Alternative voices.

Editor,

If mainstream media identifies Sarah Palin as the standard bearer for disillusioned populists, all of whom -- left, right, and center -- becoming by implication fringe elements, then all is lost.

Washington, and for that matter many state governments, is in the hands -- meaning the pockets -- of precisely those giant corporations that are currently engaged in giving the final twist to the knife they have been thrusting into America's heart over the last 30 years.

The only way the American people can save our republic is to run citizen candidates -- informed, empathetic citizen candidates -- for office at every level of government. But this Palin distraction, equating populism with looniness, drives alternative voices even further from the front page and undercuts the legitimacy of viable challengers from outside of the corporate-political establishment.

re: "The Pit Bull in the China Shop" (11/22/2009)