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John McCain's 2000 campaign for president was nicknamed the "Straight Talk Express." The theory was that he was going to give people what everyone assumes they might want: a politician that speaks frankly and truthfully about the government. He failed to do so in 2000 and lost his parties nomination. He's running again in 2008, and again he's failing spectacularly to live up to his campaigns moniker. It was kind of to be expected, since he was a politician, but still it's still a sorry reflection on our political climate. Even a terrible ordeal in a Viet Cong prisoner of war camp couldn't persuade someone to be honest to their constituents.

This is a very old story, and shouldn't need any recap, but it has relevance today because finally stark contrast exists in the form of former Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel. I'll admit that I did not know who he was, either, going into the democratic debate aired by NBC (a debate they tried to control in a strong-arm maneuver). He spoke a bit of truth, which was actually quite surprising, and started stirring up all this interest all over the internet. It's really interesting, but 2004 has shown us that this doesn't really translate to the polls as well as it should (Dean was destroying online, but failed to win the primaries).

A lot has been made on the diversity of the democratic candidates. The front runners are an African American male and a female. The most diversity you get on the republican side is a Mormon. But that's not the real diversity that we need in the political system. People don't understand that the issues of yesterday are alive today: the real diversity you need in political candidates is economic diversity. You need a Eugene Debs, you need working class citizens to run and to gain notoriety. Gravel has been able to run on a shoestring using his (impressive) congressional record to garner support until the explosion in interest from the debate.

But even given this, there's something that doesn't ring right with Gravel. He doesn't seem to command many facts to support his rhetoric, however much I agree with him. He is undoubtedly a skilled (gifted, probably) politician and political strategist, given his record, and we align on many things. But he's for a so called "Fair Tax" and a repeal of the income tax, which seems to fly in the face of the working class. The fair tax is an incredibly regressive flat sales tax with a rebate system that will undoubtedly become more trouble than the current IRS.

There's a lot more I want to add, but frankly I can't bring myself to add it all. I can't place myself within the framework of this laughable "race" and these laughable "debates". The biggest difference between the republicans is how eager they are to jump directly up ex-president Ronald Reagans ass and throw a parade. Oh, and one of them wants to fire homosexuals, another one might not maybe perhaps be pro-life sometimes.

The democratic institution in this country is beyond repair. The economic system that we are using has failed to provide the people of the world with the basic necessities for survival; it's not even enough for our people. Smart people I know flock to libertarian ideals without thinking about how these ideals impact those among us (in the human race) who are not fortunate enough to start with anything.

There are a lot of interesting philosophical questions I still struggle with. Is democracy really democracy as long as you have capitalism; isn't there a more democratic way to deal with the wealth of a company? Our money supply is built entirely off of loan interest payments and debt; is this good, bad, or neither? Is ownership theft? Government has the power to help people (socialism), but it also, without fail, becomes tyranny (see: human history); is there a way to leverage the power of governments safely?

These questions are not anywhere near the discourse in this country; in fact, if they aren't laughed at, they are dismissed as nearly treasonous. As Mitt Romney said, and I paraphrase, "America is the greatest country in the world and Americans are the greatest people in the world." You can't buy this kind of denial. While his hero lowered taxes and increased spending dramatically (on the military), our infrastructure has fallen into disarray. Roads in New Jersey are in worse shape than roads in Egypt, education here is worse than nations with less assets than any one of our top corporations, and our once beautiful environment is being destroyed in the name of logging, oil, factory farming; any one of the rapacious industries that, guided by capitalism, value short term profit over long term sustainability.

But you just can't talk about it. Gravel can't either, because the discourse is framed by the media and the government to dismiss this discussion as ludicrous. I hate to be contrarian, but is it really?