Truemors
Now just for fun, and it is not as if we are not laughing, even when it hurts, but here’s a list of subjects the presidential candidates avoid like the plague in the land of the not so brave anymore (since we only attack nations that can’t defend themselves and snuff out mostly women & children) and, of course, home of the free to vote on Diebold machines for one of two parties that stands for 4% of the population that, anyway, marginally needs democracy to rule over the rabble (now that would be all of us who were born with a plastic spoon in our mouth or are not friends with CEOs of military-industrial complex corps that eats up more than half of the nation’s budget while WE THE PEOPLE are being served political & journalistic pablum and pretty much getting laugh at, while our masters go on their merry way to the bank. Is this what our democracy is reduced too ? Make the candidates & media dodge the important questions so we can all concentrate on the horse race ? Winter soldiers and genocide policies VS. sex & sports! Is this the only narrative our raising half witted & analphabet citizenry will and actually does understand and can follow ? At this point & time : it certainly seems so indeed ! What the Candidates Avoid
Here's the TOP 10 list of what you won't hear much of from the front-runners in this presidential primary season. Call them the candidate taboos.
1 # You won't hear a call for a national crackdown on the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse that have robbed trillions of dollars from workers, investors, pension holders, taxpayers and consumers. Among the reforms that won't be suggested are providing resources to prosecute executive crooks and laws to democratize corporate governance so shareholders have real power. Candidates will not shout for a payback of ill-gotten gains, to rein in executive pay, or to demand corporate sunshine laws.
Twenty Things You Should Know About Corporate Crimehttp://www.alternet.org/story/54093/
A Corporate (Crime) State
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader0615.html
Corporate Crime Reporter
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/
2 # You won’t hear a demand that workers receive a living wage instead of a minimum wage. There will be no backing for a repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which has blocked more than 40 million workers from forming or joining trade unions to improve wages and benefits above Wal-Mart or McDonald's levels.
Taft-Hartley Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft-Hartley_Act
Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/04/3600/
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6466/
3 # You won’t hear for a call for a withdrawal from the WTO and NAFTA. Renegotiated trade agreements should stick to trade while labor, environmental, and consumer rights are advanced by separate treaties without being subordinated to the dictates of international commerce.
http://www.citizen.org/documents/FTAA%20Factsheet%20Jan.%2003.pdf
NAFTA and WTO: job killer, or slave overseer?
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2007/12/nafta-and-wto-j.html
http://www.paa-tx.org/node/1395
4 # You won’t hear a call for our income tax system to be substantially revamped so that workers can keep more of their wages while we tax the things we like least, such as pollution, stock speculation, addictive industries, and energy guzzling technologies. Nor will you hear that corporations should be required to pay their fair share; corporate tax contributions as a percent of the overall federal revenue stream have been declining for 50 years.
Corporate 'Tax Reform:' Rich Get Richer While Taxpayers Get Screwed
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_5458.shtml
Building One Economy With Tax Reform To Reward Work
http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/tax-reform/
5 # You won’t hear a call for a single payer health system. Almost sixty years after President Truman first proposed it, we still need health insurance for everyone, a program with quality and cost controls and an emphasis on prevention. Full Medicare for everyone will save thousands of lives a year while maintaining patient choice of doctors and hospitals within a competitive private health care delivery system.
Doctors endorse single-payer * American College of Physicians said it backed the system because access to health care had deteriorated.
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/12109247.html
Our pluralistic health care system is giving way to a system run by corporate oligopolies. A single payer reform provides the only realistic alternative.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/why_the_us_needs_a_single_payer_health_system.php Canada's Single Payer Health Care System - It's Worth a Look http://bcn.boulder.co.us/health/healthwatch/canada.html 6 # There is no reason to believe that the candidates will stand up to the commercial interests profiting from our current energy situation. We need a major environmental health agenda that challenges these entrenched interests with major new initiatives in solar energy, doubling motor vehicle fuel efficiency, and other quantified sustainable and clean energy technologies. Nor will there be adequate recognition that current fossil fuels are producing not just global warming, but also cancer, respiratory diseases, and geopolitical entanglements. Finally, there will be no calls for ending environmental racism that leads to more contaminated water, air, and toxic dumps in poorer neighborhoods.
Energy crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_crisis
Interactive Oil Depletion Atlas
http://www.lastoilshock.com/map.html
The Coming Energy Crisis?
http://www.wtrg.com/EnergyCrisis/index.html
7 # The candidates will not demand a reduction in the military budget that devours half the federal government's operating expenditures at a time when there is no Soviet Union or other major state enemy in the world. Studies by the General Accounting Office and internal Pentagon assessments support the judgment of many retired admirals and generals that a wasteful defense weakens our country and distorts priorities at home.
The Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253
Military budget of the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
8 # You won't hear a consistent clarion call for electoral reform. Both parties have shamelessly engaged in gerrymandering, a process that guarantees reelection of their candidates at the expense of frustrated voters. Nor will there be serious proposals that millions of law-abiding ex-felons be allowed to vote.
Other electoral reforms should include reducing barriers to candidates, same day registration, a voter verified paper record for electronic voting, run-off voting to insure winners receive a majority vote, binding none-of-the-above choices and most important, full public financing to guarantee clean elections.
Electoral reform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform
http://www.reformelections.org/
http://american.edu/ia/cfer/
9 # You won’t hear much about a failed war on drugs that costs nearly $50 billion annually. And the major candidates will not argue that addicts should be treated rather than imprisoned. Nor should observers hope for any call to repeal the "three strikes and you're out" laws that have needlessly filled our jails or to end mandatory sentencing that hamstrings our judges.
War on Drugs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs
http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm
How America Lost the War on Drugs
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/17438347/how_america_lost_the_war_on_drugs
10 # The candidates will ignore the diverse Israeli peace movement whose members have developed accords for a two state solution with their Palestinian and American counterparts. It is time to replace the Washington puppet show with a real Washington peace show for the security of the American, Palestinian, and Israeli people.
Israeli peace camp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_peace_camp
Israeli & Jewish Peace Movement
http://www.yellowcakewalk.net/israeli_peace_movement.html
Cease fire NOW ! - joint Israeli-Palestinian call
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html
There ya go ! Now we can go on our merry way to the rapture with the inner satisfaction that we had all the info about crucial topics and that we did all in our power to bring peace, love, justice & the pursuit of happiness to all, just as this country’s founding fathers and Jesus whished we could do & share with all off our brothers & sisters the world over… Now, wouldn’t that be nice ;)
"The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief." – Aristotle
Original Material Posted by nimda in In the Public Interest http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/1241-What-the-Candidates-Avoid.html#extended
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