Corporate Muzzling Of Politics (TomPaine.com)

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Corporate Muzzling Of Politics
George Farah
March 22, 2007


George Farah is the author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates and the founder of Open Debates (www.OpenDebates.org).

The major parties cannot police themselves. For a decade, the House Ethics Committee, comprised of Republicans and Democrats, has refused to punish blatant acts of corruption so that both parties can continue to rake in corporate contributions. Similarly, since its inception, the bipartisan Federal Election Commission has failed to enforce election laws because the appointed Commissioners rebuff efforts to investigate members of their own parties. And unbeknownst to the public, for the last 20 years, through a private corporation called the Commission on Presidential Debates, the Republican and Democratic parties have worked together to ruin our most sacred political forums in order to protect their candidates from genuine debate.

Despite its purported commitment to "providing the best possible information to viewers and listeners," the Commission on Presidential Debates exists to secretly award control of the presidential debates to the Democratic and Republican candidates.

The commission, which claims to "have no relationship with any political party or candidate," was actually created by the Republican and Democratic parties. In 1986, the two parties' national committees ratified an agreement "to take over the presidential debates." Fifteen months later, then-Republican Party chair Frank Fahrenkopf and then-Democratic Party chair Paul Kirk incorporated the commission, and they have co-chaired the organization ever since.

Every four years, negotiators for the major party nominees meet behind closed doors and jointly draft secret debate contracts called memoranda of understanding. These contracts dictate precisely how the debates will be structured—from who gets to participate, to who will ask the questions, to the temperature in the auditoriums. The commission merely implements and conceals the contracts, shielding the major party candidates from public criticism. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/22/corporate_muzzling_of_politics.php

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1. And we end up with complicit media helping the GOP rig the debates even further.

They would NEVER do a traditional debate because both Gore and Kerry were STRONGEST in that format and the result would have been even MORE lopsided with Bush crawling away from the podium.

The rooted Dem powerstructure in DC has to go, they are the ones who have dealt away our party and this nation's democracy over the decades.

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2. "The rooted Dem powerstructure in DC has to go"

Sad but true.