Voting for US President from any county in Illinois except Cook County is mostly a waste of time. Cook County basically dictates where all of Illinois’ electoral votes will go and Cook County favors any Democrat regardless of what that Democrat stands for. So despite Sen. Obama’s sabre-rattling against Iran

[T]he big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures [to stop its nuclear program], including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point … if any, are we going to take military action?

[L]aunching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in” given the ongoing war in Iraq. “On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse.

Barack Obama, September 26, 2004 to the Chicago Tribune

Obama will probably do well in Illinois (his hometown appeal probably plays well too). Obama also argued that attacking Pakistan shouldn’t be ruled out if “violent Islamic extremists” were to “take over”.

I just learned that Nader has entered the 2008 race (BBC, MSNBC transcript) so, barring any substantive change in his politics, I now know for whom I’m voting in this race. Nader’s got a great record including being for single-payer universal health care, against the war, and not threatening Iran. I’m sold.

It’s a shame the next major stage of the rigging of the US election will kick in: excluding anyone but Demopublicans from the TV “debates”. It’s a good thing the US airwaves aren’t owned by the American people or we’d really look like chumps.

Related: Chris Hedges on Ralph Nader: what happened in 2000 and 2004

Sen. Clinton (D-NY) and John Edwards (former Democratic Party senator from North Carolina) got what they wanted—Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) announced today he was dropping his presidential bid. The corporate media mentions Kucinich’s name now chiefly to draw attention to his competitors for his House seat; no need to let issues like challenging the Iraq occupation, threatening Iran, corporate hegemony, or the ongoing lack of fairness in mass media get in the way of covering a horse race that might rid the media of an agitant.

Now the Progressive Left is free to support their favorite pro-war, anti-universal single-payer health care candidate of their choice without interference from the “not serious” candidates…again…just like they did in 2004. Rather than object about poor choices by organizing for a third party or independent candidate who reflects the values they claim to hold (the values they go on about 3 years out of every 4), they can rationalize their Democratic Party vote by arguing the margins of difference between the remaining Democratic Party candidates. They can tell us how important this election will be, despite how worse the same indicators will be in 4 years as a result of consistently voting the least worst. No need for a grass-roots campaign of birddogging every candidate who voted for the Iraq war and the Iran resolution, no need to hound one’s elected officials to co-sponsor and vote for HR676 (the Conyers-Kucinich single-payer universal health care plan).

And what do you know: the New York Times accurately “projected” back in July 2007 who would be left in the Democratic Party race: Clinton, Edwards, and Obama. It’s a good thing the other Democratic Party contenders with something different to offer weren’t excluded from any of the televised “debates” (high-bandwidth audio, low-bandwidth audio, video—currently unavailable, transcript), or else it would be too obvious that the corporate media is trying to manage the election, rigging the choices to guarantee a corporate-friendly outcome.

Sherry Wolf on why the Left can’t support Ron Paul is an engaging read, particularly advised for those who support Ron Paul’s policies. I think everyone who wants to run should be allowed to run, and I support Ron Paul’s attempt to overcome needlessly difficult ballot access requirements. But I’m not willing to trade away the things I want for ending the war in Iraq (including single-payer universal health care which would be anathema to a “small government” advocate like Paul). Joshua Frank’s single-issue take on Ron Paul’s candidacy doesn’t explain how much we would lose by ending the war and taking on the policies Wolf highlights in her piece.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert break union solidarity and return to their TV shows—that’s not the headline any of the pro-corporate news outlets puts on this story but they should. The Huffington Post’s comments summarize the reactions I’ve seen to this: apparently it’s okay to chastise late-night talk show host Carson Daly for having new shows during this writer’s strike, it’s not okay to chastise Stewart/Colbert because they host “funny” shows that don’t “blow” unlike Daly’s show.

So while Viacom is trying to convince the strikers that there’s no money in “new media”, Viacom sued YouTube for a billion dollars.

Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon cover the worst of journalism this year in the sixteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes including Jeff Greenfield’s health care coverage post-SiCKO:

Reflecting what became mainstream media’s conventional wisdom in the wake of Michael Moore’s “SiCKO” documentary, CBS correspondent Greenfield explained that the U.S. lacks a universal healthcare system not because of the powerful insurance lobby — but because “Americans are just different.” He quoted an academic who said Americans, unlike Canadians and Europeans, don’t want government involvement in healthcare: “It’s a cultural difference.”

Actually, CBS’s own poll of Americans had found 64 percent supporting the view that the federal government should “guarantee health insurance for all” — with 60 percent approving of higher taxes to pay for it. A CNN poll found 64 percent American support for the idea that “government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes.”

The Globe and Mail tells us:

Earlier today, Industry Canada, a ministry of the federal government, released a surprising study of peer-to-peer file-sharing on the music industry.

The study is called The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada, and was written by Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, of the Department of Management at the University of London in England.

Its conclusion: P2P file-sharing does not put downward pressure on purchasing music, as the music industry has insisted for years. In fact, it does just the opposite: It tends to increase music purchasing.

The study also can find “no direct evidence to suggest that the net effect of P2P file sharing on CD purchasing is either positive or negative for Canada as a whole”. The study notes that

Among Canadians who engage in P2P file-sharing, our results suggest that for every 12 P2P downloaded songs, music purchases increase by 0.44 CDs. That is, downloading the equivalent of approximately one CD increases purchasing by about
half of a CD.

This is radically different than what the proponents of digital restrictions management (DRM) tell us.

This study follows on an earlier Canadian Heritage sponsored study which also, according to Michael Geist, “refused to blame P2P for the industry’s problems”.

The Andersen-Frenz study says that P2P file sharing is often used as a previewing service (estimates about half of P2P users do this) and to make up for something that’s not available elsewhere (same study estimated 25%).

Related Links

• The Andersen-Frenz study (including a PDF copy) (local copy of PDF)
• more on this from Michael Geist