US Elections: The Press should stop pimping prejudice
"Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?", that was the headline of a Maureen Dowd column in the New York Times. Big media is perverting the US democratic process. The sexist coverage of Clinton's tears was prejudicial and beyond the pale. The Press must be told to knock it off. Hillary Clinton's win in New Hampshire was incredible. The performance of the press corps in the last couple of days, unfortunately, was not. Journalists have been replaced by a punditocracy that makes its living (and gets its kicks) by perverting the US democratic process. The misogyny that was unleashed by the media's feeding frenzy on the video of an exhausted Clinton tearing up at a small New Hampshire round-table of voters was just the tip of the iceberg.
Whether we agree or not with Clinton on the issues, the assault on her candidacy based on gender is unacceptable. So too is biased and uninformed commentary on the minority status of other candidates (Obama's ethnicity, Romney's religion, or McCain's age, to name just three). To be clear, we are not endorsing any candidate. This is not about who the US Citizens choose for president, but rather how they choose their next leader. Voting based on sexist logic propagated by corporate media monopolies is no way to select a candidate. The US is at a critical juncture. A sober citizenry must make informed decisions about who will lead the US in addressing more crises than any previous generation has faced: global warming, unending war in Iraq, and multiple constitutional crises.
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