Thank you, Boston Media Consortium, for Your Gift to Democracy!

 

Just when the Supreme Court has extended First Amendment rights to corporations to spend unlimited sums of money to influence elections, media corporations are actively limiting the rights of ballot-qualified candidates and their supporters (and would-be supporters) to unfiltered information about their choices on the ballot. At a time when ordinary people are facing devastating personal and economic crises, and when our government institutions are strained to the max, these media institutions should be expanding the public debate over the issues that are critical to our future. By limiting that debate to candidates who can raise large sums of money, they are effectively creating a two-tiered democracy -- one for the haves and one for the have-nots. While our system of government has always favored the well-connected few, it is rare when institutions like The Boston Globe, WBUR, WGBH, and NECN make it so explicit.

 

It is no coincidence that these media institutions are looking to tighten the reins on our political discourse at this moment. Our nation and our Commonwealth are in the middle of a years-long crisis. And there is one candidate who is speaking honestly about the multifaceted emergency and the common sense solutions that are being kept off the table by vested interests. That one candidate, Green-Rainbow Party nominee Jill Stein, is an inconvenient truth for the corporate sponsors of our democracy. The three business-as-usual candidates Deval Patrick, Charlie Baker, and Tim Cahill, don't have an answer to her powerful critique. By limiting the debate to three status-quo defenders who are part and parcel of a rotten political system, the system is protected. But the voters don't have any stake in protecting such a rotten system, so the self-appointed media gatekeepers must take caution to hide Stein and her ideas under the rug. 

 

But democracy, and a rational response by the electorate, demand that her ideas be given some standing in the process, regardless of how much money she raises. In the open competition over ideas and values that any functional political process would create, Stein's contributions would sink or swim on their own merits. At a time of crisis, pain, and fear such as the one we are in at the moment, it is even more important that different political perspectives get a fair hearing. 

 

Thanks to a spurt of voter outrage and a growing hope for a transformative independent candidacy, Jill Stein's fundraising has turned a corner. She will almost assuredly qualify for the Boston Media Consortium's two debates, despite the obstacles placed in her path, such as the three radio debates that have already excluded her.

 

But there is a new hurdle that Stein's campaign is fighting to overcome --  qualifying for public matching funds. The fast-approaching deadline for Stein's campaign to raise $125,000 in qualifying contributions is this Friday, September 24th. If she reaches that threshold, Massachusetts voters might be looking at a fully-funded clean-money campaign that can fight the good fight for democracy itself, and all the common sense public-interest reforms that come with it.

 

Please visit DemocracyDays.com and donate $10 today to help build the clean money tidal wave that can ensure the one voice of ordinary people in this election is given a fair hearing leading up to November 2nd. It's one way to take matters into our own hands, to ensure that media gatekeepers don't get the final say, and that it truly is the people who decide on election day.

 

Eli Beckerman is Fundraising Director of the Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts.