“We are not powerless,” Stein told the crowd. “We
are so powerful the corporate media is afraid to talk about us.”
Media coverage of the Green Party tends to follow
the pattern outlined in Gandhi’s famous saying, “First they ignore you, then
they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” The corporate media
tried to ignore us for years. Now they seem to have moved on to the “laugh”
phase.
This was largely the case with Stein’s campaign last
year. ABC News political blogger, Matt Negrin dismissed not just the Greens but
third-parties in general, claiming their ideas “tend to be a bit radical”
(06/06/12). Those “radical” ideas include cutting the bloated, wasteful
military-spending budget, legalizing marijuana (a concept now supported by a
majority of Americans) and creating decent, well-paying jobs. He’s right--such
common sense policies are way too radical for Disney-owned, ABC. In a follow-up
article some weeks later (07/11/12), Negrin condescendingly calls third-party
candidates a “fun footnote in U.S. presidential elections.”
In a rigged, one-party system where it is virtually
impossible to vote against a Wall Street sponsored, corporatist candidate, the
Green Party is the only genuine grassroots party that speaks for the citizens.
“The politics of fear has given us everything we were afraid of,” Stein said.
She is right: The corporate media are afraid of us. That is why they go out of
their way to mock, ridicule and belittle us. The last thing they want is for
informed, morally conscious voters to take us seriously.
And this sort of negative coverage is not limited to
the national media. Bollard editor
and Bangor Daily News blogger, Chris
Busby has been waging a personal vendetta against recently elected Portland
School Board member and Green, Holly Seeliger for several months now.
Two weeks ago, he devoted an entire column to
discrediting her (“Taking ‘sexist’ back,” 04/25/13). In it Busby writes,
without a hint of irony, of his detractors, “…the people who resort to personal
attacks and name-calling are morons.” Yup. You’ve got that right, Chris.
To
date, I have not read one substantive criticism Busby has of Seeliger’s
politics, school reform proposals, or votes. His comments are almost
exclusively about Seeliger’s hobby of burlesque dancing. If Busby has a
legitimate gripe with an elected official, that is one thing. But he doesn’t.
In fact, the man has nothing of substance to say about anyone or anything. If
Holly were not a Green I highly doubt he would devote nearly as much ink to
her.
Democratic apparatchiks like Maine Rep. John Hink
persist in baselessly blaming Ralph Nader for throwing the 2000 presidential
election to George W. Bush. This argument ignores the fact that Al Gore won the
election. It was the Supreme Court—engaging in the same sort of “judicial
activism” its conservative members constantly decry by those on the left—that voted
to end the Florida recount, thus handing the presidency to Bush. More
importantly, this entire argument hinges on the presupposition that, had Nader
not been an option on the ballot, Green voters would have automatically
selected Gore as their default candidate. Some of them likely would have done
so, yes. But most Greens I know do not compromise so easily. Had Nader not been
running, it is more conceivable those voters would have simply stayed home.
Yet 13 years later this bogus notion that Nader
“stole votes” from Gore refuses to die. (Point of clarification for liberals: Greens
do not “steal” votes. They earn them.) Democrats hysterically trot it out every
election cycle to scare progressives into voting against their own interests. Democrats’
marginalization of Nader comes directly out of the Republican playbook: Shoot
the messenger, ignore the message. It is the same tactic they have used more
recently to smear Julian Assange (“Rapist!”) and Bradley Manning (“Angry gay!”).
Nader’s public transformation from
honored consumer advocate, to egomaniacal “spoiler” was no accident. The
corporate-controlled Democratic Party orchestrated it.
As John Stauber writes in a recent article for
Counterpunch (“The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats,”
March 15-17, 2013):
“After
the 2000 presidential election…rich liberal Democratic elite began discussing,
conspiring and networking together to try and make sure that no scruffy,
radical political insurgency like the Nader 2000 campaign would again raise its
political head. They generally loved Al Gore, the millionaire technocrat, and
they put in play actions which led to the creation of a movement of their own
that aped the right-wing’s institutions.”
Being Green makes you something of a pariah not only
in politics, but even in everyday social interactions. A recent encounter with BDN blogger, Carol McCracken at the
grocery store, serves as a perfect example. “You’re a Green, huh?” McCracken sneered upon
seeing my Maine Greens pin on my jacket. She then proudly informed me, “I never vote Green.”
I responded as I always do in these sorts of
exchanges. I asked her, “Which of our Ten Key Values do you disagree with?”
McCracken did not respond to my question, which indicates to me she is not
familiar with any of the Key Values. (In other words, she has completely
dismissed a political party she knows next to nothing about. Good to know she
is such an informed voter.)
Instead she repeated robotically, “I never vote
Green!” After Mrs. McCracken lectured me on how marijuana is the “gateway
drug,” Congress Square Park should “absolutely” be sold to private realtors,
and would-be City Councilor Wells Lyons (I hear he’s running again this year)
is a “covert Green,” I managed to cordially end the conversation and escape to
the check-out line.
This is the sort of treatment Greens receive on a
regular basis. Even the seemingly innocuous act of grocery shopping turns into
a political debate over our very right to exist. Of all my quirky, left-leaning
pins and t-shirts, none provoke as much rage from liberals as the one that says
simply, “Maine Greens,” with a hand-drawn dandelion flower.
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