By Griffith Fuller
By Griffith Fuller
If one was to turn to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, or any of the other major cable news channels at any time of the day he or she would most likely be bombarded with coverage of the epic battle of Barack Obama vs. Hilary Clinton vs. John McCain.
The news coverage of the presidential election is an exciting one, but it only partially represents true U.S. democracy.
Third party presidential candidates are practically invisible to the public eye through mainstream media and are consistently ignored.
Even our own Viewpoints newspaper has failed to cover third party candidates, instead focusing solely on Republican and Democrat candidates.
How is the public suppose to know that a Black former Democratic Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, is running for president as a Green Party candidate or that Independent Ralph Nader is yet again running for president if no one reports about it?
Cynthia McKinney left the Democratic Party in Sept. 2007 and joined the Green Party in Oct. 2007.
Representing Georgia’s fourth congressional district, she served in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003, and from 2005 to 2007.
Ralph Nader, a lawyer and activist, ran for president as a “write-in” in 1992 in the New Hampshire Democratic and Republican primaries.
He ran again as a representative of the Green Party in 1996 and 2000.
In the 2000 presidential elections, despite overwhelming evidence that George W. Bush and associates rigged the election, Nader was still blamed by some for throwing off votes by running and causing Al Gore to lose.
In 2004 Nader ran as an Independent and was a “write-in” candidate in California.
Nader, the first Arab-American U.S. presidential candidate, decided to join in this year’s historical election by once again challenging big corporate businesses and reducing outrageous federal spendings.
Both McKinney and Nader called for the impeachment of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and other members of the administration as a part of their political agenda.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel decided to switch to the Libertarian party to continue running his campaign.
Gravel was featured in the widely televised CNN Youtube Debates.
The Obama and Clinton hype completely overshadows the underdogs that want to directly challenge the elites that are taking advantage of the American people.
Candidates like Nader, McKinney, Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate Gloria La Riva, and even former Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich are at odds with the politics of the owners of the major news outlets.
People like Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp. are filthy rich right-wing business owners who won’t allow people to go on the stations and programs that they own to speak out against their wealth and establishment.
Mainstream American media like to dumb down the public by presenting them with only two choices of political parties and two choices of presidential candidates, who more or less have similar agendas anyways.
The reality of American democracy is that U.S. citizens have many more options of whom they choose to elect into office.
I’ve noticed that media has been obsessively focused on Obama, Clinton, and McCain with hardly any coverage of the alternative candidates already mentioned.
How come Nader and McKinney aren’t invited to debate with Obama and Clinton on television?
When third party candidates are denied airtime they lose public exposure to demographics of people that might not even know they exist.
Even if one disagrees with the third party candidates’ personal politics, the general public still has the right to hear a variety of different viewpoints and proposals, especially those that are outside of the Democratic and Republican parties.
In this case, there is a form of censorship; third party candidates are seen as unimportant and not taken seriously.
In reality, they threaten the wealth and power of Democratic and Republican politicians, they fight for working class people, other underdogs and people who are consistently taken advantage of and exploited by their own government.
They ask the real questions about the environment, reducing military spending, and providing healthcare to the poor and funding to education.
They attack corporate companies that rip off millions of people, yet at the same time sponsor Democrat and Republican politicians.
They are the voices of reason, logic, and equality.
And they are silenced just for speaking the truth and asking the necessary questions that will truly bring about change.
Most importantly, they don’t compromise to appease Republican or Democrat candidates in their run for president.
They stick to their issues and encourage the public that the changes being called for are best for all citizens.