There is a political earthquake building in this country, with the 2016 presidential race exposing an angry fault line that runs through vast swaths of the American public, cutting through both ideological and political party lines, and producing some very odd bed fellows. The mainstream media, of course, continues to follow its tried and true script, serving its purpose of maintaining a sophisticated propaganda system that gives us the illusion of democracy, while concealing and protecting the powerful and uber wealthy elite who run the country and give us our “choices” of candidates to chose for president.
The Rant always predicted a ginned up media giving unfair coverage to Bernie Sanders in his bid for the Democratic nomination. This prediction came from over two decades of observation on how the mainstream media works in collusion with both corporate owned political parties, to silence, ignore, ridicule, and defeat, any truly independent candidate. The coverage leading up to the first Democratic primary debate, hosted by CNN, as well as the post coverage, could easily have been written in advance months ago. The corporate owned media, and the corporate hijacked democracy called our “two party system,” had a narrative planned out and they intend to keep it that way. The narrative is simple: there will be an entertaining primary race in both parties, but in the end, the “moderate” and “electable” candidates will prevail, and they will be our “choice.” In other words, our choice is between a handful of acceptable to the Establishment choices, so pick puppet number 1 or puppet number 2.
Books have been written by very scholarly and intelligent people who study the U.S. media, about how it is an elaborate propaganda system that serves monied interests. Books and articles have been written by former award winning reporters, about how the mainstream press censors and buries certain stories from being told to the public. The bottom line appears to be that our corporate, for-profit “news” media, both mainstream print and television, is owned by some of the most wealthy and powerful people in the world, and the editorial control of these institutions will always tow the line for people of privilege and power, while carefully crafting the illusion of a free press and a robust debate. This is sometimes obvious in the extreme and farcical “we report, you decide” broadcasts from FOX News, or the comic book style “reporting” from the New York Post (both Rupert Murdoch propaganda productions) but more subtle in other “high brow” papers such as the New York Times. But it is always there. Other than periodic calls for war, however, no other news event illuminates such blatant and overt propaganda conducted by all of the mainstream media, both the “conservative” and “liberal,” than the Presidential election every four years.
These powerful elites, and the mainstream media which they also own, are collectively known as “the Establishment.” Although the television pundits and media talking heads generally refer to the politicians and their corporate sponsors as the Establishment, the mainstream media itself is an important part of “the Establishment.” Calling the politicians, political party mangers, and big business the Establishment, but not including themselves as part of it, is just one example of the countless sleights of hand that our modern propaganda system has produced.
The mainstream media still pretends to be independent and outside of the Establishment, instead of a tool of it. This helps manufacture the charade of “choice” for President of the United States. But this choice is limited to the candidates that the real owners of the country donate millions of dollars to sponsor, giving us a stage full of puppets to chose from. Deviation from their pick of candidates is usually marginalized through a variety of means, which include media blackout of challengers, exclusion from debate, and a constant, ongoing narrative that says that any vote for any candidate not sponsored by the corporate occupied, two party oligarchy, is a “wasted vote.”
This system has worked well over the years. Despite an all time low of public approval of Congress and government, most politicians are reelected every election cycle. And despite polls over many years that show that a majority of Americans think our two party system is corrupt and that we need third parties and independent choices for president, when the race to the White House nears completion, a majority of the public always behaves as the media has guided them to do, and votes for either the republican or the democrat, not wanting to “waste their vote” on someone “who can’t win.” The most stark example I have found of this, was an exit poll after the 1992 presidential election. Bill Clinton won that election in a three way race between the first President Bush and Ross Perot. Mr. Perot won almost 19 percent of the national vote, despite major errors in his campaign, and a uniform mantra repeated by the media and the Bush and Clinton campaigns, that a vote for Perot was a “wasted vote.” The exit poll showed that 35 percent of all voters would have voted for Perot if they thought he had a “realistic chance of winning.”
( https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QrYiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CLUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3419,2936989&dq=ross-perot+polls&hl=en )
The size of Ross Perot’s capture of the popular vote alarmed the establishment. Conservatives blamed Ross Perot for their loss, calling him a “spoiler.” This term became regular, familiar, and repeated often by the mainstream media, whenever a discussion of the election was brought up. Ross Perot, however, with regards to policy, was a cross breed of republican ideas and democratic ideas, with several of his own ideas shaped from the success of other Western countries in Europe, similar in many respects to the examples that Bernie Sanders cites today when explaining what “democratic socialism” is.
Although there was a lot of analyzing, theorizing, and spinning engaged in main stream political discussion about Perot’s impact on the 1992 election, a solid response and neutering of any threat of an independent presidential candidate was put in place by the 1996 election. Ross Perot ran again for president, but this time around was banned from the televised presidential debates. According to an article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, ( http://fair.org/article/the-compromised-commission-on-presidential-debates/ ) the Bob Dole campaign sought to keep Perot out of the debates, and cut a deal with the Clinton campaign to ban Perot, in exchange for the Clinton campaign’s choice of time, length, and moderator. The article quotes Clinton aid George Stephanopolous, in answering a question to tv political host Chris Matthews about why they scheduled the debates when no one was watching, as saying ” Because we didn’t want them to pay attention. And the debates were a metaphor for the campaign. We wanted the debates to be a non-event.”
This is a rare moment of honesty about the mechanical workings of the propaganda of presidential politics, straight from the horse’s mouth – in this case, from one of President Clinton’s inner circle, Mr. Stephanopolous.
It appears that history is repeating itself. This time, however, it is the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, that appears to be making sure that no one watches the Democratic primary debates, in order to protect Hillary Clinton’s bid for president. Other challengers to Hillary Clinton, such as Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, had to fight with the DNC to get the get enough primary debates to challenge Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. They managed to get 6 debates total, down from 15 debates in the 2008 democratic primary, when Obama defeated the presumed front runner of the time, Hillary Clinton. Of these 6 debates, 3 were scheduled on the weekends, one of which was the Saturday before Christmas, and one on a Sunday night of the NFL football playoffs. Despite widespread criticism and accusations that Mrs. Shultz, who is supposed to be impartial as to who wins the democratic nomination, as deliberately trying to shield Hillary Clinton from debating any challengers before a wide audience, the mainstream media remains mostly mute on what is obviously a fixed fight. What is absolutely astonishing, is that this time around, the fight that is being fixed is within the democratic party itself, with the DNC chairwoman trying to ensure that their pre-ordained puppet, Hillary Rodham Clinton, gets the nomination with democratic primary voters being denied a fair contest. It appears that Debbie Shultz’s ridiculous assertion that she was only scheduling the primary debates when the networks had availability, is the official lie covering up the same truth expressed by George Stephanopolous years before, when former President Bill Clinton was running for reelection: they don’t want voters paying attention, and in fact, want the primary debates to be “a non-event.” It’s all a charade, a faked democracy illusion, paving the way for another corporate sponsored Clinton.
When Al Gore faced off with George W. Bush in 2000, Ralph Nader was running on the Green Party ticket and had a large following. I attended a political rally of his at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Around 10,000 ordinary voters attended this rally, which carried a “voluntary” contribution of around twenty dollars. My unofficial observation is that like myself, most of the attendees donated the suggested amount to his campaign, or at least some monetary contribution. This showed an enthusiastic need among average voters to invest whatever they could afford, into a political candidate that could represent their interests first, as opposed to the corporate sponsored candidacies of Bush and Gore. The rally was not promoted, and barely mentioned by any of the mainstream media before hand. In 2000, before the dawn of viral social media, only political junkies and activists like myself were even aware that this rally was taking place. The rally included a star studded list of celebrities and activists, including an acoustic performance from Eddie Vera of Pearl Jam, Susan Surranden, Tim Burton, and Michael Moore.
Feeling temporarily as if I had been a part of something big, the next day my bubble was popped with the unflinching cynical reality that the main stream media, including the New York Times, on whom’s turf the rally occurred, were committed to a near media black out. The Times buried the story several pages in, and the most likely reason they even printed the story is because in order to maintain the appearance of legitimacy of free press and democracy, it was necessary to print a story that reported the facts of a huge rally in the middle of Manhattan that couldn’t be completely ignored. But it was buried behind the non-stories from the campaign trails of Gore and Bush, which were reported as exciting by the press if as few as 300 people showed up, without donating any money. This was the near media blackout. And it was obvious that the perception of a media conspiracy to shield the two parties from any competition by denying coverage of any other challengers, was a fact, and not a theory.
At this point in the 2000 presidential race, the Commission on Presidential debates had instituted a safe guard to keep any future third party candidates like Ross Perot from finding their way into the presidential debates, by requiring a nearly impossible threshold of 15 percent support in national polls, before the first debate. Thanks to the media’s cooperative media blackout, Ralph Nader didn’t reach this threshold, and was excluded from the debates. He didn’t take his banning from the debates lightly, and filed a lawsuit, unsuccessfully, to be included. Supporters of Mr. Nader’s held up signs and chanted in political rallies and protests, saying “Let Ralph Debate!”
So serious was the fear of a “spoiler” like Ralph Nader among the two parties, a truly shocking event occurred, an event that remains mostly unknown by most people, to this day. The University of Massachusetts was hosting one of the nationally televised presidential debates between Vice President Al Gore and George W. Bush. Attending the event in person required a ticket, and a student of the university gave Ralph Nader his ticket, so that Mr. Nader could at least attend the debate. He was greeted by the Commission of Presidential Debates representatives, and three state troopers, who threatened him with arrest if he did not leave. He as turned away, by police force, acting on behalf of the two parties. When one thinks of totalitarian governments, or sham elections in the Third World, this type of behavior comes to mind. But when it happens in the United States, to a candidate who was on the ballot in all 50 states, and had national recognition for years as a consumer advocate with an impressive resume of legislative accomplishments, it is stunning to behold. Especially if you still hold some hope that all is not as cynical or rigged as it seems. Therefore, the media scarcely reported this ugly event. Here is a youtube video of the event, feel free to watch and share:
When Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were considering their runs for the White House, both men wrestled with the decision of whether or not to run as an independent or third party candidate, or to seek the nomination of one of the two political parties. Given the history of third party challengers, from self financed billionaire Ross Perot, to Ralph Nader, and others, I believe that both men made the smart, strategic decision to run as either a republican or democrat. Bernie Sanders is officially an Independent Senator from Vermont, who usually caucuses with the democrats. It therefore made sense for him to seek the democratic nomination. Donald Trump, a former democrat, with an keen eye for his audience, chose to seek the republican party nomination. Had either man chosen to run as an independent, they would have been excluded from the presidential debates, and Mr. Sanders at least, would have also suffered the usual media blackout. They chose to run within the rigged system. It was the only realistic chance either had. And immediately after they announced their intentions, the mainstream media went to work assuring everyone that Donald Trump would never make it, nor would a “socialist.”
A day prior to the Democrat’s first debate, I turned on MSNBC, the liberal partisan media’s counterweight to FOX. Chris Matthews, from Hardball, was analyzing the upcoming debate by going out of his way to call, in a feigned, mildly shocked manner, Bernie Sanders as the “socialist!” Mr. Matthews wondered if Hillary would have to go after Sanders for his “socialist agenda!”
(insert Chris Matthews spittle) He then gave tacit acknowledgement that Bernie Sanders was referring to himself as a “Socialist Democrat,” to which Matthews incorrectly added sarcastically, that Sanders was only calling himself that “about 2 hours ago.” Senator Sanders had actually clarified that on the previous Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” more than 24 hours before. Furthermore, Mr. Sanders felt it necessary to clarify, because of the media’s insistence on calling him the “socialist candidate.” This clarification, was in fact a clarification, and not some new spin Sanders was adding, as Chris Matthews suggested with his “2 hours ago” insinuendo. Bernie Sanders first ran as mayor of a Vermont town decades ago on the Socialist Democrat party ticket. Mr. Matthews seems to forget – or ignore – that the two party system in the United States isn’t written into the Constitution, and that there used to be many political parties, and that in Europe there still are. But surely Mr. Matthews knows that the term “socialist” conjures up images of the Evil Empire of Russia, when they were called the U.S.S.R. , where their misuse of the term “socialist” came to represent “communists” in the Cold War, replaced with “terrorists” today in the name of the Boogey Man we Americans must always trust our government to protect us from. Chris Matthews went on this tirade without ever explaining what this “socialist agenda” of Bernie Sanders was. Expansion of Social Security, fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage, universal healthcare for all? Of course Matthews didn’t go into policy detail or a background of how Bernie Sanders became known as a socialist, or with clarification that as Senator from Vermont, Sanders is officially an Independent that caucuses with the Democrats, and is seeking the Democratic nomination. He is not the only tv reporter or pundit to introduce Bernie Sanders in a news segment as “Socialist Bernie Sanders,” or the “Socialist candidate.” Even the neutered Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press,” seemed to get a memo to refer to Sanders as the “socialist.” This all of course is coupled quite regularly with the commentary that Sanders isn’t “electable.”
Now however, the mainstream media wing of the Establishment, is flailing in disbelief and trying to figure out how Donald Trump has now become the likely republican nominee, and how Bernie Sanders the Big Bad Socialist, is leading in New Hampshire by a large margin, and in a statistical tie with Hillary Clinton in Iowa.
I heard more than one political analyst on television in the past week, lamenting on Donald Trump’s success and staying power, and Bernie Sander’s insurgency, that “no one saw this coming,” and that “no one could have predicted this.” The anxiety in the Establishment media’s confessions of bewilderment about how their normal presidential propaganda playbook isn’t working as well as it usually does, is palatable. The so-called liberal heavyweight, highbrow newspapers, such as the Washington Post and New York Times, are weighing in with editorials in an attempt to shut down the “feel the Bern” momentum that is growing.
The New York Times Editorial Board officially endorsed Hillary Clinton on January 30, referring to her as “most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history.” They repeat the latest talking point on how Bernie Sander’s “bold” ideas aren’t realistic, and then sneak in the absolute lie that was first given to the press by an unusual attack surrogate for Hillary Clinton, her daughter Chelsea, about how Mr. Sanders wants to “start all over” on healthcare reform. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-endorsement.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region )
The Clinton campaign surprised some of their own biggest fans in the media Establishment when they first began misrepresenting Sander’s plan for a single payer, “Medicare for all” plan as a dangerous scheme to destroy ObamaCare completely, start over from scratch with republicans in control of healthcare again, and then attempt to institute his plan. This blatant lie has been nuanced since, with Hillary Clinton just this past Friday in Iowa, on a clip that was aired this morning on “Meet the Press,” passionately saying at a rally: “I don’t want us to be thrown back in to a terrible, terrible, national debate, I don’t want us to end up in gridlock, people can’t wait! People who have health emergencies can’t wait, for us to have some theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass!”
Mr. Sanders isn’t talking about scrapping ObamaCare and letting people with “health emergencies” wait for an entire new healthcare system to be put in place after a “terrible, terrible, national debate,” about a better healthcare system than ObamaCare, that Mrs. Clinton assures us, “will never, ever” be achieved. This is an absolute and blatant lie by Hillary Clinton (nothing new about her lying), and the New York Times is happy to go along and help her spread this falsehood.
So take note voters, Hillary Clinton pledges that if you vote for her, you won’t have to worry about a “terrible, terrible national debate” to improve our healthcare system, because that will “never, ever” happen.
The Washington Post’s Editorial Board has also been participating in the tag teaming misrepresentation of Sander’s healthcare proposal, borrowing a right-wing talking point that demonizes healthcare for everyone, by saying Sanders “would be a braver truth-teller if he explained how he would go about rationing health care like European countries do.” And by “rationing” they mean providing it for everyone. ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bernie-sanderss-fiction-filled-campaign/2016/01/27/cd1b2866-c478-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html?tid=a_inl )
As for Donald Trump’s staying power, the right wing Fox News channel fired the first media Establishment shot to take him down during their first republican primary debate, with Megan Kelley leading the charge. That has culminated with the Donald refusing to participate in this past Thursday’s Fox hosted republican debate.
With both the conservative and liberal facets of the mainstream media Establishment simultaneously failing to persuade voters to accept as a law of nature their preferred, corporate sponsored candidates, tomorrow’s Iowa caucuses could prove to be the start of what the Establishment fears the most: a “political revolution” that Bernie Sanders is calling for. Their bewilderment at this potential bucking of the propaganda system was summed up perfectly by a reporter from Iowa who said what she was hearing over and over from undecided Iowa voters was that they were trying to decide on whether they would support Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.
How are these two seemingly polar opposite candidates both possible choices for the undecided?
These people are what I call the “paradox voter.” In the past, they may have been called “swing voters,” but this term usually applies when the candidates are “moving to the middle, where elections are won” as the media likes to report as another law of nature. I understand the seeming paradox of supporting Trump or Sanders, because although I have endorsed Bernie Sanders full throttle, I would chose Trump as my number 2 pick, over Hillary. And although the media would suggest that people like me are just “angry” and don’t understand the issues, they are of course wrong, and struggling to comprehend the truth themselves.
Yes, I am an angry voter, but I understand the issues well. And I think most of these paradox voters understand something very important: that Donald Trump, who is running on his own money and not sponsored by major corporations and their owners, is truly independent. Bernie Sanders is not accepting any campaign donations from corporations or Super Pacs, and has in fact raised record sums of money through individual, small donations. He too, is independent. I know what Bernie Stands for, and he has a long, legislative history of voting for what he stands for, unlike Hillary Clinton. I don’t know what the Donald stands for exactly, because he has changed a lot of his previous democratic positions, like his support for a single payer healthcare system, into more republican sounding ideas. Either way, I also know what the Establishment stands for, and I no longer accept it. That the Donald has managed to turn the media’s tools of propaganda against itself is an ingenious feat of media jujitsu, and I am happy to watch the propaganda model implode and burn itself to the ground.
Feel the Bern! Bernie Sanders for President, 2016!