The Politics of Exclusion

Why did The American Association for Justice (formerly American Trial Lawyers Association) not invite Democratic hopefuls Former Senator Mike Gravel and Congressman Dennis Kucinich to their convention after they invited Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), Hillary Clinton (D-New York), former Senator John Edwards, Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois), and Governor Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico)?

I thought this was supposed to be The American Association for Justice? Apparently, the only people that are afforded justice from this organization are the people that have corporate backing. This is just another example of how the American political game is played. Sure, it’s their convention, but they can’t stand there and tell the American people that all the lawyers from this group back only the five “anointed” lawyers that were invited. This just goes to show you that changing the name of this organization hasn’t changed what they are, just another run of the mill organization that wants to be associated with only what they perceive as the “winners”. It will be too bad that when this election is over and President Kucinich or Vice President Gravel is asked to speak at their next convention, they blow it off (although they probably won’t because they have higher standards than most politicians).

This is a travesty. The more this kind of thing happens, the more that our political system suffers. Frankly, I don’t believe the numbers that the mainstream media throws at us regarding the numbers that Gravel and Kucinich are carrying. I live in South Carolina, one of the reddest states in the Union, and I meet people every day that say they want Kucinich to win the nomination. I wish there were some way that an independent poll could be taken that Americans could trust. Somehow I don’t believe that we are getting the right information. With the biggest corporations involved in every facet of our lives, that wouldn’t surprise me,

Organizations such as the AAJ don’t help matters. There are eight Democrats running for office, not five. Where is Governor Chris Dodd? Doesn’t he “measure up” to their standards? The more I see of this kind of thing, the more I believe that Gravel, Kucinich , Dodd and even Bloomberg should just get together and start a new party. The Democrats are infected with the corporate disease and they should be quarantined for the sake of what most Americans believe in. The Democrats should call themselves “The New Republicans” or “Republican Lite”.  This is too much. You know I don’t make this stuff up.