Corporate Censorship: A Threat to Democracy

You may or may not know that Former Alaskan Senator and current 2008 presidential candidate for the Democratic nomination, Mike Gravel, was been excluded from the October 30th MSNBC Democratic debate, and all presidential debates since then. In the case of the October 30th debate, Gravel met all of the arbitrary requirements, except for one: he has not raised $1 million dollars. This only serves to further the corruption and influence of money in our politics, which is ridiculous considering that most Americans believe that there is already an inordinate emphasis on money in politics. (For example, Chris Dodd had about the same amount of support levels as Mike Gravel, and yet Dodd had raised over $13 million total? How is that possible?)

So, Gravel held an Alternative debate on October 30th, and has held an Alternative debate on many debates since then (all of which were broadcasted on Ustream.tv). But I am not writing here to simply rally support against Gravel's censorship. It is my responsibility as a Citizen of the United States to address the full scope of the problem, so I would also like to note the problem of censorship by the media in general, and its implications for our society.

Gravel is certainly not the first candidate to have been censored by the media, and he won't be the last. Ralph Nader (who I defend against accusations that he is the reason that Al Gore lost in 2000), Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul and countless others who don't quite fit the mainstream media's ideas, or who are not corrupt and don't take money from special interests and corporations, have been censored or are in danger of being censored.

Because, you see, if a candidate is not in the pocket of the corporation that owns the media, then it is against the self-interest of the corporation to allow that candidate to speak out on the media outlets that the corporation controls. This works vice-versa, as well. Candidates who are in the pockets of the corporations that own the media will be allowed to speak on the media outlets that the corporation owns.

This corporate influence in our media only serves to make sure that the candidates that we elect to our highest offices in the land are the most corrupt candidates. It serves to make sure that the candidates with the most integrity are silenced. It's no wonder that we have such a sorry bunch of representatives in Washington. It's no wonder that we have a man like George W. Bush as president. Unfortunately, their lack of integrity is why they win.

It is very dangerous to allow the corporate media to have this kind of power over us, to thin out the field of candidates before a single vote is even cast. It undermines the values which our democracy was founded upon, and it undermines our democratic elections. Are we really such a democracy after all, when the rich and powerful alone decides who runs our government? Our government is not of the people, by the people, and for the people, it is of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

Our so-called "democracy" is currently in a very unfortunate state. It's time to bring Democracy back. And the only way to bring back Democracy is to lessen ignorance by diffusing knowledge throughout the population.