OntheWilderSide

from firedoglake

Clearly, according to the Democratic Leadership, Ralph stepped over the line in 2000 when he became a presidential candidate. As the meme goes, he split the Democratic vote just enough to allow George Bush to be appointed president and we all know how horrible that turned out. I will confess, I was pulled into that meme. Forgive me Ralph, for I knew not what I did. But like many liberals at the time, we were “looking through a glass darkly,” seeing only what was so obvious on the surface. Many of us have now fallen through the rabbit hole so artfully concealed from our view for years by the DLC, the DCCC and the DSCC, and we emerged in 2009 with the realization that there is indeed very little difference between the two parties and that corporate interests rule the Democrats ever so much as they do the Republicans.  How else could a large majority of the country favor a strong public option, but not see even a weak one in the apparent final HCR bill? How else could we also have a bill without drug re-importation to lower pharmaceutical costs to the public? Well, the reason, as we know now, is that the Obama Administration, with the approval of the Democratic leadership, fashioned a series of deals with Big PHarma and AHIP to scuttle these pro-middle class measures in order to sustain and strengthen the interests of the health industry stakeholders and their own re-election status through corporate sponsorship. This is all being done with the aid of the FDA, which is actively generating propaganda warnings of great safety hazards associated with importing and reimporting drugs (see Gilbert Ross’s article in the WSJ for a neo-liberal but rightwing take on the virtues of drug-reimportation cost savings: yes it would reduce costs but the drug companies should not be stuck with funding their own research).

Filed under: election, elections, grassroots democracy, Green Party, News Tagged: | Ralph Nader