Skip to main content

The US presidential debates' illusion of political choice | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | The Guardian

The US presidential debates' illusion of political choice | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | The Guardian
Wednesday night's debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney underscored a core truth about America's presidential election season: the vast majority of the most consequential policy questions are completely excluded from the process. This fact is squarely at odds with a primary claim made about the two parties – that they represent radically different political philosophies – and illustrates how narrow the range of acceptable mainstream political debate is in the country.

In part this is because presidential elections are now conducted almost entirely like a tawdry TV reality show. Personality quirks and trivialities about the candidates dominate coverage, and voter choices, leaving little room for substantive debates.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ei: Pushing for "normalization" of Israeli apartheid

ei: Pushing for "normalization" of Israeli apartheid The Arab League proposed in 2002 what became known as the Arab Peace Initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was an unprecedented, bold offer which promised Israel full normalization in exchange for a complete withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 and the creation of a Palestinian state. The plan called for a "just settlement" to the Palestinian refugee issue. This, in practical terms, meant renunciation of the right to return, despite this being an individual right under international law of which no state or authority can forfeit on behalf of the refugees. The Arab Peace Initiative was based on what fallaciously became known as the "international consensus" for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that of "two states, for two peoples," championed by the Zionist left as well as Israel's patrons in the West. The plan represented a rare united front a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Iraqi weapons 'expert' unmasked as a fraud - Independent Online Edition > Americas

Iraqi weapons 'expert' unmasked as a fraud - Independent Online Edition > Americas : "The Iraqi defector whose claims regarding Saddam Hussein's biological warfare capabilities were central to the US government's case for the 2003 invasion, despite repeated warnings that they were dubious, has been unmasked by a television documentary. The informer, codenamed Curveball was Rafid Ahmed Alwan who, in 1999, turned up at a refugee centre in Germany seeking political asylum. He went on to convince the Pentagon he was a brilliant chemist who had helped develop mobile biological warfare laboratories."
Post a Comment
Read more