MEDIA ROOTS — Has the U.S. two-party dictatorship completely saturated Election 2012 media
coverage? Can you recall when you last heard news coverage of any
alternative party candidates?
At least one third-party candidate is resisting this year’s media blockade against alternative Presidential candidates who are not partisans of the Wall Street Democrats and Republicans. (No, it’s not Ralph Nader, who has done more than his fair share of working for electoral justice. And, no, it’s not the Green Party, which sold out to the Democrat Party by 2004.)
Considered one of the greenest U.S. mayors, recovering Democrat Rocky Anderson, now with the Justice Party, recently stopped by KPFA (Berkeley, CA) to discuss with Project Censored his 2012 campaign for U.S. President, the collusion between Democrats and Republicans to further parallel plutocratic goals, his history of resistance to U.S. imperialism, and more.
“[The U.S.] Constitution has been eviscerated while Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interests that buy and pay for the Republican Party.” —Rocky Anderson
Messina
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PROJECT CENSORED — “This morning, the theme is Criminalizing Dissent: Updates on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
“Before we get to our first guest today, we have a surprise and drop-in guest. And we are very pleased to introduce to you; we have live in our studio Rocky Anderson, the former mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, who courageously stood up in the Bush years from Utah, one of the reddest states in the Union to call for the impeachment of then-President George W. Bush. Rocky Anderson is in the [S.F.] Bay Area all weekend doing several events. And he is running on the Justice Party for President of the United States. Rocky Anderson, thanks for joining us.”
Rocky Anderson (c. 10:15): “Thank you, Mickey. And [it’s] great to see you and Andy here today.”
Mickey Huff (c. 10:18): “So, we just have a few moments here in the beginning. Can you tell us a little bit? Remind people about what you were doing in the impeachment phases when you were pushing for this against George W. Bush and then segue a little bit into what you’re doing now.”
Rocky Anderson (c. 10:31): “Well, I had huge concerns, of course, even before the invasion of Iraq, given the run-up to the invasion and occupation. I never call it a war because it really wasn’t a war. It was completely illegal, [an] aggressive war, if you can even use that term war. We knew from the U.N. inspectors that the representations of President [G.W.] Bush were a complete lie. He wasn’t disclosing to us the huge disagreement within the intelligence community with what he was telling us, with what he was telling Congress. And, so, I was urging everyone that had any leadership position in this country to push back against that run-up to ‘war.’ And then when it became even clearer, not only the lies but the human rights violations, the massive death and destruction in Iraq and the tremendous hatred and resentment throughout the Muslim world, I felt like it was all of our responsibilities.
“And the really frightening thing is those who would say, as mayors did from around the country, they didn’t want to get involved, it wasn’t their job, it was too controversial. What I saw was this narrowing of people’s lives and leadership to exactly what they saw their role was. And, all of a sudden, there were no leaders standing up. It was a dismal eight years; and I was wondering, okay, if it’s not gonna be the leaders, if it’s not gonna be people in elected office, at least the people need to rise up. We need to be closing down cities. We need to be out in the streets. We need to be doing everything we can to stand up against the gross abuses and the whole notion of war of aggression and empire building. And, yet, this nation, in large part, remained so quiet and complacent—and I must say even the artist community. We weren’t hearing the mainstream music and the lyrics that drove so much of what we did in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and even during the ‘80s with the disaster in Central America and United States policy there.
“So, I think it’s really heartening now to see the Occupy Movement, to see people becoming more aware, taking action, understanding that our destiny really is in our hands. And, for more of that, I really urge people to go to our website, VoteRocky.org, and see why it is that the Justice Party was formed. This isn’t just about moving people around within this perverse game that people play utilising these roles that the Democrat and Republican parties have made up and from which they’re thriving. We need to get together, organise in every way, do it in a sustained way, not just during an election, but all of us hanging in there to push for major changes in what has become a plutocracy, government by the wealthy, when all of our interests are getting absolutely shafted.”
Andy Roth (c. 13:47): “This is Andy Roth from Project Censored; and we’re here with Rocky Anderson, Presidential Candidate for the Justice Party. Rocky, as mayor of Salt Lake City from 2000 to 2008, you’re record on the environment was especially strong. You certainly weren’t quiet or complacent. You stood up for the issues.
“Our theme later in the hour, today, is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. I just wanted to ask you, very quickly, in the moment or two we have left now. Do you think it’s right to use terms like terrorist and terrorism to describe members and actions of the environmental movement in the United States?”
Rocky Anderson (c. 14:24): “Absolutely not. It is such a perversion of our language. And these people are brilliant at the way they frame things. It’s like calling what we’re doing around the world a ‘war on terrorism’ when, in fact, what we’re doing is terrorising the lives of millions of people and really creating so many obstacles to real security, probably for generations.
“But, you know, you hear war on terror, war on drugs. George Lakoff points out in his excellent book Don’t Think of an Elephant; he talks about how the Right is so successful in framing issues by the use of these kinds of terms. Think about it. And one of the examples he uses is tax relief. Well, right there it connotes that taxes are a bad thing and something we should be relieved from. And what happens on the Democrat side? They end up using the same terms. They’ll use the same vocabulary. And it’s not just a matter of timidity. It’s a matter of collusion between the two parties.”
Mickey Huff (c. 15:31): “Well, that’s the voice of Rocky Anderson, running for [U.S.] President on the Justice Party. Rocky, could you give the website one more time?”
Rocky Anderson (c. 15:37): “Yes, it’s VoteRocky.org.”
Mickey Huff (c. 15:40): “Okay, so that’s the voice of Rocky Anderson. He’ll be at 10am at Provo Park [in Berkeley, CA] rallying with fired steelworkers. This evening, I believe, you’ll be at the Occupy the Truth: Whistleblowers Conference at UC Berkeley. I’ll make announcements for that. I don’t believe you’re on the programme, but I believe you’ll be there, if people want to meet and talk with you.”
Rocky Anderson (c. 15:54): “No. But there will be great friends of mine on the panel.”
Mickey Huff (c. 15:59): “Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern.”
Rocky Anderson (c. 16:02): “And these are messages that need to get out to all the American people because what we’re seeing under this [Obama] Administration is a more aggressive campaign against those who are responsible for getting the truth out to the American people and people around the world and, yet, all of the illegal conduct, including cold-blooded murder that’s being disclosed by these people, nobody’s doing anything about that. The real perpetrators, again, under our two-tiered system of injustice in this country are not being held accountable.”
Mickey Huff (c. 16:35): “That’s Rocky Anderson. Thanks so much for dropping in.”
Rocky Anderson (c. 16:37): “It’s great to see you. Thank you so much.”
Mickey Huff (c. 16:38): “Again, this is the Project Censored show, free speech radio, KPFA. We’ll be right back with the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, Will Potter, and Odette Wilkens. Please stay with us.”
Learn more about Rocky Anderson at www.voterocky.org
Transcript by Felipe Messina for Media Roots
Photo by Flickr user NikiSublime
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It turns out Rocky Anderson’s chequered past, as a misguided (or unapologetic) Democrat is worse than simply being a “recovering Democrat.” Anderson is not only a recovering Democrat, but he is a recovering Democrat, who betrayed his own party to support the also corrupt Republican Party by having endorsed Romney for governor of Massachusetts.
See the Democracy Now! broadcast from yesterday: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/29/presidential_hopeful_rocky_anderson_dems_gop#transcript
Amy Goodman noted Rocky Anderson, the recovering Democrat, once endorsed Mitt “The Twit” Romney for governor of Massachusetts because Romney was—in Anderson’s words—“moderate” and “reasonable,” and despite the corruption of the Republican Party and Democrat Party collusion to keep out alternative parties from our U.S. democratic process.
Some examples of that collusion include the Presidential Debate Commission, as Ralph Nader has explained.
In an exclusive interview with Ralph Nader, Media Roots asked, “Do you think the game is rigged?”
“Well, of course,” Ralph Nader candidly admitted, “two-party dictatorship, completely rigged, right down to the Presidential Debate Commission, which is a fancy phrase for a private corporation created in 1987 by the Republican and Democratic parties to get rid of the League of Women Voters, which supervised Presidential Debates up to then, and to exclude anyone who they think should not reach tens of millions of Americans.” (See http://mediaroots.org/mr-original-the-two-party-dictatorship-post-ows.php )
Another example is seen in the way, in which, Prop 14, which further erodes the rights of alternative political parties, was passed. (Similar, Top Two, anti-alternative party legislation is infecting evermore states in the U.S.) Consider this interview we featured on Media Roots April, 12, 2012:
Anthony Fest: “It was placed on the ballot, not by the voter petition process, but by a vote of the legislature. The bill, that placed it on the ballot, was written by Republican [State] Senator Abel Maldonado. It passed both houses by a better than two-to-one margin and also had the support of [then-]Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“For a measure that was promoted as taking power away from the party apparatus, it had wide support from Democrat and Republican politicians. But what’s the motivation, do you think? If it was all about excluding third-parties, third-parties haven’t really made much of a dent in state politics anyway, as far as winning office. So, what’s going on behind this?”
Michael Rubin (c. 21:01): “Well, I think there’s a couple of things to say. One is that the fact that the [California] Legislature passed this was a pay-off to Abel Maldonado for his vote on the budget. It was his price to pass the budget. They needed a few Republican votes for the budget and his price was Proposition 14.” (See http://mediaroots.org/rubin-v.-bowen-third-party-challenge-to-unconstitutional-prop-14.php )
Of course, the very real empirical, substantive, problems a political system confined to two monopolistic political parties extends across the spectrum of the political process because Democrats, the misperceived “progressive” party, always sells out to the Republican Party and crosses the aisle whenever they need help passing some terrible new regressive legislation. We see this over and over again. So, what’s the point of supporting a political party, such as the Democrat Party, if it regularly sacrifices its political principles to the point where it is not a real opposition party?
The same thing may be said for those misguided souls, who support Ron Paul and Rand Paul (who prefers Rand over his birth-name Randal, but we are supposed to believe it’s not because of his devotion to the regressive Ayn Rand). Paul supporters ignore the fact the Pauls are Republicans. If they were really principled individuals, or sincerely libertarians, whatever they mean by that, then they’d support an alternative libertarian political party. But they don’t because they really don’t care about democracy or democratic elections.
As far as Rocky Anderson goes, we must ask whether the Justice Party is a serious political party, or if it’s simply the vanity vehicle for Anderson’s political ambitions, which may benefit him personally, but not the hope for democracy in the U.S. But with the poor analysis of alternative political parties (and the rigged nature of our antidemocratic elections) from the likes of Democracy Now!, which are supposed to be the more progressive news outlets, we may never know until it’s too late. They’ll simply keep us distracted with the spectacle of the two-party system and keep our consciousness narrowly focused on the corrupt Democrats and Republicans.
(By the way, DN!’s election coverage is shite. Although, I’ll admit, I haven’t been able to follow it as closely as in past years. But Rocky Anderson seemed to have been allowed more time to discuss Romney, but given very few minutes to get into the real issues at the very end of the hour. The bulk of the hour-long broadcast I heard on KPFA was devoted to hyping up the Republican candidates. And alternative parties were not discussed further in the second hour available online. Like KPFA’s News Department (and the programmes politically allied with it), DN! contextualises everything from a presumption alternative parties are irrelevant. The only reason DN! even covers any alternative parties is to maintain some shred of progressive credibility. But notice the minimal coverage alternative parties get, even on KPFA, Pacifica Radio, and its most famous programme, Democracy Now!.)