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Who Really Benefits from the Narrative Being Set by the Media for This Election?

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Yesterday I pulled a stunt and tried to get OpEdNews to endorse Dennis Kucinich. It was done on the basis that I was afraid of how popular John Edwards and especially Barack Obama (who won Iowa) were becoming. I asked for an endorsement as a way for Dennis Kucinich to achieve some kind of victory and boost in his campaign that is being denied by the establishment government and corporations in America who wish to preserve the status quo for their benefit. I was wrong and I am no longer afraid.

In retrospect, OpEdNews should never ever endorse any candidate and in fact, that is the policy. I was notified of this in the Dennis4President.com forum by a member of OpEdNews and through email by Rob Kall.

There is no reason to be afraid because the press' narrative cannot hold if they really mean to set this narrative for this election they are setting.

On a fantastic edition of Bill Moyers' Journal, which aired yesterday, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich were all invited to speak.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson illustrated the narrative that the press commentators are creating for this 2008 election by describing that the media was saying after the Iowa victories for Obama and Huckabee the press framed the results in this manner: Establishment candidates didn’t do well and insurgent candidates did, or the change candidates did well and the candidates for the status quo did not.

The media is obviously calling Obama an outsider or an insurgent candidate while Clinton is being framed as an establishment candidate. As for Edwards, I do not quite know where he lies but I saw a report that he was becoming victim of the three's a crowd mentality since the press would very much like to whittle the race down to being between Obama and Clinton. Nonetheless, Obama, Edwards, and Hillary despite Obama and Edwards seeming to be more progressive than Hillary Clinton based on the campaign contributions accepted thus far are establishment candidates and there is nothing insurgent about them once you scratch deeper than the surface of this election.

The real insurgent candidates are Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul whose campaigns are wholly unconventional and being waged not in the traditional sense on television but on the Internet. They are proving that a candidate can generate money and stay alive without being the top news story every day on each cable news network especially since supporters of each candidate understand they speak out against the corporatism the media practices which undermines this nation's freedom by excluding them. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are each candidates who are trying to change the way their party conducts politics and speak out consistently against the leadership of their party. Only they fit the insurgent candidate mold the press is creating since nobody else running is challenging the way their party operates.

Jamieson followed her assessment of the press by nicely describing how important it is for those who support Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich to not give up because they are necessary for discourse within each of the two main parties. Americans should realize discourse is invaluable to the future of America right now.

Ron Paul came on after Jamieson and sounded as strong as ever and really gave a casual yet passionate argument for his candidacy. He described how much his support on especially the Internet is coming from the youth of America who like his respect for the Constitution and personal liberties. He illustrated his concern about how we are placing more and more importance on candidates’ religious beliefs and cited a misunderstanding of the First Amendment as reason why to his displeasure Romney might lose based on his Mormon background. And on something we don’t normally here him directly speak to, Paul spoke about racism saying racism is a collectivist idea and libertarians do not see ascribing rights to groups but individuals, which therefore makes his policy absolutely against racism.

Yet, of more pressing concern to me and his supporters, he spoke about the exclusion by FOX News stating that the station had given him no rationale at this point for why he was excluded and even the Houston affiliate couldn’t figure it out as the phone calls were pouring in asking why he is not being allowed to debate.

One reason for the exclusion crossed his mind though: The media profits off the military-industrial complex he explicitly is fighting against.

Dennis Kucinich came on looking frazzled and downtrodden. It was like he had just faced his father and told him he was being bullied at school and his dad had told him to fight back but he wasn’t sure quite how he would defeat the bully especially when all the outlets for his frustration are limiting his chance of winning.

Nonetheless, it was a valuable and good interview where Kucinich made it clear he had not tried in Iowa and was strategizing elsewhere mainly because the health care insurance industry had so much control over the Democratic Party in Iowa, which did not bode well for him because he is for single-payer. In fact, he added that the AARP insurance business got all the candidates to testify earlier in the race that they would not go for single-payer and used their power to keep discourse limited on the issue of health insurance in America.

Kucinich fittingly kept Moyers on the topic of media reform as he spoke about his exclusion from the ABC debate. He chose to not give any reason for the exclusion on the basis that no reason is good enough. He said whatever their criteria was they have no right to make the decision before the primary is over and that the airwaves do not belong to ABC. Furthermore, he went on to ask how a debate can be held on a stage where all the candidates on the stage have the same stances because the differences between the three are largely stylistic and not substantive at all.

In short (literally), Dennis Kucinich made the case that he is the only REAL Democrat running once again and made it very well with the time Bill Moyers gave him. He’s a resilient and determined candidate that isn’t going to quit especially as long as he is winning big polls conducted on the Internet and by magazines such as The Nation.

Of all the three people, Dennis Kucinich gave the best reason to move forward and still support insurgent candidates like him and Ron Paul in the primaries as he spoke about the election being about “change”:

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Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, "Unauthorized Disclosure." He was an editor for OpEdNews.com
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