Originally Posted by host

If you define a "worse choice" for who to vote for in the 2008 US presidential primaries as one who will do more harm to the key interests of more Americans, going forward....than another choice would do, I cannot see that Cynthia Mckinney would do worse. All of the other candidates advocate "more of the same", when it comes to budgeting more money annually, for military spending, than all of the countries in the rest of the world, combined, except Ron Paul.

Ron Paul seems to represent the narrow interests of christian evangelicals, libertarians, and other "small government" conservatives. Paul is on record suggesting the replacement of the existing social safety net with charity from churches, and he points out, that under his reform, there would not be a significant number needing the charitable support.

Mckinney seems to me to be able to view what life is like in the US, from the POV of many more people than any of the other candidates are able to. She has a record of attempting to hold authority accountable, she was the only congressperson to press Rumsfeld and Gen. Meyers on the issue of whether war games were being held during the same time as the 9/11 attacks.

She knows what it is like to attempt to show up and function as a black woman in a US congress dominated by white protestant males, as a single parent, and as a representative suddenly thrust, by a federal judge's order, from representing a largely black populated district in congress, to a largely white, and more affluent, urban district.

Why is the reaction to her, so bitter, so vicious, and so dismissive? Are the other candidates really going to be that much better, in terms of how they affect the interests of most of us?

McKinney was not charged in the 2006 altercation with a capitol police officer.

Conservative media has relentlessly attacked her:


Mainstream media has made her look more foolish than they do to other politcians:

My point is, that until we become less dismissive of candidates who major corporations and the military establishment want us to dismiss, there won't be anyone elected who will challenge them, and actually represent our interests. Unless we can begin by actually examining whether the candidate we support is truly a better choice for us than McKinney would be, we won't know if they are truly better, and we won't be aware that the demonization of people like McKinney is only partly a process they inflict on themselves, and even a portion of what looks like self implosion is a result of the process to discredit her.

Convince me that one of the other candidates is better!

Originally Posted by host

The last article that I posted has what I've observed as a broader and more disturbing and counterproductive hint of the tension that some describe as an rising anti Jewish attitude, rippling through some segments of the US population today. Although I believe strongly that one can be opposed to the influence of AIPAC in US politics, and anti semetic without being anti Israel or anti Israeli, I object to the idea that there is some Jewish or Israeli driven agenda against any group in the US. This does not mean that I rule out AIPAC's own efforts to work politically against members of congress who do not support it's agenda in the US legislative process.

Originally Posted by host

Quote:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/0...lice-in-court/
Cynthia McKinney Confronts Corporate Media Malice in Court

by Glen Ford / August 1st, 2007

“McKinney is putting their crimes against truth on the record, and we salute her.”

....McKinney has long been targeted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), possibly the nation’s most powerful lobby and attack dog group, for her failure to tow the Israeli line in Congress. Although McKinney’s father, a former Atlanta police officer and state lawmaker, has indeed made indiscreet comments, no one has ever claimed Rep. McKinney has uttered anything that could remotely be deemed anti-Semitic. “The attempted attribution was false, defamatory and libelous,” states her legal brief.

McKinney labels as “malicious” Tucker’s repetitive assertions that “She suggested that President Bush had known in advance about the Sept. 11 attacks but did nothing to stop them so his friends could profit from the ensuing war.” That’s not what McKinney said, back in the Spring of 2002, and her questioning of the conduct and motives of the Bush regime have since proved prescient.

Cox Enterprises’ Atlanta radio outlet, WSB, piled on in racist frenzy. McKinney looks like a “ghetto slut,” shrieked talk show personality Neal Boortz — a “slander,” according to McKinney’s suit.

Cox did nothing to rein in their radio personality, and Cynthia Tucker won a Pulitzer Prize for her columns, including the one that savaged McKinney. A Cox spokesman called McKinney’s suit “preposterous.” (For further details on the legal action, see Atlanta Progressive News, July 27)

Newspaper as Serial Liar

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution worked in tandem with corporate money and AIPAC to first unseat Cynthia McKinney in the 2002 Democratic primary election. The paper, like its corporate siblings across the nation, was anxious to prove that a political sea change had occurred in Black America. Gone were the days of “civil rights-style” rhetoric and confrontation - or so the theory went. Middle class African Americans like those in McKinney’s district, centered in Dekalb County, the second most affluent Black majority county in the nation, were becoming more conservative, it was said. According to the new paradigm, hatched in rightwing think tanks and universally adopted by corporate media, the Cynthia McKinneys of Black America are out of date, passé, and no longer appealed to an upwardly mobile class of African American voters. Dekalb County would tell the tale.

“According to the new paradigm, hatched in rightwing think tanks and universally adopted by corporate media, the Cynthia McKinneys of Black America are out of date, passé.”

While AIPAC and corporate donors stuffed the coffers of Black challenger Denise Majette - a former Republican and protégé of pro-Republican Democratic Senator Zell Miller — the Atlanta Journal- Constitution provided Majette with millions of dollars in free publicity and attack-dog services. Cynthia Tucker growled and sneered at the head of the local and national corporate media pack, intent on making a fait accompli of their own analysis, that Blacks were sliding to the Right. Tens of thousands of white Republicans prepared to cross over to vote as Democrats in the “open primary,” eager to put the uppity McKinney in her place. The Designated Negro, Majette, outspent the McKinney by 40 percent.

Majette won. Corporate media rejoiced, nationwide. As their local representative, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution claimed to conduct a study that showed Majette had assembled a “biracial coalition of voters” to win victory, ushering in a new age of “centrist” Black politics. The prophecy had been fulfilled.

Bruce Dixon, now Black Agenda Report’s managing editor, did his own study of the election data and found that Majette could not have won more than 19 percent of the Black vote. The key to Majette’s victory was an abnormally high white turnout, 90 percent of which she won. Majette was not the Great Black Centrist Hope - she was the white candidate, and the Black community had overwhelmingly supported McKinney. There was no history-shaking “split” among Blacks in relatively affluent Dekalb County; it was a fiction.

More than half a year after Dixon proved that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “study” was bogus, the paper’s own favorite political scientist and quote-man, University of Georgia Prof. Charles Bullock, declared Majette’s “bi-racial coalition” a myth. His research showed Majette garnered no more than 17 percent of the Black vote. (See Bruce Dixon, June 12, 2003.) “What Majette needs to be doing is getting out, courting in the Black community, trying to broaden her coalition because she did so poorly in her community,” wrote Prof. Bullock.

What Majette did was get out of the district, embarking on a Quixotic, hopeless quest for Zell Miller’s vacating Senate seat. With no time for AIPAC, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and corporate capital to vet a Designated Negro of their own, Cynthia McKinney won her seat back in 2004.

Malice Aforethought

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found defamatory manna from heaven in the last year of McKinney’s term, when a Capitol Hill policeman confronted her as she attempted to do the people’s work. Editor Cynthia Tucker revved up her defamation machine, recycling old lies and libels with the new. We commend Cynthia McKinney for challenging Tucker and the Cox corporate giant that is Tucker’s only backbone, in court, while fully understanding that the chances of judicial success are slim, to say the least. If deliberate distortion of reality by corporate media could be effectively prosecuted in the United States, the entire industry would be behind bars or bankrupted. McKinney is putting their crimes against truth on the record, and we salute her.

“Editor Cynthia Tucker revved up her defamation machine, recycling old lies and libels with the new.”

The assaults against McKinney’s character and seven-term career are but one skirmish in a nationwide corporate offensive that was sketched out by rightwing strategists in the mid-’90s and fully implemented in the early years of the Bush regime. For the first time, corporate American would make a concerted and coordinated effort to cleanse the African American polity of what remained of the Black Freedom Movement. The year 2002 was their D-Day for invasion of Black politics. They came strapped with millions in cash, and the supporting artillery of corporate media. AIPAC acted as cavalry, ranging across the country and terrorizing Black politicians into submission....

Originally Posted by host

Gravel is too old and has some attributes that struck me as negatives, I'll post them if it matters, and IMO, Obama's commitment to increases in the size of the military and on it's spending, disqualify him as a progressive candidate. Every extra dollar he proposed to spend is borrowed, and comes at the expense of so many already pressing national problems.

will, I think you could be wrong about the attack on Gore, anti Gore media pushed that story with a vengeance:

...and right about Kucinich:


I don't think that this was a fair criticism of Kucinich....it tried to pin hypocrisy on him that the amount of money he attempted to earmark, was too small to fairly label him:

So, here's one candidate who I agree is probably no worse than, and possibly, even a better choice for US president in 2008, than Cynthia McKinney. Thank you, will. I've been so focused on the three democratic frontrunners' positions on defense spending, that I overlooked Kucinich.

Originally Posted by willravel

I've been watching Clinton/Obama/Edwards, too. The likeliness of one of them becoming president is a point of great concern for me. I've gotten past the "at least their better than Bush" phase and I guess it'll be time soon to say "at least their better than Clinton/Obama/Edwards".

I started supporting Kucinich way back when he suggested a federal office who's sole job was peace (DoP, or Department of Peace). He's infinitely naive and hopeful, just like me (only 2 feet shorter), and he's not afraid of anyone. He's moral and ethical, and he's stuck to his guns consistently, which is what told me that he would make a good president.

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I won't interrupt this thread but to say this is an excellent example of where discourse is only possible when you are close enough to the philosophy of the op.

Unless you are already riding the far left, there is no way you could seriously discuss Cynthia McKinney as a good candidate, the concept is simply to absurd.

Originally Posted by Ustwo

will I already fired you as my secretary. Now take your Garfield mug and go.