Arturo Garcia in Raw Story describes how Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, was handcuffed (you know, the plastic ones that sometimes cause nerve damage) to a chair during an 8-hour imprisonment after being arrested trying to gain access to the second presidential debate at Hofstra University on Tuesday night.
Here is a link to the youtube of her act of civil disobedience and arrest.
Jill Stein told Amy Goodman: “For most of the time it was just [running mate] Cheri Honkala and myself. Yet they felt the need to keep us in tight plastic restraints tightly secured to metal chairs.”
Stein and Honkala were held inside a facility specifically designed to hold protesters. They had only been charged with violations -- essentially blocking traffic on a dormant street. When they requested release the authorities told them they didn’t want them “wandering around.”
Stein explained that they were not allowed to make a phone call. No phone was working and they did not have their own, having given them to their assistants. Stein was allowed to return a call from her lawyer at one point. Stein and Honkala were challenged getting home after 8 hours -- released 30 minutes after the debate had ended. The authorities told members of Stein’s and Honkala’s staffs they would be arrested if they did not leave the area. Neither the two candidates nor their staff members knew how long the women were to be held.
According to Eric Dolan of Raw Story:
Stein said the presidential debate was a “mockery of democracy” because it only included Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama. Stein will appear on about 85 percent of state ballots this year. Another presidential candidate, Libertarian Gary Johnson, will also be on the ballot in at least 47 states. But neither third-party candidate will be included in the presidential debates.
After failing to outmaneuver a number of police officers who had created a blockade, Stein and Honkala sat down in the middle of the street. They were informed by an officer that if they did not move, then they would be arrested for blocking traffic.
Honkala responded that she didn’t want to block traffic, she just wanted to get into the debate. Stein and Honkala were then arrested without incident.
The debate rules specify that to be included, candidates must receive at least 15 percent in a major poll. Most major polls do not even list Stein and Johnson as an option. Televised presidential debates date back to 1960, and have been a regular event since the 1976 election. Originally administered by the League of Women Voters, they’ve been jointly organized by the Democratic and Republican parties through the Commission on Presidential Debates—a group the two parties jointly formed—since 1987.
So, let’s see. Stein and third party candidates can’t participate in the nationally televised debates because they can’t get 15% popularity on many of the polls that don’t even include their names as options. That sounds about right.
Glenn Greenwald declares the debating “rituals” are set up to“eliminate spontaneity” and “exclude all viable third-party voices.” From a recently leaked 21-page “memorandum of understanding” between the two campaigns that governs the rules of the debates, John Cook in "Leaked Debate Agreement Shows Both Obama and Romney are Sniveling Cowards" of the Gawker discloses a few of the debating rules:
They aren't permitted to ask each other questions, propose pledges to each other, or walk outside a "predesignated area."
And for the town-hall-style debate tomorrow night, 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.
Greenwald quotes George Farah, author of "No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates”:
"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."
Greenwald explains that the Commission is run by lobbyists and funded by big corporations. Anheuser-Busch is one of the big backers this year.
Greenwald holds forth on the whole sordid scenario:
“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."
As the Great American Ethical Freakshow continues.
[cross-posted on correntewire and sacramento for democracy]
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I seriously think that what we need is a ballot that includes "None of the Above", and if a majority select that option, all candidates appearing would be banned from seeking public office for the rest of their lives. It is not possible to field a successful third party candidate the way the elections are divided by the Democrats and Republicans currently. At least "None of the Above" would pressure the 2 parties into making sure enough "third" party candidates appeared on the ballot that the "None of the Above" vote would be split.
Rudy,
Yer right as rain.....
B U T .....
How do you figure on getting NOTA on the ballots?
.
Yer right as rain.....
B U T .....
How do you figure on getting NOTA on the ballots?
.
It is impossible to miss the similarity to George W. Bush's "town hall meetings" when anyone not an enthusiastic lackey of Bush was kept miles away in a police-cordoned "free speech zone." Some things haven't changed.
Rudy, how cool are you with that idea! Just like with the warring and the health care, though we were and are in a vast majority, the one percent serving administration and the bipartisanly captured Congress and sadly judicial branch are not representing us any more. Being a "nota votah" ... though for me I got Stein on the ticket. The fact that she and cheri honkala were treated in such a horrific way shows how absolutely creeeeppppy and arbitrary and amoral and frightened of playing ethically and legally this administration, the Romney crowd and the police state are.
best, libby
best, libby
sky, I was particularly disgusted to learn above that some of the "popular" polls which are required for third party candidates to be invited to debate were not even giving the third party candidates as an option for the pollees. We got election fraud. Now we got pollster fraud. The corruption has saturated so much of the process! Thanks for commenting. best, libby
Thanks, Donegal. No, not only haven't they changed, they have profoundly worsened. What will concern me is if Obama progressives are not alarmed at what happened to Jill Stein because Obama is their guy. I am praying this will not be the case.
best, libby
best, libby
This is a pathetic and blatant scam that anyone that doesn't have their heads buried in the sand should recognize. The corporate media under centralized control are using their propaganda machine to convince the public that they can only choose from the candidates that they present as "viable" because they buy up and enormous volume of propaganda that they refer to as campaign ads. There are more than the usual amount of debates among the legitimate candidates that get their support from the grass roots but the corporate propaganda machine refuses to air them in a high profile manner but with Democracy Now! and even Larry King doing some they may do much better than the corporate scam artists expect and even if they don't quite win they might make it clear that the next time with growing momentum they can if people realize4 that the propaganda purchased by scam artists are lies that support a crook running for office; either the crook from the Democratic Party or the Republican Party or sometimes even an independent crook bought with propaganda ads.
Also Rudy der Rude might be on to something but some of the details still need to be worked out.
Also Rudy der Rude might be on to something but some of the details still need to be worked out.
It's a well-crafted pantomime, between the man who pretends to be a conservative and the man who pretends to be a liberal. Also starring the man who pretends to oppose big government, and the man who pretends to oppose big business. There, the whole spectrum is covered, no need to hear from anyone else.
Zachd -- thanks for visiting! yes, money and special interests run everything and allow no more leakage of real democracy! and I continue to be astonished by the lah-dee-dah Obama "progressives". "Lie to me" seems to be their comfort zone mantra.
Bart -- you certainly summed it all up incredibly concisely and eloquently -- the tragedy and insanity of it all. thanks for commenting!
best, libby
Bart -- you certainly summed it all up incredibly concisely and eloquently -- the tragedy and insanity of it all. thanks for commenting!
best, libby
Here are some interesting quotes from M.G. Piety in On Wasting Your Vote:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32760.htm
"There’s been a lot of angry posturing from Americans who think of themselves as progressive about how the purported political center in this country has been moving inexorably to the right, yet it’s these very people who are directly responsible for the shift. If you vote for a candidate whose farther right than you would prefer, well, then you’re shifting the political “center” to the right. Republicans aren’t responsible for the increasingly conservative face of the democratic party. Democrats are responsible for it. Democrats keep racing to the polls like lemmings being chased by the boogeyman.
"“This is not the election to vote for real change” runs the democratic refrain. We’re in a crisis! We must do whatever it takes to ensure that the republicans don’t get in office even if that means voting for a democrat whose policies we don’t really like and which are only marginally distinguishable from those of the republican candidate. That “margin” is important, we’re reminded again and again. That little difference is going to make all the difference.
"Even if that were true, which it ought to be clear by now it is not (see Bart Gruzalski’s “Jill Stein and the 99 Percent”), it would still offer a very poor justification for voting for a candidate one doesn’t really like. Why? Because it is an expression of short-term thinking. Thomas Hobbes argued that privileging short-term over long-term goals was irrational, and yet that’s what we’ve been doing in this country for as long as I can remember. Americans are notoriously short-term oriented. As Luc Sante noted in a piece in the New York Review of Books, America is “the country of the perpetual present tense.” Perhaps that’s part of the anti-intellectualism that Richard Hofstadter wrote about. “Just keep the republicans out of office for this election!” we’re always commanded. “We can worry about real change later!”"
[WE CAN WORRY ABOUT REAL CHANGE LATER -- Yes, especially with the planet suffering a dramatic fever of climate change trying to SHOW us how time is running out!!!! But Obama and Romney both IGNORE THIS ALONG WITH SO MUCH ELSE!!!]
CONTINUING QUOTE:
"Of course anyone who stopped to think about it ought to realize that that mythical “later” is never going to come. Our choices are getting worse not better, and if we keep invoking the “lesser of the two evils” to justify them, we are in effect, digging our own graves."
snip
"Progressive political change will never be a fact unless we have faith in its coming, unless we have faith that others will back us up when we refuse to be forced to vote yet again for a candidate we do not like.
"I, for one, abhor cowardice. I’m not going to be intimidated into voting for a candidate I don’t like by threats of the “greater evil.” I do not expect that my candidate will win the election. I expect, however, that my vote will count for something and not merely in the sense that it will allow me to preserve my self respect. I’m not afraid of being condemned as naively optimistic. Without such optimism we’d never have had democracy in the first place. Democracy, one of the crowning achievements of human history, is precisely the product of the courage to act on one’s conscience and that faith that others will do so as well. If we’ve lost those things, then we will get the president we deserve."
end of quote
I like how this woman thinks!!!!
best, libby
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32760.htm
"There’s been a lot of angry posturing from Americans who think of themselves as progressive about how the purported political center in this country has been moving inexorably to the right, yet it’s these very people who are directly responsible for the shift. If you vote for a candidate whose farther right than you would prefer, well, then you’re shifting the political “center” to the right. Republicans aren’t responsible for the increasingly conservative face of the democratic party. Democrats are responsible for it. Democrats keep racing to the polls like lemmings being chased by the boogeyman.
"“This is not the election to vote for real change” runs the democratic refrain. We’re in a crisis! We must do whatever it takes to ensure that the republicans don’t get in office even if that means voting for a democrat whose policies we don’t really like and which are only marginally distinguishable from those of the republican candidate. That “margin” is important, we’re reminded again and again. That little difference is going to make all the difference.
"Even if that were true, which it ought to be clear by now it is not (see Bart Gruzalski’s “Jill Stein and the 99 Percent”), it would still offer a very poor justification for voting for a candidate one doesn’t really like. Why? Because it is an expression of short-term thinking. Thomas Hobbes argued that privileging short-term over long-term goals was irrational, and yet that’s what we’ve been doing in this country for as long as I can remember. Americans are notoriously short-term oriented. As Luc Sante noted in a piece in the New York Review of Books, America is “the country of the perpetual present tense.” Perhaps that’s part of the anti-intellectualism that Richard Hofstadter wrote about. “Just keep the republicans out of office for this election!” we’re always commanded. “We can worry about real change later!”"
[WE CAN WORRY ABOUT REAL CHANGE LATER -- Yes, especially with the planet suffering a dramatic fever of climate change trying to SHOW us how time is running out!!!! But Obama and Romney both IGNORE THIS ALONG WITH SO MUCH ELSE!!!]
CONTINUING QUOTE:
"Of course anyone who stopped to think about it ought to realize that that mythical “later” is never going to come. Our choices are getting worse not better, and if we keep invoking the “lesser of the two evils” to justify them, we are in effect, digging our own graves."
snip
"Progressive political change will never be a fact unless we have faith in its coming, unless we have faith that others will back us up when we refuse to be forced to vote yet again for a candidate we do not like.
"I, for one, abhor cowardice. I’m not going to be intimidated into voting for a candidate I don’t like by threats of the “greater evil.” I do not expect that my candidate will win the election. I expect, however, that my vote will count for something and not merely in the sense that it will allow me to preserve my self respect. I’m not afraid of being condemned as naively optimistic. Without such optimism we’d never have had democracy in the first place. Democracy, one of the crowning achievements of human history, is precisely the product of the courage to act on one’s conscience and that faith that others will do so as well. If we’ve lost those things, then we will get the president we deserve."
end of quote
I like how this woman thinks!!!!
best, libby
Here's an interesting link to youtube from comic Lee Camp supporting Jill Stein:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQKPFwpKyE4&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQKPFwpKyE4&feature=player_embedded
They give us more say in choosing an American Idol than the president.
Without you, I wouldn't have known that she had been arrested for this. Why isn't this being pushed to the top of the news feed by her people? There has to be a way to yap loud enough that someone will start noticing. With all of this social media at our fingertips, she could make a meme. All of her followers could go on a Twitter rampage and get it to the top of the list. They could make it a top search on Yahoo. A concerted effort will pull in others who will join in just for the fun of making it win. If she can't get in the traditional way, then find a non-traditional way to get in through the window. The goal is to get in, it doesn't matter how.
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