Like Larry Lessig, CNN® Didn’t Want Bernie Sanders In…
Article #19: Politics
This past Tuesday was the first Democratic Party Candidate ‘Fight Night’ of the 2016 Presidential campaign season, and did you notice something really obvious?
Presidential Candidate Larry “The Professor” Lessig wasn’t in the ring.
Wait, you didn’t notice that?
Oh, it was probably because you didn’t know who he was or that he was even running, you know, since his name was taken off of the fight undercard; the list of candidates for pollsters to give to the people they were polling around the country.
That was definitely not by accident.
Since the controversial and political-campaign-changing Citizens United ruling, money has increasingly become the primary determining factor politically of which direction to go and what corporate decisions will and won’t be made.
Although he fit every criteria that was required of him to be included, Lessig was excluded from the Democratic Presidential Debate by the very entity that made the rules.
CNN®.
That decision to keep the Harvard Professor from the debate seems to have been a calculated one based solely in money and power.
To understand this rationale, you have to first know and understand what candidate Larry Lessig’s entire campaign is about, and it’s rather simple:
Get money out of politics.
Secondly, you then have to methodically follow the Citizens United corporate-money-to-political-campaigns breadcrumbs.
THE GAME CHANGER
Since SCOTUS’ infamous 2010 Citizens United ruling, money in politics has become a severely corrupting, democracy-crippling force, so much so to where even if “We, The People” don’t want a candidate, they can stay in the race as long as they have a multi-millionaire/billionaire donor.
So essentially one (1) person can fund a massively-unwanted candidate’s entire political campaign. This is done through what’s known as a Super PAC.
No, I’m not kidding. One single, solitary person, and “We, The People” be da#@!d. That’s power (Did your head explode yet?).
Now I know what you’re thinking:
How do the voices of democracy break through the millions of dollars from multi-millionaire and billionaire donors?
DING, DING, DING, DING! That’s Professor Lessig’s entire point. How do the severely-muffled voices of millions of people compete with the bullhorn-powered millions of dollars?
In today’s money-saturated, political America, there seems to be no way for that voice to compete. No way for that voice to break through, which leaves only one option:
Have the money completely removed from politics.
This, however, can only be done one way temporarily and another way pretty much permanently.
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The Supreme Court of the United States overturns the Citizens United Ruling (temporarily).
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A Constitutional Amendment banning private money from politics (pretty much permanently).
Now I know the next thing you’re wondering:
How does any of this apply to news outlets like CNN® to where they’d block someone like Lessig from debating?
It’s simple. You just have to follow the breadcrumbs, and they include corporate conglomerates and both the Republican and Democratic Parties.
TAINTED BREADCRUMBS
Lessig wrote a powerful article about being blocked from the Democratic Presidential Debate entitled, ‘I’m Trying to Run for President, But the Democrats Won’t Let Me.’ And, based on what I’m seeing, I am inclined to believe him.
Since the passing of the infamous Citizens United ruling, companies have been making record political-based profits and entities have been bringing in record amounts of political donations from two things:
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The massive increase in ad buys on their television stations and websites (CNN® anyone?)
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The passing of court rulings and congressional laws that are more favorable to corporations financially, passed by the very politicians who just so happened to have corporations donating millions of dollars to their campaign-supported Super PACs (Republican and Democratic Parties anyone?).
These corporations and political entities in America work together directly and indirectly for a single purpose.
Money.
Just look at what has happened in the past 32 years to the “objectiveness” of the media:
No, you’re not seeing that incorrectly. These six (6) companies control 90% of the media in America where it used to be 50 companies back in 1983.
The laws being passed over the past 32 years that financially-favor corporations have allowed this power consolidation and inevitable control of our media and elected officials to be placed in the hands of a handful of conglomerates, owned by an even smaller handful of billionaires.
So it begs to reason that if your singular focus is to get rid of the pile of corporate money on which the American political and ‘news’ systems are run, then that is a bad thing for the corporations that run them and the politicians that receive enormous amounts of money from them, wouldn’t you think?
Hence, the dismissal of Lessig by both CNN® and the Democratic Party.
THE UNLIKELY CONTENDER
Unfortunately for those same two entities, Lessig isn’t the only one on the Democratic side of the Presidential Candidate isle talking about the corruption of politics through skewed, immoral capitalism and private campaign donations.
There is another contender, and he’s hungry. He’s Rocky Balboa to current national front-runner Hillary Clinton’s Apollo Creed.
(*Clearing my throat…) “At 74 years young, standing at 5’8″, hailing from Burlington, Vermont, the former 4-Term Mayor, former 8-Term Representative, and current 2-Term U.S. Senator, he is…the Independent Socialist with the Mostalist…Bernie “Feel the Beeeeeeeeeeern” Sanders!“
*And the 19,000-attendee Portland, OR crowd goes wild!*
The question is: Is Sanders Rocky Balboa from the 1st Rocky who just wanted to go the distance with Creed, or is he Rocky from Rocky II who told his trainer in the corner, “I ain’t goin’ down no more“?
It is increasingly looking like the latter. However…
…just like Lessig, he is up against a juggernaut of corporate conglomerates who have poured massive amounts of money into the party for which he’s running for the Presidential nomination, and neither are going to make it easy for him.
They’re attempting to marginalize him at every turn. Check it out:
However, they really didn’t do their homework on this contender. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders brings a long-held arsenal of political punches to the ring;
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A strong women’s rights jab
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A straight education reform right hand
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A foreign policy left to the mid-section
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A right to the economic and political corruption body
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A racial justice check left hook
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And a right income and wealth inequality uppercut.