticket for.  If you are unaware of that gross offense against democracy, that is not surprising – the media barely reported it.  Interestingly, though few seem to notice, the excuse given for only allowing a Republican or Democrat into the debates is that the time and stage is so limited, that only those with a realistic chance of winning should be allowed, otherwise the stage is too crowded.  The networks never have trouble though finding the room for numerous primary debates with numerous candidates sharing the stage at the same time.  Their real motive is clear: give voters the illusion of choice, so long as the candidate is one of the two corporate owned parties.

Polls have consistently shown that Americans view our political system as rigged for the super rich, controlled by corporations, and corrupted by big money.  Polls show many voters see little difference between the two parties.  Yet the media tells us that only a Republican or Democrat can win a presidential election.  So far, through our actions and theirs, they have been correct.  And now, the media is trying to tell voters who can win each of the two party’s nomination.

It is time to challenge our political system and media with passion and conviction, and say HELL NO to continued corporate occupation of our country.

 

 

 

 

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, recently shocked the American public and managed to drive a wedge between the usually united block of Jewish voters and supporters of Israel when he went behind the White House’s back and invited Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give a speech before Congress that sought to undermine President Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran.  Not to be outdone, the Senate doubled down on this treasonous behaviour, with 47 Senators, all Republicans, signing an open letter to the Iranian leadership, essentially telling them to not take any deal brokered with the President of the United States, especially Barack Obama, too seriously, explaining in a condescending manner that the way our Constitution worked, these Senators would enjoy decades of entrenched power while U.S. Presidents come and go.

Even though “Bibi” Netanyahu’s speech was predictable, and full of the same, tired, fear mongering rhetoric and saber rattling for war against the evil Iranians that all of his speeches have been over the past decade, the context in which the speech was given, against diplomatic protocol and unusually divisive and controversial in a Congress that is usually bipartisan in its unflinching support for Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and its war crimes, exudes a new air of desperation.   It appears that the prospects of some type of peace negotiation with Iran by the United States, after 3 decades of hostilities, is so unacceptable to Netanyahu’s vision of Israel’s place in the Middle East, that he will risk decades of a near blank check written to Israel by the United States, which has provided the military hardware to continue its murderous siege and destruction the Palestinians and its neighbors in Lebanon.   It also smacks of ungratefulness at the essential diplomatic immunity that the United States has provided Israel over the years at the United Nations, blocking and vetoing action against the many war crimes committed by Israel, the illegal occupation of Palestine, the unauthorized possession of at least 300 nuclear weapons, and a well maintained stockpile of illegal chemical weapons.

Throughout the turbulent recent history of the Middle East, post World War II, the balance of power and the alliances that go with it have been somewhat fluid, but always with one goal in mind, at least from the standpoint of United States policy planners:  U.S. hegemony of the region.  Until the Iranian Revolution of 1978, the Shah of Iran was a reliable, brutal dictator, sponsored by the U.S., who kept the domestic Iranian population in line – subservient to U.S. and Western demands, with control of their rich oil resources within Washington’s easy grasp.  When Iranians wrestled back control of their own resources, the U.S. supported a new favorite dictator, the Butcher of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, who was given military hardware and chemical weapons to murder Iranians with, compliments of U.S. taxpayer money.  We all know how that worked out.  Today’s friend is tomorrow’s enemy, blowback be damned.

Throughout these changing conditions, the Middle East has remained the center knot in a giant tug of war for strategic control of the world’s energy resources, with world powers fighting for either supremacy, or at the least, relevance.   The so-called civil war in Syria is a proxy war waged by regional and world powers, between U.S. Gulf States allied with the West, and Russia and China.  Throughout this modern history, Israel has risen in military power, and thrived against increasing diplomatic international isolation, thanks to the United States, as a dominant force in the region.  But in the world according to Netanyahu, Israel faces an “existential threat” from Iran, should Iran manage to make a nuclear bomb.  The former Iranian President Ahmajinedad is often misquoted (through mistranslation) as saying that Iran wants to “wipe Israel off the map.”  Israel continues to portray this as Iran’s ultimate goal, to acquire  a nuclear weapon that would allow them to nuke Israel into oblivion.   This logic of course, assumes that the advanced nation of Iran is ruled by single minded, obsessive leaders, so focused on destroying Israel, that they would trade their own existence for the chance to destroy Israel.  As noted, Israel has at least 300 nuclear weapons, more than enough to assure mutual destruction, should the Iranian leaders become so evil and consumed with hatred of Israel that they would sacrifice all of their people and country.

Surely even Netanyahu and hardliners in Israel know that they are crying wolf when they proclaim that Iran is developing nuclear material for the sole purpose of getting a nuclear bomb to destroy Israel with.  So what is it about Iran’s nuclear program, and the prospects of a deal with the West that whips warmongers in Israel and the United States into such a frenzy?  For Israel, one reasonable theory is that Iran, like all countries who become a nuclear power, becomes immune to invasion, and less vulnerable to bullying by other nuclear armed countries.  Israel also hates Iran’s support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, a resistance army in southern Lebanon where Israel has maintained an illegal occupation off and on since 1982.  Beyond that, it could be that Israel fears that if the U.S. and Iran become more friendly towards each other, Israel loses some of its support from it’s enabler, the United States, as their common enemy becomes less of a unifying force militarily and diplomatically.

What is less clear than Israel’s motivations for sabotaging U.S. peace efforts with Israel, is the U.S. Congress’s motivations for not only sabotaging current negotiations, but for an unprecedented public undermining of the President in the middle of negotiations that involve not only the United States, but five other world powers as well:  the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia, plus Germany.  I cannot recall anytime in recent history where the Senate has acted so publicly, interjecting itself into the middle of high stakes negotiations involving the White House and State Department, and other world powers, to deliberately undermine the authority of the President.  One has to wonder if this is more about embarrassing President Obama, or trying to demonstrate their loyalty to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the state of Israel.

It is common knowledge that Israel has some of the most powerful lobbies operating in Washington.  In a controversial academic paper titled  “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” by University of Chicago political scientist John J. Mearsheimer, and Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt, that was published in 2006, a detailed account is documented to show how the Israeli Lobby has influenced the United States to take the side of right wing warmongers in Israel  for years, often times in obvious conflict to the best interests of the United States.  The authors were met with the usual slander of being called anti-Semitic, a version of the same slander that U.S. warmongers use against U.S. doves opposed to military operations by labeling them unpatriotic, or un-American.  These authors are not the first or only prominent Americans to note the overly represented and powerful Israel Lobby and its influence over Congress.  Here is a link to the full paper:  http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/IsraelLobby.pdf

Former President Jimmy Carter authored a book titled “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” in 2006 that was critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, and received the same vitriol from Jewish organizations, even resulting in an outrageous class action lawsuit filed against Carter and his publishers. ( http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/jews-still-planning-to-sue-jimmy-carter-over-anti-israel-book/2013/04/10/ )

President Carter had this to say in the Los Angeles Times regarding his book and its reception:

“For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices. . . It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. . . . What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.”   ( http://www.latimes.com/news/la-oe-carter8dec08-story.html )

That is about as close to hearing it from the horse’s mouth that the foreign government of Israel bribes through a corrupt process known as “campaign contributions” American politicians to embrace the foreign policy desires of Israel over the United States.

Now, with an “open letter” from 47 Republican Senators to the Iranian leadership rebuking the Obama Administration and it’s other five global partners in the negotiations, we see first hand the financial and ideological corruption that has led an already disrespectful and dysfunctional Congress to engage in near treasonous acts.

It is worth noting that even as Congress attempts to sabotage and undermine President Obama’s authority with regard to foreign policy, it is at the same time avoiding its clearly Constitutional authority and duty to declare war or authorize military force to use against ISIL, failing so far to agree to President Obama’s new request sent to the Congress in February, as an editorial in today’s New York TImes points out (  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/opinion/congresss-duty-on-authorizing-force.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region ).

Many Americans realize the recent stunt by Senate and House Republicans is not only unhelpful, but downright destructive – and wrong.  It is time that an honest discussion of U.S. foreign policy take place without being held hostage by the smearing and slandering of critics and politicians who, for whatever reasons, have demonstrated a loyalty to the Prime Minister of a foreign state and its national interests over that of the country in which they are citizens and servants of, the United States of America.