Google is scheduled to hold a debate independent of the corporate Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). This is possibly our one and only chance to get Obama and McCain to debate Ralph Nader and any other third-party or independent candidate running for the presidency. We must pressure Google to lower their requirements to 5% before this opportunity is lost. While using exclusionary tactics to silence opposition, these two major parties seem to think that freedom, a term they both speak highly of, means having power for yourself at the expense of others.

In 1992, independent candidate Ross Perot, who was polling at 7-9 percent, was included in the debates at the request of George H.W. Bush, who made Perot’s inclusion a precondition for his own participation. Under current CPD requirements of 15 percent, Perot wouldn’t have been admitted today.

In 1996, Bob Dole proposed that if Perot were kept out of the debates he would allow the Clinton campaign to decide the terms of the event. Clinton agreed. George Stephanopolous, senior advisor to Clinton at the time, took pride in the undemocratic deal between the two candidates, explaining: “As long as we would agree to Perot not being in it, we could get everything else we wanted going in. We got our time frame, we got our length, we got our moderator.”

By successfully pressuring Obama to debate Nader this election, Democrats would have much to gain by forcing him to adopt the traits of a liberal candidate. I’m personally too young to remember when an actual liberal had become the nominee for the Democratic Party, but I imagine voting for a candidate because he’s actually a good candidate as opposed to being “not a Republican” would probably restore some legitimacy to the Democratic Party as more than just material for late night talk show hosts. Obama will need to compete for liberal votes rather than take them for granted with his “appeal to the center” strategy (which obviously worked so well for Gore and Kerry).

Universal not-for-profit healthcare, cutting the military budget, immediate withdrawal from Iraq, a living wage, a focus on solar and wind energy, an end to corporate personhood, repealing NAFTA and The Patriot Act, no more trade agreements without labor and environmental protections, these are liberal issues. This is your platform liberals, and the only people willing to bring it into the public discourse are not allowed in the debates.

Being easy to manipulate, children are the most profitable demographic in our consumer-driven society. Hence, most advertising is directed towards them. Rather than market to a heterogeneous population with varying tastes, corporations lock adults into an insular, juvenile mind-state so that everything which appeals to the simple mind of a child will also appeal to mentally suppressed adults.

Every four years, when we’re given the opportunity to validate the figurehead which the business world has chosen for us as President, corporations market them just like they would any other commodity. Catch phrases and polished imagery are sold to an infantile electorate mesmerized by the colorful packaging and oblivious to the ingredients.

Pundits like Coulter, O’Reilly, Malkin, and Limbaugh serve to reinforce this simple frame of mind. These media-appointed babysitters are not paid to be cruel per se, but to be juvenile. Calling someone names and shouting down opposition are childish playground tactics which now pass for political discourse. And though the words coming from private party leaders are not as offensive, the fascist attempts to silence opposition are.

Mumia Abu-Jamal recently commented on the necessity to objectively criticize those you support: “The great abolitionist (and women’s right supporter), Frederick Douglass, supported Abraham Lincoln, yet that didn’t stop him from protesting against him, when he moved too slowly, or not at all. Reading his criticisms are still biting, even though over a century has passed. And yet, his teaching remains just as relevant, for Douglass said, ‘Power concedes nothing without demand’. If people demand nothing, that is precisely what they will get.”

Barack says that the 60 days between the convention and the election is not enough time to do more than three corporate CPD debates, but somehow during the Democratic primaries he managed to do 7 in about a 50 day period. Please Democrats, follow the example of Frederick Douglas in pressuring your own candidate to do what is just and democratic.

We must also pressure McCain to make his participation in the upcoming CPD debates reliant upon the inclusion of Nader and others, as Bush senior did for Perot in 1992.

More importantly, you must call or write to Google and tell them you want “open debates” where any candidate polling at 5% or higher is allowed to participate and given equal-time to speak. However, if you’re going to write please take the time to do it on paper. As the Bush administration has shown us, the likelihood of an email being deleted grows exponentially as it grows in importance.

Google

Ginny Hunt - Google Elections Program Manager
Eric Schmidt - Google CEO

Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
(650) 253-0000

Also write to other media outlets and networking sites such as CNN, FOX, MSNBC, YouTube, and MySpace to ask them to include third-party and independent candidates on their election pages as prominently as they include Obama and McCain. Not doing so suggests an endorsement on their part of the candidates listed visibly and is suspect of a greater corporate conspiracy to manipulate public debates for private gain rather than acting in the public interest by presenting all information.

This is a call to action. Share this with everyone you know and create a public video or article expressing your desire for open debates as well. This is an issue which is important to everyone. Let’s drive some serious attention towards this issue so it can’t be ignored any longer. We need to become adults and make decisions on our own or corporations will continue making them for us. Whether we have democracy or fascism is ultimately influenced by the decisions we make right now.

Don’t write a novel like I did here. Make your letters clear and concise.

Obama Campaign:

Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680
(866) 675-2008

McCain Campaign:

John McCain 2008
P.O. Box 16118
Arlington, VA 22215
(703) 418-2008