This Week on Issues - 10/31 & 11/02

Friday, October 31 @ 7:30 PM
Sunday, November 2 @ 12:30 PM

ISSUE ONE: Interview with U.S. Representative Kendrick Meek
Early voting is already underway and the long lines at polling sites indicate an overwhelming interest in this year's election.  Congressman Kendrick Meek joins us on the program to discuss early voting and his threat of legal action if it doesn't run smoothly.

Guest:
U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, (D) District 17

ISSUE TWO: Media Roundtable on Presidential Race
Presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama were both in the South Florida area this week, highlighting the importance of our state once again this election year.  We gathered a special panel of local journalists to discuss the presidential race as we approach Election Day.

Guests:
Jim DeFede, WFOR CBS4
Armando Gonzalez, El Nuevo Herald
Anthony Man, SunSentinel
Daniel Ricker, Watchdog Report

Comments

[Alan Kobrin]

I suspect that what I have to say will get some folks there rolling their eyes, but for me that rolling is just part of being unable/unwilling to keep them fully opened and fully focused.

The discussion of the presidential election on your program, the politics and possibilities, guesses and likelihoods so resemble those of most other punditry, that I find it disturbing.

I should be used to it by now, but I will not conform to being treated as though the MSM (mainstream media) including PBS & Ch. 2 have "the grasp" on the issues, while others of us are out here in the dark needing illumination.

The way I see it much more is going on in our world than anyone looking a the TV would ever get. As you discuss the apparent strengths and weaknesses of each candidates campaign (the horse-race) more than the candidate himself, all of our collective eyes are off the the underlying realities that somehow don't manage to break into our News Narrowcasting -- especially at election time.

Because of the "Big News" of the election charges and counter-charges of the candidates our perceptions are not perturbed by small things like invading another country -- even if only for a day. It is like we are being conditioned to see such minor incursions into foreign territory (and breaking of international law) as "normal" and America's right to boldly go wherever and whenever we want.

The news barely mentions it and of course the candidates would not want to venture into that area that might question testosterone levels just before the fateful day.

Yet this is all small potatoes in any case. We have just gone through a multi-year experience of official lawlessness on the part of this Administration and those in Congress, who for reasons, be they agreement or intimidation did nothing to defend our Constitution from heavy domestic assaults.

I have sat astonished as right after right has been diluted or neutralized from our laws and traditions and neither of the candidates have the temerity to address such issues. No, only the tried and true stuff of taxes and interest groups with some questioning of patriotism thrown in for good measure.

By and large the US media as totally ignored the very real abuses of power and machination of an executive gone wild: the 800+ signing statements by Bush basically asserting he would only enforce those parts of the law he agrees with, are nothing compared to his numerous executive orders which basically make him a paper dictator: he -- alone, by himself -- can name anyone an "enemy combatant" (his very own legal team's new language), and can jail or confiscate the property of anyone he, alone, deems to be interfering with his Iraq policy, and now for the first time in US history. HE -- alone -- can order combat-hardened US troops into US streets and neighborhoods to quell whatever HE determines is "civil unrest," the Congress, and the citizenry and the Constitution be damned.

This from an Administration whose inability to mobilize troops or any other organization for effective live-saving operations during Katrina is in the public record.

Whether these options are ultimately invoked or not, is NOT the question. It should be of concern to ALL the American people that such measures actually exist and have been PUT IN PLACE without one syllable of questioning or protest from our representatives or from our media.

When I watch the media treating this ritual we call a presidential election as such -- a ritual -- whose content and logic is not to be questioned, whose subject matter, is basically limited to the money raised, endorsements, public statements, red and blue states -- just as always -- but absolutely ignoring the deep core changes that have been happening nearly unnoticed to the basic fabric of of our nation, I feel only a sense of despair.

Despair because the press has become an echo chamber of the powerful and is all but absent in bringing to light the real goings-on of our nation and world, questioning the players against the facts or either enlightening or engaging the public in serious dialogue . Anything not officially sanctioned by big-moneyed politics receives no coverage. With few exceptions like Bill Moyers, we are left in the dark at the mercy of our manipulators.

Your show has fared no better that the others. I saw that this Sunday.

Pundits on a myriad of shows compare "tax packages" of Obama & McCain without making any reference to the fact that the Greatest Tax of ALL US History -- $850 billion -- was just foisted upon us, our children, and grandchildren in a question of days -- and with virtually no meaningful debate.

What a colossal disconnect!

The ability to somehow mentally "compartmentalize" this massive use of public funds into some "special" category, and not consider it a "tax" is a psychological sleight-of-hand willingly played by a frighteningly large portion of our population. It is, in fact, sick, I'd say. As the media and our officials go along with the game, everyone feels assured that they are OK. They are definitely not.

This barely differs from funding the Iraq War budget OUTSIDE of what already is largest military budget in the world. We fool ourselves so willingly -- with the help of the media.

Because of the new, improved, greatly elongated pre-election period, the eyes of the public have been taken off:
• the occupation in Iraq
• incursions into Pakistan and Syria
• the causes of the "Bailout"
• the rewards given to those causing the "Bailout"
• the proven lies about WMD (not mistakes -- memos and documents prove that)
• mounting evidence of massive voter suppression in 2000 & 2004
• the multiple outrages and disgraces perpetrated on one-time New Orleans residents, and the re-making and re-packaging of the city without them
• refusal of Administration officials to attend subpoenas
• "outing" of an active CIA agent involved in nuclear non-proliferation
• the signing statements
• the Executive Orders
• the continued use of Torture and humiliation in our names
• the continued rip-offs and deception about who the Federal Reserve (a private money-making business) is and how it functions
• the four unmentioned war games (yes, really) taking place during Sept. 11, 2001 (recently acknowledged by the US military chief of staff on record)
• ...and the list goes on... WHERE's the media?

Looking at this partial list of concerns, and seeing a "same 'ol, same 'ol" treatment of this election coverage as if none of this had ever happened or existed, is pretty worrisome. Makes me worry about the future of a nation whose head is not just IN the sand, but being held there by a very powerful set of gatekeepers and "experts."

Former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich stood for FIVE HOURS in the Congress and read 35 impeachable charges against the Administration and this historical fact barely appeared in the news anywhere. Even as a curiosity.

Why is this particular brand of "framing" of the news so common? Is this not censorship of some fashion? Lindsay Lohan and OJ get covered. Is it every day that our leaders are publicly charged with serious high crimes by a sitting Congressman? Did you cover this story? If not, why not?

Given this never-discussed backdrop to the "news," just how relevant are the discussions you pose to our reality, our problems and how we should all get to have input on? If our candidates do not discuss these issues, and you in the media do not hold them to it, then how on earth is the "Election Moment" we get every four years going to make democracy work, or do anything other than consecrate some new flavor of the status quo??

I go out of my way to find other news and information sources, yet no everyone can. I see many of my concerns and positions reflected in the campaigns of candidates not covered by MSM. Although I advocate mandatory free airtime and participation in the Debates for ALL candidates who have the mathematical possibility of winning (as is done in Brazil and Mexico and other countries), even if you do not find air space for them, at leas America deserves to hear what they stand for and why, against all odds, do they pursue what many consider quixotic dreams.

I, for one, already know why, at least for some of them. They try to get out the word and information about the other parts of our reality that seem to have gone missing: the who's and the why's and wherefore's of actions taken in our name at our expense by a government that now so distrusts us that they lie to us regularly and spy upon us. This is a reality the you should be laying bare for all of us. I am so tired of ignorance and complicity of would-be journalists passing for "reasonableness" and "level-headedness" but missing by far any target of true journalism and responsibility.

Very little of our Constitution is now operational. The nation is in far greater danger from those who have accomplished this silently than from any so-called outside threats. This stealth operation has been FAR more effective in destroying the fabric of this nation than any sort of direct physical attack which would produce a rallying cry of defense.

I am hardly the only one who sees all this and thinks this way. The millions of us are routinely dismissed and ignored. Our ideas and candidates are not permitted in the presidential debates (run in a disgracefully antidemocratic fashion by the leaders of the two major parties).

This woeful lack of real questioning and coverage of politics whether local or national. We should put a premium on the opinions of those in our society who have a long serious track record of cogent and valuable arguments and analyses such as Bill Moyers, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Dennis Kucinich, Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Elizabeth De La Vega, and many more. More than dismissed, their opinions are avoided, even those who they have been proven correct on foreseeing the Bust called a Bailout years back. As a nation and society we fool ourselves with these measures of allowing the lesser minds but better connected have a monopoly on the word. We must truly welcome and become a free Marketplace of Ideas we so love to talk about.

[James Hurley]

I watched this morning. Armando Gonzales was clearly bothered by the Obama candidacy. That is understandable although I have a hard time comprehending Cuban support for the embargo. Nevertheless he made a statement which is not acceptable from a reporter. "The election is too close to call" He said that three times maybe four using it to justify his expressed doubts about the Obama candidacy. That is if "the election is too close to call" after all this time then there must be some truth to these claims about Obama's character etc etc. The problem with statements that depend on the truth of the "too close to call" assertion is they don't hold up when that isn't the case. Fivethirtyeight.com shows Obama with a chance to win of 96% and McCain at 2.6%. This website run by the owner of Baseball Prospectus has been within a tiny percentage of the actual outcome in every presidential race for the past three elections. It predicts Obama with 344 electoral votes and 51.6% of the national vote.
Statements like the one made by Gonzales seem to be attempts to get voters to believe them. Mr Gonzales your comment is factually wrong and it is misleading.
Jim Hurley