Article: The Mystery Candidates of 2008

It's hard for me to quantify my feelings about next year's election and the candidates. The problem is that I am confounded by a mystery.
And this mystery goes right to the heart and idea of Democracy itself, self-government and self-determination, in America.

It's still 2007 and the democratic election of November 2008 is, "for all intents and purposes", already over in the USA. I say "for all intents and purposes" because regardless of who exactly becomes President, present government/Pentagon "foreign" policy will apparently continue for the next four years at least.

The mystery is why in a Democracy, where 75% of "We the people" (remember them?) oppose the Iraq War, not one anti-war candidate is left at this point, a full year before the election?
All of the five major candidates, both parties, vow to extend the Iraq War and continue, even expand, US Middle-East military presence to other places. They talk about "seeing it through", "honoring our commitments to Iraq" blah blah.
They're stealing lines from Mr. 25%, who's talking to himself in the White House. What is going on here?

The 75% of American people who oppose the war, already in 2007, have no candidate to vote for?
What kind of Democracy is that?
Why?!....How does this happen?
Why do the voting people/citizens, for decades now, only ever have a choice of Pentagon/corporate-friendly candidates?
Isn't there something wrong with this picture?

There is no question that the corporate mainstream media is waaay pro-GOP, pro-Bush and pro-war. Are they responsible? Is it they who dictate to the American people, months even years before the election, that no serious anti-war candidate will be allowed on their TV/radar-screens after Jan 2007?
Do media, not the people actually decide who the President, and what the government, will be?

Or is it the corporate wealthy and their massive financing of all the candidates; financing which is paid directly to that same media, who decide that no anti-war candidate is worthy of the people's choice/vote?

America's Democracy is really, really sick.
Humphrey and Nixon were both pro-Vietnam War. Remember?
It's been a sick Democracy for a while.

The Democratic candidates are the real riddle for me. They (& the current Democrat congress) have apparently bought into the whole Bush/GOP world-war Project for the New American Century campaign; lock stock and barrel. To wit:
It is a right and just thing that Bush invaded and occupies Iraq (and Afghanistan).
Its OK for the President to spy on Americans, and violate the 4th Amendment, if Congress says so.
(& I thought Congress had to obey the US Constitution too. I thought they took an oath to it also.)...Guantanamo Bay, torture, Afghanistan...etc...A-OK.

News flash: Official Washington!!.... There were no Iraqi "nucular" programs, WMDs, 9/11 connections, etc.....not one good just reason to invade Iraq.
The invasion of Iraq was wrong!...a mistake!
But there was torture, a trillion bucks wasted/stolen... a shredded Constitution, 30,000 dead and wounded Americans, terrorism threats, bad levees and bridges etc....what can you people be thinking?! What are you doing there at all?
Yet all of the candidates cling to this absolutely deadly, expensive, illegal and unjust war/fiasco in Iraq as a campaign beacon of self-righteous patriotism. It goes droning on, while no major US media outlet even bothers reporting US casualties or the War much anymore;
It's downright embarrassing for America's fouled Democracy.

The candidates are hardly questioned about Iraq or the war on terror anymore; largely because they all give the same answer:
Official Washington is sticking with WWIII in Islam no matter what the people think.

Religion is the main fodder fed to Americans. Immigration, haircuts, economy, necklines, health-care are about on par with each other for attention.... but not Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, spying on Americans, torture, ...apparently these things are just going to go on. Why?

Maybe there is a reason all the candidates are enigmatically pro-war even after election 2006, and wrapped up with the corporate/military complex. Could it be because all of the candidates are: "Capitalists"........more accurately... brigand capitalists?

This, and all elections, should be about the nature of the people's government. Through what political/economic system can we best govern ourselves, elect and empower people who do our will?.. enjoy liberties like the Bill of Rights, and the benefits of self-determination?..., educate our children?.... keep them and us healthy?...insure the pubic safety and security?....undertake wars, healthcare, education, taxes etc. that benefits all.
"Do together what none of us can do separately" which is, as Lincoln wisely observed, why government exists."

All of the other major Democracies in the world elect their governments based on whether the candidates are socialist, Capitalist, Labor, Green, Conservative, Communist etc..... A Capitalist or Socialist or something in between (Hint: even conservatives like Sarkozy of France and Merkel of Germany are waaaay left of Clinton and Obama on social spending and other issues.)
Things like war, not paying taxes, no universal health insurance, no aid to education.. are good for business, business people and their families.....American military intervention to procure and secure "American business interests" in foreign lands is good for business.
And these business folk are very generous with high-aiming politicians who need their money to pay the corporate media, and that's why America is in the pathetic state it's in.

It's all about the money that the parasite media demand from candidates for a viable candidacy. And it's the wealthy capitalists who have the money, not the people. And they don't provide it to "socialist" candidates.

Here, is an example of Democracy Americans can only dream about.
The Greens (who are environmentalist/socialist) own seats in the European parliament "The Greens are a relatively small party in the European parliament with only 34 seats (out of 732)". (In the USA its 0 out of 535)....Imagine if there were 20 Greens in the US Congress?
In America it's all capitalists running for office. And usually some pretty successful capitalists I might add. Capitalism has been particularly kind to these five candidates.

The Democrats should now be running a hard and nasty opposition campaign against the GOP/Bush, against the war and tax-cuts for the wealthy and all their other catastrophes.... Instead they are complicit.
They're committed to the same corporate/military/media complex that empowers them to become wealthy influential people and even President..

Obama and Clinton have also done a rather poor job at being Democratic US Senators too, defending and upholding the US Constitution, governing the USA and opposing the GOP.
It is their legal Constitutional duty to impeach Bush/Cheney and prosecute their gang of thieves and thugs for countless felony crimes, not to mention lying, negligence, inhumanity, bribery and numerous US Constitutional violations.....and generally acting contrary to the best interests of the people and the country.
The Senate should be sending their Sergeant-at-Arms out to arrest a plethora of Republicans for contempt of congress among other things. These people, tax-paid public servants, do not have immunity from the law or from testifying
What in hell is going on here?
They should be forcing the Republicans to stand in the Senate and filibuster every bill they oppose and stand behind Bush's every veto.

Unfortunately the best the citizens/voters/self-governing people of America can hope to salvage from the hi-jacking of their Democracy lays in electing the less-guilty Democrats and hoping for the best.

Americans would do well to learn from the Bush years that when faced with the choice of two evils, it is critical that you choose the lesser evil of the two.

koolmuse
anonymousource.com