Public Please

CNN has decided to exclude Kucinich because he did not receive 5% of support in two national polls. Instead, Kucinich received 4% of support - only 1% shy of the arbitrary standard set by the executives at CNN and its parent company Time Warner.

As reported by Susan Duclos, Kucinich has filed another complaint with the FCC, which argues:

“The CNN criteria specifically exclude the diverse and anti-war voice of Mr. Kucinich and his grass-roots supporters. The exclusion of Mr. Kucinich undermines the purpose of the (Federal Communications) Act and is a blatant violation of the Act, including its equal time provisions.”

“Mr. Kucinich is a successful candidate because of his anti-war message and strong criticism of the American healthcare system, issues that are not championed by his presidential primary opponents. In these and other policy issues, his opponents share very similar policy platforms that differ from Mr. Kucinich.”

What we must ask ourselves is whether the FCC, in the name of protecting the freedom of expression for corporations such as CNN and ABC, is preventing the freedom of expression of individuals, such as Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Duncan Hunter. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is “an independent United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress …established by the Communications Act of 1934″ to regulate “interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable”. So if the FCC is violating the First Amendment, and if it is in compliance with its charter, then Congress has created a law which abridges the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press.

Fortunately, Congress is not at fault in this respect - the FCC is at fault. The FCC is violating the First Amendment, which is not in compliance with its charter; the FCC is not fulfilling its responsibilities to regulate interstate television because it is doing so in a way which abridges the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press. The press is not free when it is owned and controlled by giant corporations, such as Disney (which owns ABC), Time Warner (which owns CNN), or GE (which owns MSNBC), all of which have no legitimate business censoring individual political candidates who have a right to be covered by the press. The press does not mean a specific organization. It means individual reporters, and individual reporters have a right to cover public electoral debates in order to inform the public about the candidates.

Unfortunately, the FCC, as I have already reported, accepts the censorship of political candidates because it prioritizes the freedom of expression for corporations over the freedom of expression for indivduals, both the individual candidates who are running and the individual members of the press who are denied a reasonable opportunity to cover the candidates in the informative context of a public televised debate.

What is more unfortunate is that most Americans do not understand that their democracy is seriously threatened by the negligent oversight of the FCC and by the unconstitutional censorship of major corporate broadcasters, such as CNN, ABC, and MSNBC, and their parent companies. Most are unaware of the political censorship, but even those who are aware of it, even those who read reports from putative citizen journalists, fail to grasp the gravity of the threat. For example, many of the comments on Susan Duclos’ report indicate a greater interest in alien jokes than unlawful corporate interference in the electoral process.

In the first comment, Snooper writes,

“Someone contact James T Kirk and see if he some left dilithium crystals for the UFO that has apparently run out of gas.”

In this comment, Snooper jokes about Kucinich’s response to Tim Russert in the October MSNBC debate, where Kucinich answered that he had seen an unidentified flying object.

Through his joke, Snooper suggests that it is acceptable to exclude Kucinich from the presidential debates because he is crazy. Snooper suggests that Kucinich should be censored because he is unrealistic, because he thinks that he can communicate with alien spacecraft. Snooper failed to address the fact that Kucinich made no mention of any spacecraft or aliens. Snooper fails to mention the real possibility that, like many military aircraft pilots, Kucinich saw something flying that he could not identify. Moreover, Snooper did not indicate the fact that Kucinich disavowed actress Shirley MacClaine’s suggestion that he was communicating or taking instructions from what he saw.

In addition, Snooper did not discuss the underlying rhetoric of Russert’s question.While it is within Russert’s right to ask Kucinich questions to probe his mental fitness for the office of president, it is important to understand how his question implicitly reframes Kucinich as mentally unstable. Russert could have asked the question without prejudice, but in his manner of moderation, Russert appears to have prejudged Kucinich. It is important to remember that Russert did not ask further questions to probe for Kucinich’s sanity, to allow Kucinich to fully respond to his rhetorical question.Instead of addressing Snooper’s assumption or assumptions which underly CNN’s rationale for political censorship, the author of the article, Susan Duclos, laughs at Snoopers comment and then proceeds to justify CNN’s political censorship. Duclos writes,

“LOL, I will admit that hell froze over and pigs flew when I actually agreed with Kucinich about the loyalty oath case, but otherwise, he and his team are spending more time in court and filing complaints than they are on issues. Some people just do not catch fire, their numbers reflect it and as the field gets narrowed, this is what happens.”

In her comment, Duclos assumes that by filing complaints to the FCC, Kucinich is not spending time on important issues. Apparently Duclos does not think that a potentially unfair election is an important issue. Duclos admits that she does not agree with Kucinich’s decision to reject the Democratic Party’s mandated loyalty oath, which requires him to vote for whomever the Democratic party nominates. Because Dennis refused to vote for a Democratic nominee who supports war, he has been removed from the ballot in Texas. To add injury to insult, a Texas judge maintained Kucinich’s illegal exclusion:

Here we see that the Democratic Party has violated our most basic democratic right: the right to vote. The Democratic Party has denied Dennis Kucinich this right, and is punishing him for not signing an unlawful contract, one which alienates his inalienable right to vote freely. Of course, as Jesse Jackson Jr., has pointed out, the right to vote is NOT in the U.S. Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, or any of its other amendments, but is only protected by judicial precedent. I think that one can make the case, if we must, that there is language in the U.S. Constitution that does protect our right to vote. The 15th Amendment provides:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

As we reflect on the meaning of this provision, we realize that it does not just apply to race-based slavery, but that it addresses the condition of servitude in general. The amendment does not just apply to involuntary servitude, but all forms of servitude, including voluntary servitude, such as employment and pro bono work. Kucinich is serving his country as a Democrat. He is paid by the taxpayers and does pro bono work advertising the Democratic Party. Although he volunteers his service to the Democratic Party, he is under no obligation to vote according to the demands of the Democratic Party. The 15th Amendment prevents the Democratic Party’s attempt to abridge Kucinich’s right to vote as he sees fit.

Duclos also suggests that it is acceptable for CNN to exclude Kucinich because he is not sufficiently popular. However, Duclos fails to acknowledge the fact that popularity and notoriety are highly correlated with media exposure, and that participation in the debates is a major way in which people learn about the candidates. It is not clear that Kucinich’s numbers would be as low as they are if he had an opportunity to participate in the televised debates. Moreover, even if his numbers were low and he did not “catch fire”, he still deserves an equal opportunity to participate in televised debates because corporations do not have the authority to prejudge the outcome of an election, even if they are using polls to predict the election. While it may be improbable for Kucinich to win, he still has a chance and that chance is and must be protected by the law.