How The White House Was Won

Were American Voters Presented With A Real Choice?

This episode of Fault Lines takes viewers through a tour of the US 2012 presidential campaign, from the high and low moments, to the Spin Room, to the noisy campaign ads that blanketed swing states. 

We ask whether voters were presented with a real choice between the candidates, and whether the system truly is democratic.

The Rigged Presidential "Debates"

Secret Collusion Between The Two Parties, Funded By Corporations, Run By Lobbyists

By Glenn Greenwald,

The way the two major parties control the presidential debates is a perfect microcosm of how political debates are restricted in general. Though typically shrouded in secrecy, several facts about this process have recently come to light and they are quite instructive.

I was on Democracy Now this morning along with George Farah discussing the ways these debates, designed to cast the appearance of fostering vibrant exchanges, are actually intended to constrict the range of debated views as much as possible. My segment (and the transcript to it) can be seen here, but it was the commentary of Farah - who is a genuine expert in the history of presidential debates - that I found revealing.

He described how the two political parties in the 1990s joined forces to wrest control over the presidential debates away from the independent League of Women Voters, which had long resisted the parties' efforts to shield their presidential candidates from genuine surprise or challenge. Now run by the party-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates, these rituals are designed to do little more than " eliminate spontaneity" and "exclude all viable third-party voices". Citing a just-leaked 21-page "memorandum of understanding" secretly negotiated by the two campaigns to govern the rules of the debates, Farah recounted:

"We have a private corporation that was created by the Republican and Democratic parties called the Commission on Presidential Debates. It seized control of the presidential debates precisely because the League was independent, precisely because this women's organization had the guts to stand up to the candidates that the major-party candidates had nominated. And instead of making public these contracts and resisting the major-party candidates' manipulations, the commission allows the candidates to negotiate these 21-page contracts that dictate all the fundamental terms of the debates."

Gawker's John Cook has an excellent breakdown of the 21-page memo. In his piece, entitled "Leaked Debate Agreement Shows Both Obama and Romney are Sniveling Cowards", Cook details how the rules imposed on these debates demonstrate that, above all else, "both campaigns are terrified at anything even remotely spontaneous happening."

Under this elaborate regime, the candidates "aren't permitted to ask each other questions, propose pledges to each other, or walk outside a 'predesignated area.'" Worse, "the audience members posing questions aren't allowed to ask follow-ups (their mics will be cut off as soon as they get their questions out). Nor will moderator Candy Crowley." The rules even "forbid television coverage from showing reaction shots of the candidates".

All of this means, as Farah put it:

"The town hall debate we're going to see tonight is the most constrained and regulated town hall debate in presidential debate history. The first town hall debate was introduced in 1992, and no one knew what anyone was going to ask, none of the audience members were going to ask. The moderator could ask any follow-up questions. It was exciting, and it was real.

"Well, President George H.W. Bush stumbled in response to an oddly worded question about the federal deficit, and the candidates - the campaigns have panicked and have attempted to avoid that kind of situation from happening again. In 1996, they abolished follow-up questions from the audience.

"In 2004, they began requiring that every single question asked by the audience be submitted in advance on an index card to the moderator, who can then throw out the ones he or she does not like. And that's why the audience has essentially been reduced, in some ways, to props, because the moderator is still ultimately asking the questions.

"And this election cycle is the first time that the moderator herself is prohibited from asking follow-up questions, questions seeking clarification. She's essentially reduced to keeping time and being a lady with a microphone."

Making matters worse still, the Commission is run by lobbyists and funded by large corporations. As Zaid Jilani writes today, the two Commission co-chairmen are former GOP Chairman Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. and former Clinton spokesman Michael D. McCurry. Fahrenkopf is one of the nation's leading lobbyists for the gaming industry, while McCurry advises a long list of corporate clients including the telecom industry.

The debates are paid for by large corporate sponsors, including Anheuser-Busch Companies. As Jilani writes, "in the past, the tobacco industry, AT&T, and others have all been sponsors." And as Farah describes, with all that sponsorship comes the standard benefits:

"FARAH: 'First, the just nice advertising, of course. They get to - you know, Philip Morris sponsored one of the presidential debates, paid $250,000 and got to hang its banner in the post-debate spin room that was seen throughout the country. But more importantly, they get access, and they get to show support for both major parties.'

"AMY GOODMAN: 'The major parties on their podiums have Bud Light on the podium?'

"FARAH: 'Not yet. We're getting there. We're getting there, Amy. But they get to show support for both major parties. How often can corporations find a way to make a single donation that strengthens both the Republican and Democratic parties and get a tax deduction for that kind of donation? So it's a rare contribution. And it also gives them access. They get to go to the actual debate themselves and rub shoulders at private receptions with the campaigns and their staff.'"

Meanwhile, the moderators were selected to ensure that nothing unexpected is asked and that only the most staid and establishment views are heard. As journalism professor Jay Rosen put it when the names of the moderators were unveiled, using terms to describe those views that are acceptable in Washington media circles and those which are "fringe":

"In order to be considered as a candidate for moderator you have to be soaked in the sphere of consensus, likely to stay within the predictable inner rings of the sphere of legitimate controversy, and unlikely in the extreme to select any questions from the sphere of deviance."

Here then, within this one process of structuring the presidential debates, we have every active ingredient that typically defines, and degrades, US democracy. The two parties collude in secret. The have the same interests and goals. Everything is done to ensure that the political process is completely scripted and devoid of any spontaneity or reality.

All views that reside outside the narrow confines of the two parties are rigidly excluded. Anyone who might challenge or subvert the two-party duopoly is rendered invisible.

Lobbyists who enrich themselves by peddling their influence run everything behind the scenes. Corporations pay for the process, which they exploit and is then run to bolster rather than threaten their interests. The media's role is to keep the discourse as restrictive and unthreatening as possible while peddling the delusion that it's all vibrant and free and independent and unrestrained. And it all ends up distorting political realities far more than illuminating them while wildly exaggerating the choices available to citizens and concealing the similarities between the two parties.

To understand the US political process, one can just look to how these sham debates are organized and how they function. This is the same process that repeats itself endlessly in virtually every other political realm.

Via: "The Guardian"

No Matter Who “Wins”, Humanity Loses

By Larry Chin,

On one side, the Obama administration, and the traditional brand of neoliberal imperialism and international consensus, and false domestic populism. On the other side with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, militant right-wing extremism, an apocalyptic war agenda and the politics of sadism at home.

The final choice will not be made by voters (who will be disenfranchised again, via electronic vote fraud and other manipulations), but by the criminal elements who seize final control of the apparatus over the final month of the “contest”.

The “children” are being allowed to fight it out amongst themselves. The side with ultimate command of the corporate media propaganda, the most effective back door deals, and the most effective dirty tricks and election night shenanigans, will prevail, the pre-determined result promptly encrypted into the software of controlled Diebold voting machines.

The Debate Charade
 

It is tempting but futile to dissect the theatrics of the debates, which are based on entirely on false premises to begin with. Not one exhaustively argued “talking point” addresses realities.

The carefully pre-selected issues assume a host of falsehoods, from the legitimacy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the destabilizations of Iran and Syria, to the need for fiscal austerity.

These are rhetorical dog-and-pony shows without real differences, beyond timing, style, and method, by which they will execute similar agendas.

Both sides largely agree on foreign policy. Both sides proudly trumpet how best to inflict crippling economic warfare on “nuclear Iran”, and topple Syria. The only argument is whether the sequential multinational stranglehold (“diplomacy”) led by the Obama administration continues apace, or, if Romney/Ryan and the right will get what they really want: an all-out war with Iran.

Both sides agree on the same falsehoods regarding the national debt (without mentioning that the world war that they enthusiastically wage is the main expenditure) and the US financial crisis (ignoring the fact that the financial “crisis” and “bailout” was a manipulation that centralized the power for Wall Street constituents, the big banks, who support both sides equally, at the expense of US taxpayers). In terms of social programs (that will be cut in any case in order to pay for more war), the Romney/Ryan contingent calls for an immediate destruction of the entire social structure of the US—a swift draconian end to social programs such as Medicare and Social Security—while the Obama administration takes a more gradual approach.

Essentially, the candidates have already admitted that they do not serve the interests of most of humanity.

The media “analysis” of the election has been stomach-turning— nothing more than insanity heaped atop insanity. The chattering of talking heads over infantile nonsense, such as “who looks presidential”, who got more “gotchas” and “zingers”. A dumbed-down spectacle for a dumbed-down, manipulated populace.

Which Way To The Abyss?

There have never been real elections in contemporary America, and there will be no “election” this time either. There will, as always, be no real choice: war-mongering, mass-murdering imperialist “A” or war-mongering mass-murdering imperialist “B”.

America and the world must pay attention to which brand of fascism will ultimately be chosen, if only to properly prepare for what is to come. The marginal differences in method and style have ramifications, domestically and globally.

The quelling of increasingly large swaths of humanity is more important to the elite than ever before. The next White House occupant will spearhead the likely UN and NATO regime changes for Syria and Iran, both of which have been systematically destabilized by the CIA and its affiliates, and the “reconstruction” of the American social net.

Will it be more of the fist inside the velvet glove, or the hammer directly to the skull?

No matter who “wins”, humanity loses.

Via: "Global Research"

The Talking Heads

“The United States does not have presidential debates in any realistic sense of the word. It holds quadrennial joint appearances by major-party candidates who have been schooled in the art of saying little of consequence in the most absurdly aggressive way. And Americans will be served a full helping this evening.

That is because presidential debates have become the political equivalent of a classic rock radio station. You’ll hear all the hits, and maybe even a few obscure tracks that you’d almost forgotten.

But the whole point of the Barack Obama’s appearance will be to say nothing that harms himself and everything that harms Mitt Romney, just as the whole point of Romney’s appearance will be to say nothing that harms himself and everything that harms Obama.

Neither man will leave his comfort zone. Neither will jump off the narrow track on which this year’s campaign has been running.

In most developed nations—from Canada to Britain to Australia to France—debates are multi-candidate, multi-party affairs. It is not uncommon for five, six, even seven candidates to take the stage. Those countries do not just survive the clashes, they thrive—with higher levels of political engagement than the United States has seen in decades.

Only the most crudely authoritarian states erect the sort of barriers that the United States maintains to entry into the debates by so-called “minor-party” candidates.

And why?

The fool’s argument against expanding the number of contenders is that debates involving more than the nominees of the two big parties—which, conveniently, control the access to the debates through their joint Commission on Presidential Debates—is that it would somehow confuse the electorate. As if Americans aren’t quite as sharp as the French.

Adding more candidates would not create confusion. It would add clarity.”

(John Nichols)

Via: "The Nation Magazine"