The Issues The Candidates Won't Touch (Part I) By Timothy V. Gatto

[Demeter]

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_timothy__080109_the_issues_the_candi.htm


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January 9, 2008







1. The corporate hold on the American political system.

While some candidates decry the way that corporations have managed to control who gets nominated and thus elected, there is no candidate that speaks about how this nation can rid itself from corporate influence. Some candidates allude to the fact that corporate forces including the mainstream media that is owned by a small number of individuals and corporations including General Electric and Westinghouse as well as individuals such as Rupert Murdock and corporatists such as Mitt Romney (Whose company owns a controlling interest in Clear Channel Communications), they have not proposed anything to rectify the situation. The corporate PAC’s and the corporate donations through “bundling” have a stranglehold on Congress that has become accustomed to relying on this money to fund their multi-million dollar campaigns. Between controlling the media and the purse strings for campaign money, they have effectively become the deciding arbiter of who runs for office and who doesn’t. Meanwhile there isn’t a candidate that has proposed anything to stop the corporate excesses from continuing.



2. The erosion of our civil liberties.

In this particular area of American life, nothing has been as dramatic as our loss of civil liberties. We have had a President in office that has thought nothing of using electronic surveillance on American citizens without going through a secret FISA Court that was expressly set up so that the Federal Government could monitor conversations that could affect our national security as long as the government requested a warrant 90 days after the fact! Yet this President could not even do that and Congress still has failed to address this issue. Not one of the candidates has decried the use of electronic “eavesdropping” on American citizens. This isn’t the only case of our civil liberties being usurped. A National ID Card is scheduled to be implemented in May of this year. Now, as Americans we must prove to any government official that we are American citizens and that we have a right to be here. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 takes away the writ of Habeas Corpus from any individual suspected of being a terrorist. The Patriot Act allows the home of anyone suspected of being a terrorist to be searched without the presence of the occupant and without even telling the occupant that their home was searched. The Warner Defense Bill (The revamped Insurrection Act) takes the power of the States National Guards away from the Governors of the States by the President to be used as law enforcement in violation of posse comitatus, thereby letting the National Guards of each State to be used against the people in the event of martial law. Presidential Signing Statements in which the President has the ability to only follow those bills in which he signs into law that he agrees with. First Amendment Zones that are roped of or fenced areas that people are allowed to demonstrate in that are mostly away from sight of the media or the participants of the event that is being demonstrated against, effectively muzzling Americans First Amendment rights.



3. The Military Industrial Complex

The point here is not to blame everything on the MIC, but to take a good look at how much this nation chooses to spend on its military. When we spend 51% of our budget on military expenditures (this does not include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), we must also look at what we are sacrificing in other areas to compete with the two closest nations as it comes to military spending, Russia and China that spend 6% of the money that we do on their defense capabilities.* *http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp

The only candidates that address this issue are Paul, Gravel and Kuchinich. Where are the other candidates on this issue? If you listen to the Republican field of Presidential contenders, they call for more spending on our military. How can the candidates fund health insurance for all and better schools and better pay for teachers when fully half of our budget goes to military procurement? Who are we defending this nation from that we would sacrifice 50 cents out of every dollar? This is happening as the number of people in uniform gets smaller every year. How do we defend this massive spending to the other nations on earth? Since when is the way we manage our budget not part of the election rhetoric?



4. The Crimes committed by the Bush Administration.

This is not an attack section of this article. The facts are that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have repeatedly lied about issues that led us into a war with Iraq. They have engaged in illegal surveillance of American citizens, they have condoned the use of torture on suspected terrorists and they have engaged in a practice called “extraordinary rendition” in which suspected terrorists have been put on an aircraft and delivered to countries that practice torture to gain information. Where is the outrage on this issue by any of the leading candidates? I could go on at length but I choose only to bring up those things that have been proven. Before I leave this particular subject however, I would also like to hear any of the candidates’ views on Administration officials that expose a covert CIA Officer’s cover.



5. The Truth about September 11th, 2001.

Some polls show that over 50% of the American people do not believe that the official report by the 9/11 Commission answered all the questions that have been asked about 9/11. There are many engineers and other professional people that believe that the timeline and the consequences of two jetliners crashing into The World Trade Center are flawed. There are many unsolved puzzles as to why people took out “puts” on the airlines the next day and made extraordinary amounts of money. There are also questions as to why the Bin Laden family was given preferential treatment to get them out of the country when all other aircraft were grounded. I will not get into any conspiracy theories but only wonder why these things that are known facts were not investigated. The Presidential candidates ask none of these questions and I wonder if when one of them takes office will these questions remain forever unanswered?



Authors Website: http://liberalpro.blogspot.com

Authors Bio: Former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Kronicles and is currently at work on a new novel.

Back

[zalinda]

1. Have they even taken a look at Edwards n/t

[Enthusiast]

2. Edwards is the only one that will...............

Edwards is the only one that will look at these issues. And, I have a prediction. If he looks too hard at these issues he will end up dead. He is right on when he says the corporations won't give up their power without a fight. They will shoot, poison, overdose him or something if he is elected. The other Democrats will be completely controlled. No need to say anything about The Republicans as they are already entirely under corporate ownership. Our country is gone and The American people don't even know it.

[raccoon]

4. That occurred to me too, that he might have a mysterious "accident."

[AlertLurker]

7. Why bother? Edwrds has NEVER done anything to address ANY of this.

He never will, either.

EDWARDS IS PRO-CORPORATE. He may TALK anti-corporate, but he VOTES pro-Corporate. 2001 Bankruptcy Reform Bill, FCC Media Ownership bill, U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000.
EDWARDS is PRO-WAR. He may TALK anti-war, but he VOTES pro-war. 2001 Military Force Authorization resolution, Use of Military Force Against Iraq.
EDWARDS is PRO-POLICE STATE. He may TALK about civil liberties, but he VOTES against them: Homeland Security Act of 2002, National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, USA Patriot Act of 2001.

ALL Edwards can do is TALK. That's the sum total of what he is all about. Empty rhetoric, PERIOD. He might as well get up on stage and just ask - "Y'all fooled yet?" - and then simply walk off.

[raccoon]

3. Thanks for posting. K&R. nt

[GliderGuider]

5. I'd add Peak Oil to that list.

The near term threat of Peak Oil to the United States (the world's largest petroleum importer) simply cannot be overstated. The political problem is that there are no solutions that will become available before the crunch hits (probably withuin 5 years) that will have sufficient scale to deal with the energy loss from declining oil imports. Add to that the probability that the international oil market will probably be empty of oil by 2030 or so, and you've got the makings of a real catastrophe.

A Quantitative Assessment of Future Net Oil Exports by the Top Five Net Oil Exporters>

There is increasing concern worldwide about global oil supplies, especially in the context of a global oil production peak. However, what really matters to oil importing countries is world net oil export capacity, and we are deeply concerned that the top five net oil exporting countries, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway, Iran and the UAE (United Arab Emirates), collectively accounting for about half of current world net oil exports, in aggregate are going to show an ongoing decline in net oil exports, continuing an aggregate net export decline that began in 2006.

Some recent net export decline rates in other countries, such as Indonesia and the UK, have been quite severe.

Indonesia exported 780,000 bpd (Total Liquids) in 1996. Eight years later, Indonesia was a net oil importer.

In a similar fashion, the United Kingdom in 1999 was a major net oil exporter, exporting more than one million barrels per day (mbpd). Seven years later, the UK was a net importer.

(Here there is much detailed analysis of each exporting country. And then...)



Our middle case forecast is that the top five net oil exporting countries, accounting for about half of world net oil exports, will approach zero net oil exports around 2031—going from peak net exports to zero in about 26 years, versus seven years and eight years respectively for the UK and Indonesia. In our opinion, the only real difference between the top five and the UK and Indonesia is that the top five net exporters in 2005 had a lower rate of consumption relative to production.

Extrapolating from year to date 2007 data, it appears likely that the top five will show an average aggregate net export decline of about one mbpd per year in both 2006 and 2007, putting them on track to go from about 23 mbpd in net exports in 2005 to close to zero in the 2030 time frame.

Smaller oil exporters like Angola can and will increase their net exports, but smaller exporters, just like smaller oil fields, tend to have sharper production peaks and more rapid net export declines than do the larger net exporters. And offsetting many of the gains by some smaller exporters will be sharp declines in net exports from other smaller exporters like Mexico, the #2 source of imported crude oil into the US, which will probably approach zero net oil exports by 2014.

Declining net oil exports will inevitably result, absent a severe decline in demand in importing countries, in continued rapid increases in oil prices, as oil importing countries furiously bid against each other for declining oil exports.

I don't know what can be done about this problem, but somebody ought to at least be talking about it. As far as I know only Dennis Kucinich has any grasp of this issue. In fact, only Dennis has a grasp of almost all of these uncomfortable issues. Which ov course is why he's unelectable.

[AlertLurker]

6. Dennis Kucinich is the ONLY Candidate to address ALL of this.

1. The corporate hold on the American political system.
Kucinich is the ONLY CANDIDATE that has voted AGAINST NAFTA, the WTO, CAFTA, and China Trade.

2. The erosion of our civil liberties.
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/usrepresentatives/p/dennis_kucinich.htm
Only Mike Gravel comes even CLOSE to Kucinich on civil liberties - 89% LIFETIME by ACLU, 100% since 2006. And the ONLY reason Gravel comes close is that Dennis is AGAINST handguns.

3. The Military Industrial Complex
Only candidate Firmly committed to GUTTING the Defense Budget
Only candidate 100% ANTI-WAR
Only candidate who would END THE WAR immediately
Only candidate that HAS NEVER VOTED FOR WAR, or granting the authority to wage it.
"We have failed to discard the outmoded 'force on force' military philosophy driving
today's military thinking, planning and spending. So we end up with fighter jets at $320
million a copy, $3 billion submarines, $13.5 billion aircraft carriers. Try to connect the
dots between these weapons and what is needed to fight guerrillas, terrorists and fringe
religious fanatics. Don't spend too long trying to connect the dots. They don't connect."

4. The Crimes committed by the Bush Administration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042401542.html
Kucinich is the ONLY candidate to introduce Impeachment Articles...

5. The Truth about September 11th, 2001.
Kucinich is THE ONLY candidate that has repeatedly called for further investigation of 9/11, the ONLY candidate that has cxalled for further hearings on the floor of Congress (with Wexler), the only candidate that has launched his own investigation(again, with Wexler), in short, he's the ONLY candidate that PUBLICLY disbelieves the 9/11 commission's conclusions and challenges what we have been told about 9/11 by the government.


IF Kucinich is out of the race, all that are left are PRO-WAR, PRO-CORPORATE, PRO-POLICE STATE candidates. Wake up, USAmericans...please?

[slipslidingaway]

8. What is NOT being discussed is just as meaningful IMO. n/t