Political conventions: A collection of guppies and suckers

Marti Oakley © Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved

Follow @MartiOakley_______________________________________________________________________

GOP = Guppies on Parade

The GOP convention was like watching a room full of guppies; their mouths opening and closing, them swimming about mindlessly totally unaware of what what was going on right in front of them.  Their “convention” absolutely rigged against them, their speakers regurgitating the neo-con party lines.  The epitome of the evening was the appearance of Condoleeza Rice, lynchpin of the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate that caused catastrophic attacks on our constitution and that started at least two wars of aggression and which began the wholesale sell-off of our national assets to foreign investors and governments.

The appearance of Rice, an undoubted signal that the neo-cons were going to return, should have cleared the room.  Any sensible person would have run for cover.  Any one who has a memory longer than a few days ago……would have cringed at the appearance of this woman, who claims to be a Christian, who helped twist and contort the privileges of the office of the president, who knowingly lied about WMD in Iraq, who used her office to oppress the people of the United States at every possible opportunity, who fully supported the corruption that was rampant in the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate….this woman was a featured speaker for the GOP.

Is anyone really wondering what is in store for us if Romney/Ryan wins the election? 

The Media’s Three Card Monte Game

Yesterday, I watched You Tube footage of the Nevada Republican Party Convention.

The gist of it is that Ron Paul won a two thirds majority of the delegates – or would have, that is, if the McCain camp hadn’t walked out on the convention before a vote was even cast. After an entire day, not one delegate was elected. The McCain organizers had rigged the convention in advance, with a list of 200 delegates they refused to share. When the Ron Paul supporters protested this, they were then offered to be allowed to vote for nine delegates – then five. After the Ron Paul supporters balked at this, the McCain camp hemmed and hawed around all day – then left when they realized they couldn’t have their way. Like a child taking his football and going home.

Now, what does this have to do with the media? Well, as usual, the story is completely absent of any coverage by the mainstream press. But, this is not unusual when it comes to Ron Paul, whose second place performances in the Maine, Nevada and Louisiana primaries were also totally ignored.

This behavior has been going on in the media since late last year, when the media decided they couldn’t make Ron Paul go away, so the best course of action was then to ignore him altogether and make him a “non-candidate” by not even mentioning him anymore, except in a pejorative way.

But, Ron Paul and his supporters aren’t going away. In fact, though he probably has been or will be removed from the official ballot, despite having not dropped out of the race, Ron Paul remains as John McCain’s only contender for the Republican nomination.

Given that, the media has now adopted a tactic of focusing on the Democratic side of the race almost exclusively. Why? Because, if they cover the Republican race, they must mention Ron Paul, whom they’ve been treating as a non-person for months. If they acknowledge that he’s still in the race, it calls glaring attention to their previously ignoring him, as though he isn’t even a candidate. This is why the media has fixated on Hillary and Obama and is now rarely mentioning the Republican contest. It’s like a game of three card monte, in which the dealer misdirects and confuses the mark with slight of hand.

However, they can only ignore the elephant in the room for so much longer, and with events like that which occurred over the weekend in Nevada, it’s going to become impossible to do without making the public aware of what they’re up to.