Why The Candidate Hoopla Now?

By James Donahue

If there is anything American’s could care less about at this early date it is the growing list of presidential candidates and what they are saying publically about one another. The first state primary elections are months away. The national primary is still more than a year away. The final presidential election is not going to be big news until November, 2016.

The dribble is so nauseating that it is small wonder that people are abandoning television programming and newspapers by the droves. Those of us who are trying to get our news via the Internet are forced to buy all kinds of extra software designed to sweep out the "cookies" and block the advertisers from taking over our screens with every click of the keyboard.

My personal email is flooded every day with appeals by candidates for money or to sign petitions supporting their cause. I keep classifying them as spam but they return like zombies the next day under new names but delivering the same old appeals.

In the meantime, we are still cleaning up the vomit from all the crap that we had to endure during last year’s mid-term elections. Ever since the Supreme Court Five opened the door for corporations to dump unlimited amounts of money into campaigns of their choice, there has been a constant advertising blitz that has dominated the television, radio and printed media. It is all crap. But apparently it has been effective. The old people who still watch television and always vote believed the most effective lies and they gave the ultra-conservative Tea Baggers a voice in Washington.

It was a scheme that worked out extremely well for the wrong people.

With the corporate thugs in control of Washington politics we are seeing unwanted changes in the way America does its business. Instead of taxing the people with money they are squeezing the money out of those who sweat for the corporate bosses. They are using the money for war instead of repairing the collapsing infrastructure at home and caring for the wounded war veterans and the poor, sick and elderly. They are doing this under the banner of cutting spending and trimming big government while driving America deeper and deeper in debt fighting nonsensical overseas wars.

If we keep it up we are going to lose the great nation we once enjoyed. Much of it is gone already.

So far there hasn’t been a single presidential candidate step into the ring that excites us. They are all sold out to the right-wing conservative machine, taking the corporate financial gifts, and scaring the hell out of anyone who has a brain. Yet the media is playing them against each other like a finely tuned violin, headlining every word they say as if it has deep meaning. Who do they think they are kidding? What is going on in the heads of the editors of the different media outlets these days? Do they really think we want to read such trash? Do they really think they can drive the voting public into an election frenzy this early? What is likely to happen is that most potential voters will shut their minds to the dribble and not bother to show up at the polls when it really counts.

Or is that the plan?

I don’t think that what the editors are thinking has much to do with the hogwash they are publishing. What I think is that the corporate money is also buying the media outlets. Remember, the candidates are forking out billions of dollars in advertising just to get their names on the ballot. And money is the god of the media. Money is the god of the candidates. Money is the god of the people.

To hell with the environment! Let the oil and gas companies drill and frack where ever they choose. Let the lumber companies take the trees. Let the pharmaceutical and insurance companies control our health programs and force the weak and sick into early graves. Let the poor and elderly perish for lack of food and heat. Who cares if the world fails to sustain life in the next 50 years? Just let the wealthy gain even more wealth now. Let them roll in their gold as they choke on the toxic air and vomit from the toxic food and water.

Their only consolation; they will probably get to live a little longer than the rest of us because they can afford to buy what is left of the good food, air and water.