The "Primary Process" is less than half gone, & so are the "candidates." No one professing any real issues of concern for America in this dire time of its history are left to confuse the voters. A few months ago people were rightly pissed at our Congress for enabling the illegal War. Where are they now? In Hillary-Obama,,,Hillary- Obama la-la land. The torture, spying? The ...Constitu...wha ...oh THAT piece of %@#!$ paper?

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"They" are beating us down.

The real danger here is that whatever good has been capable of manifesting itself lately, whatever good sense, caring, honesty is beaten to the ground by sheer power of the corporate coffers and its ability to control the Word and the Airwaves.

You and I know that well over 50% of this country wants Impeachment of at least Cheney. You and I know that over 50% want this war over yesterday. A much higher percent of the nation wants no part of torture.

High percentages want single-payer health insurance even though we don't really get to hear details and comparisons of this very often.

None of these things seem to matter.

What people want and what the "vote" produces are completely different animals.

Our expectations have been dashed. We keep accepting less and less. THAT is why our democracy is going (if not yet gone).

Look at this nonsense called the political primary process with its phony debates.

BEFORE even half of the country gets to cast "votes" in this silly game (whose rules people accept for no reason that I can fathom), any and all candidates with ideas related to the truth or reflecting the Majority opinions, have been winnowed out already — by the media and the high finances. No "opposing" thought, puh-leez!

We are PERMITTED (oh, thank you, thank you, sir!) to choose from Hillary or Obama...OR...one of the others — I can't even go there.

They ALLOW us this. PRE-chosen, pre-vetted, bought-and-paid-for personalities, but will not allow rocking of the boat. Most folks act grateful for this, and now seriously jump into the debate of: "change" vs. "experience" like choosing features of a car. There are only so many times you can ask yourself if you want leather trim or not. Perhaps a more apt metaphor would be choosing which model electric chair we want: ohhh, this one is more comfortable, but THAT one is more powerful, quicker.....

You could say our "election process" does not permit us to rock any boats -- even if that is what the majority clearly wants. It has too many strings attached, too many tricks, and when even those tricks don't work, well, you still have Diebold and others (plus the Supreme Court) to pick op the slack.

What is NOT permitted is getting the population really informed or (heaven forbid) expressing an informed opinion in a way others could hear about it. Witness FTAA meeting, Miami FL, 2003: eight million dollars of Iraq funding to arm our police against American dissident thought. Did anyone notice? A harbinger, perhaps?

We get pissed when corporate media does not give coverage to impeachment or to hundreds of thousands protesting the war, or to Dennis Kucinich's platform. We get pissed when neocons play fast and loose with the nomination of judges to place those willing to use restrictive voting laws.

So why aren't folks getting pissed that media — and the other "democrats" — allowed legitimate candidates (and, more importantly their IDEAS) to get eliminated so early, well before over half of America gets to even give their opinion. It's like one fifth of the country gets Election A, while the rest get Election B. Why do voters become so docile and compliant, so obedient when it is soooo clear the game is rigged?

Who was it then, who silenced Kucinich, if not the Democrats themselves? Why didn't they stand tall and together to say in Iowa: "if Dennis can't speak, then NONE of us will speak"? Does this differ much from how they silenced Dean in 2004 and Michael Moore when he tried to help? Now the DLC is running and encouraging candidates against Dennis in Ohio. An accident? You tell me. They did the same to McKinney in Georgia. No one who questions the game or the rules is allowed in.

Why doesn't anybody notice that year after year, in spite of media silence and of having election after election stolen, there is no one complaining bitterly that virtually none of our elected officials have lifted even ONE FINGER to remedy the causes of — or even examine what happened to — those elections, much less examine or change election laws or election funding.

When Democrats narrowly "lost" major elections, did they fight to have your vote counted? Did they even get upset when no media covered this scandal of scandals? In England the 2000 vote in Florida was page one news thanks to Greg Palast; it took six months to break here. So, what is it that's broken, hmmm?

These "players" don't want to improve or repair the election process — it's fine for them how it is. They much prefer to blame Greens or Nader for "spoiling" it...with their "ideas" people like and such. They HATE that, even more than...war...or torture. They get annoyed, they growl, they sue. They cannot stand anyone OUTside the game — people they can't control — saying that the King has no clothes, because they know THEY can't say it.

A few short months ago (weeks, really) many of us and people throughout the country were rightly pissed at our Congress for enabling the War machine, and allowing the most crude of appointments to the Bush Crime Machine. Where are they now? In Hillary-Obama...Hillary-Obama La-la land. And what happened to their complaints and concerns? What about the people dying every day? The torture? The spying? The....Constitu...wha ...oh THAT %@#$! piece of paper?

The only thing that shores up the fortunes of cowardly enabling Democrats is the SAME thing that we so easily blame the Republicans for sowing: FEAR. Fear that Republicans might win again.

What a game! Ping-pong, with our heads as the ball.

Fear-change-fear-change...what about what the public WANTS??! Sorry, not available, make another choice.

BOTH parties use FEAR to support in essence an agenda which cannot be questioned. This agenda MUST be given an air of democratic acceptability...at least, for the time being.

NONE — I repeat — NONE of the most pressing issues of our time are being mentioned, much less addressed by ANY of these so-called "candidates" — the ones that are left.

So, if Obama, for example, represents "change" or "hope" and gives inspiring speeches that make people feel all warm, fuzzy and teary-eyed, ask yourself, which of THESE things has he (or ANY of the others) addressed, or is likely to address:

• an illegal, immoral war
• torture, rendition
• tax-paid mercenary armies
• destruction of our Constitution
• destruction of the Treasury
• destruction of the Currency
• at least 2 rigged, stolen elections
• stacking of the judiciary
• the Project for the New American Century which advocates the points above
• getting and funding free health care for everyone
• hidden agenda North American Union being put together behind closed doors
• end of Bill of Rights
• Executive Orders allowing the President to take your property if you oppose his Iraq policy
• Executive Orders allowing the President to suspend (what's left of ) the Constitution in an "emergency"
• Executive signing orders (over 800 of 'em) negating laws passed by Congress
• 935 published lies leading us to war
• tremendous loss of credibility and security
• the growing cult of secrecy
• privatization of:
  • our elections
  • the election debates
  • our vote count
  • our military
  • our schools
  • police forces
  • our community services
  • health insurance
  • "public" media
  • information systems
  • retirement
• massive outsourcing of prime jobs
• need to replace corporations with citizen representation and participation in highest level domestic and foreign policy decisions
• multiple question about 911 (building 7, destruction of evidence in all 3 sites, etc.)
• crying need for IMPEACHMENT for unthinkable crimes
  

They are silent — and have silenced those who were not.

So, ask yourself, are we being properly served? Or are we being had?

The candidates we are given and all the surrounding media apparatus successfully ignore the massive hijacking of our nation, its institutions, its agenda, and its credibility. They don't even have the honesty or courage to state that these last years have destroyed the security of the United States by losing credibility, our allies, our founding documents, our Bill of Rights, and any sense of trust we might have had in our institutions and in one another. Why do we go on believing all this garbage?

Tell me again how this "two party" system serves us democratically?? Sure, the parties are different: they each have select portions of the society they are responsible for silencing (while making them feel good). Oh, there may be thousands of individuals within them who do seemingly important and legitimate things (the Kucinich and Dean people, etc.), but in the end, after all the hoopla and confetti, it boils down to keeping their "assigned" folks in line. Yes, sir!

GATT, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, IMF, World Bank, all are "shock doctrine" long-term programs to make countries' economies buckle under to corporate demands by using fear and intimidation. The wars of Afghanistan and Iraq (and soon possibly Iran) are mere extensions of that policy. War is what you do when a nation has the goods that CorporateOneWorld wants, and it won't sign an agreement. Those nations, too, like us, are "given a choice": in their case, sign here, or kiss your ass good-bye.

Make no mistake about it: the 90's "dot-com bubble" may have been fun for a while, but Bill Clinton's push for NAFTA, etc. got this nation ready for Iraq; and the Big Media concentration wet dream he oversaw helped put Fox and Murdoch (among a very few others) more firmly in the driver's seat. Any surprise that Murdoch is bankrolling Hillary? Or that ALL remaining candidates have cold-warriors as "advisors"?

This business of accepting "the least worst" is precisely what is killing us. It is suffocating us. We expect less, accept more crap every four years, and those with any power at all walk all over us. They TELL us what our choices are, never ASK us what we want.

If we are feeling down, somewhat used, a bit dirty and discouraged, I'd say there are reasons for it. Our work: drip, drip, drip, in the bucket, while they harness tsunamis of spin.

Huge forces have been at work on us to dismantle our thoughts and opposition, while making us feel as though we are still deciding something. Ya' gotta hand it to 'em, Quite a game they pull off!

Impeachment could yet go a long way in waking America up. It may still be the last best hope to get some truth out before it gets swept under the Rug of the "08 Election.

OK. We can't stop working at cleaning up the elections, but that is not enough.

About elections: they must be respectable, COUNTABLE, legitimate and free from Big $$, but mere participation every 2 or 4 years not only won't get us out of this mess, it is what CAUSES much of it in the first place: only citizen participation and organization can pull us out. If you think organizing through "get out the vote" campaigns, or distributing candidate literature is sufficient participation I am referring to, then you ought to re-read all the above. We need dissemination of alternative media sources, and house parties and discussion groups to keep aware and informed. Citizenship is too much work? OK, then let them steal our national treasure, silence us, put us into debt to build larger killing and imprisonment machines. We can become the "good Americans" who let it all happen.

Talk to people who have expressed their desire for impeachment before. Shake them from the Primary-Induced haze.

We still represent a Majority, even if our system now systematically denies it. While it may not be easy, at least we represent Reality.

We should be ramping up, not giving up. Put our heads (and hearts) together. Work at building a party that is not sold out. To do this we have to function as a REAL Progressive Alliance (not just a handful of separate groups): each organization has to come in with its own organizers to take on responsibilities (then we have teams), and commit to reaching specific measurable goals that spread the word, get media, and bolster the Wexlers and others willing to look truth in the eye.

Let's pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get about the business saving our Constitution. What is the alternative?

Authors Bio:
Watching, observing, analyzing, communicating, provoking, organizing....