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TechnoratiA Couple of Political Morsels to Chew On
The folks at Politico have a couple of intriguing stories posted.
"Politico has learned that tomorrow Americans United for Change, a liberal group, will begin airing radio ads in three states Obama won - Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada - with a tough question aimed at the GOP senators there: Will you side with Obama or Rush Limbaugh?
"Every Republican member of the House chose to take Rush Limbaugh's advice," says the narrator after playing the conservative talk radio giant's declaration that he hopes Obama "fails."
"Every Republican voted with Limbaugh - and against creating 4 million new American jobs. We can understand why a extreme partisan like Rush Limbaugh wants President Obama's jobs program to fail - but the members of Congress elected to represent the citizens in their districts? That's another matter. Now the Obama plan goes to the Senate, and the question is: Will our Senator"-here the ad is tailored by state to name George Voinovich in Ohio, Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, and John Ensign in Nevada-"side with Rush Limbaugh too?"
I think that's pretty well played. I doubt it will have much impact, but it's smart politics nonetheless. Casting it as a choice between Obama - with a 65 percent approval rating in the new Fox poll, and only 16 percent disapproval - and the controversial Limbaugh is a nice touch.
"Senate sources say that President Barack Obama is considering New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg for the still-open Commerce secretary slot - a possibility that could give Democrats the 60-vote margin in the Senate that they weren't able to win at the polls in November.
Asked whether he'd been offered the Commerce job, Gregg told Politico: "I am not at liberty to discuss that."
"I wouldn't want to see him leave the Senate," said Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "That's a pretty sneaky move - get a really good person as Commerce secretary and then put us in a bind politically."
NH has a Democratic governor who would likely name a Democrat to replace Gregg. And as Politico points out, Gregg's up for reelection in 2010 in a state trending blue, and has recently spoken well of Obama.
16 Comments so far
Show AllPresident Obama needs to get to the root of the lies that have spread over the land like the floods of Katrina, and have submerged all in its path.
After having Clinton impeached for lies, America became nothing but lies.
Wherein the justice?
That the latest round of lies in the so called bail out of American banks where no one knows where the money is, or went, and replenishment is meant to be the remedy, the lies become not falsehoods but crimes.
At least, that is what the entire population of America is taught to believe from kindergarten on. Only through government and banking is America subjected to the new set of standards that precludes basic values, and glorifies deception.
President Obama's administration is doomed if he cannot get to the truth quickly enough to salvage what was already a train wreck when he took the oath of office. Extricating himself from the mess would be the most reasonable, and most expected method he could take to salvage what is left of his Presidency to prevent the noble spirit from being buried by those ignoble in their creation.
If justice lies for his supporters and constituents, whomever those happen to be, they deserve the respect that he can afford them by fulfilling their desired prophecy. Without doing that, he becomes a mere clanging bell amongst the others that so woefully destroy American and watch it rot.
Obama just launched a Middle Class Task Force today. How odd for a "House Negro"!
And like I've been saying, the media have been allowing the radical right more air time than ever. Limbaugh was just on MSNBC crowing about not being the leader of the Republican Party. No, he was just anointing Sarah Palin that divine right.
http://davedubya.com
Another political morsel to chew on, it is interesting to note how the left is constantly pointing to the principal of free speech to justify their actions but object to the opposition getting any chance to voice their side. The left adores MSNBC where the conservative voice rarely gets to be heard. But they love to listen to the Olbermann triplets present their one sided views of every issue. At the same time they will ridicule Fox where both sides are usually presented. Most of the lefties do not have the courage to debate the issues with the likes of O'Reilly because they tend to lose the debate.
Rick.ruskin January 31st, 2009 9:34 am, to put it as politely as I can, you're out of your tree. MSNBC prominently features a morning show with Joe Scarborough, and Pat Buchanan pops up everywhere except on Olbermann's show, along with Ron Christie and other right-wingers. The 'conservative voice' is heard loud and clear on MSNBC.
You wrote: "Most of the lefties do not have the courage to debate the issues with the likes of O'Reilly because they tend to lose the debate."
Actually, O'Reilly, as well as cowards such as Rushbo, don't allow anyone who might give them a run for their money in debate on their shows. O'Reilly critic Media Matters.org has been trying to get on The O'Reilly Factor for years, but his producers freeze them out. Then the lying Billo goes on and says they are afraid to debate him on-air. Maybe one of these days you'll figure out these people are lying to you every time they open their mouths.
"O'Reilly frequently denounces "cowards" who refuse to face him on-air, saying, for example, "If you attack someone publicly, as these men did to me, you have an obligation to face the person you are smearing. If you don't, you are a coward." But O'Reilly has repeatedly attacked Media Matters while refusing Media Matters President and CEO David Brock's request to appear on The O'Reilly Factor."
-- Media Matters, April 2005.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200508190008
"Bill O’Reilly is really riled over Media Matters. The Fox News host has called the watchdog media group “far-left” "paid assassins," "smear merchants," and "character assassins." He has compared Media Matters to Klansmen, Maoists, and Nazis. O'Reilly said Media Matters employees are "vile, despicable ankle-biters" who "listen to every word" of his program and then use his words "out of context" and "feeds stuff to the mainstream media to discredit me." O’Reilly even went so far as to proclaim that the "despicable weasels" at Media Matters are "the most vile, despicable human beings in the country." Those are very serious allegations that O’Reilly makes regarding Media Matters, a group that prides itself on objectivity and factuality as opposed to name calling and posturing.
"In response, last December, the CEO of Media Matters, David Brock, wrote O’Reilly and reiterated his willingness to appear on Fox to address the allegations. Yet despite that and several other offers by the folks at Media Matters, O’Reilly continues to attack them but will not accept their repeated offers to respond live on television to his accusations."
-- Richard Mathis, "Will Bill O'Reilly Ever Face Media Matters?" OpEdNews, May 20, 2006.
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/page.php?a=17594
Ah , coffee with Joe , where all the great minds meet in the morning when no one is watching, and Pat Buchanan is a new addition having been added just in the last few months. Even Tom Brokaw, a liberal himself was so appalled by the biased coverage of Chris and Keith that he had them yanked from the election coverage until after the election. Since you are quoting media matters, I doubt that you ever watch Fox just like most left wingers who proudly proclaim that they have never watched them and never will. But they hate O'Reilly and Fox just the same, a very mature attitude indeed. That is the difference between me and you, I actually tune in the Olbermann triplets and have based my opinion on what I see and hear from them. I have never heard an opposing point of view on Olbermanns show, never. I had to laugh as I listened to Chris Matthews rant and rave after Bush's farewell speech, speaking of him as a rich kid driving his daddy's car. Has he looked at his beloved democrats lately, they are the wealthiest of our politicians. And many would not have their prominent positions without family connections that came before them. That was another criticism he leveled at Bush. I thought that Matthews was going to foam at the mouth at any moment. We can do without the likes of all of the MSNBC crew. And that goes doubly for media matters.
Rick.ruskin February 2nd, 2009 11:46 pm, actually, you're talking out of your hat here -- I have watched O'Reilly and Fox News. Fortunately, my tolerance for swill is low, so I usually can't stay tuned for long.
But, since you're criticizing Media Matters and Olbermann, let's review the accuracy of Fox and O'Reilly over the past eight years:
-- They were wrong about WMD in Iraq.
-- They were wrong about the length of the occupation of Iraq.
-- They were wrong about the strength and military capabilities of the Iraqi insurgents. (They even denied the insurgency was happening at first.)
-- They were wrong about Ahmed Chalabi, who turned out to be providing information to Iran.
-- They were wrong about Pat Tillman's death.
-- They were stupendously wrong about the economy.
-- They were wrong about the torture Bush and Cheney have since admitted to -- O'Reilly initially denied it happened and said it was the invention of sick fringe-left minds to bash the Bush administration.
-- They were wrong in asserting Obama was a Muslim.
-- They were wrong in questioning the legality of Obama's presidency based on a few fumbled words during his swearing-in ceremony. (In fact, the law states the new president takes office at Noon on January 20, with or without being sworn in.)
-- O'Reilly, much to the anger of vets and their families, wrongfully claimed that German troops were massacred at Malmedy in WWII by US forces. In fact, and you can easily check this for yourself, it was the other way around: American troops were brutally gunned down at Malmedy by the Nazis. O'Reilly has never apologized for getting this wrong.
I could go on, but there is a 1,000 word limit.
Neither Media Matters nor Keith Olbermann has been as plain wrong on these and other important subjects as has O'Reilly and Fox News.
You can believe any fantasies you want (until reality rears its ugly head), but the truth is that over 4,000 Americans are dead and tens of thousands permanently disabled, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraq casualties, thanks in large part to the lies spread by O'Reilly and Fox.
Media Matters and Olbermann didn't get anyone killed or wounded based on their information.
R S J,
Thank you for the fine rebuttal to Rick.ruskin.
The hidden artistry of "our" corporape of America jacka$$ $ewer Main $tream Media propaganda machine is how seamless and tightly integrated it wraps up those true believers, who are also so warmly enfolded -- while being entranced and gullibly lead to slaughter. The technological precision is intricate, expansive, and cleverly dynamically ( multilevel perceptions ) adapting to regional, collective, and systematic perceptions ( and countering responses, … ).
I suspect that a future tipping point will be established when a large enough fraction of Americans finally discover for themselves -- through their own personal tribulations -- that the M$M has been enslaving them with treacherous lies and illusions.
There really is no better teacher than personal experience, although those really willing to learn have a much enhanced opportunity to skip ahead of the maddening crowd.
This is contrasted to those who's actual repeated life experiences are still not enough for them to learn, many who will be seen dragging their entire body ( and possessions ) against the rising current and tide.
We can at best lead them to the watering hole, and laud the virtues of its refreshing drink -- to relieve the weight of their lives excess baggage covering their true selves -- and to then frolic is the pure peaceful loving consciousness of ALL that IS.
Namaste
Thanks, npwr.luv February 1st, 2009 1:31 am. Ever since the days of Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays convincing nasty old skinflint John D. Rockefeller to hand out dimes to children to improve his public image (while he continued to screw the public blue behind the scenes), we have generations of hucksters and behaviorists working hard to perfect the 'art' of marketing shit in silk hose and getting the public to take for granted, and even enjoy, the stench of it.
When Nixon hired LA advertising exec H.L. Haldeman to run his campaign in 1968, things came full circle, the final uniting of pure corporate balderdash to presidential politics, with Haldeman selling the 'new' Dick, a smiley character who would show up on 'Laugh In' to chuckle "Sock it to me!" and appear in several supposedly unrehearsed televised 'public forums' where the audience was handpicked and the questions and answers prepared in advance. With that scripted phoniness, the presidential candidate became indistinguishable from the Tidy-Bowl man, albeit harder to flush, yet the media barely covered that most important aspect of the '68 election – the 'new' Nixon was a nothing but a fraud composed of clever marketing gimmicks.
Since then, we've steadily descended into a steaming pit of media horse pucky, leading to a half-sentient B-actor regurgitating his old movie lines from the '30s and '40s to win elections. After the sainthood of Reagan was established by the Big Media, regardless of his real popularity when leaving the White House and the Iran/Contra scandal, we've been sold increasingly surreal cartoons for public office, usually in 30-second clips that have nothing to do with the issues, culminating in the installation of Little King Junior, a self-confessed 'media creation' from the fetid brain of Enema of the People Karl Rove, as our president. An endless septic sludge of half-truths, innuendoes, smears and outright lies has polluted and confused the public discourse thanks to these sleazy unscrupulous malefactors, but I think the flow is coming to an end. They have lost all credibility with the majority.
Incidentally, I think Obama is trying to gradually dial us back to reality, but even he had to engage in some of this PR blather to get elected.
You wrote: "There really is no better teacher than personal experience, although those really willing to learn have a much enhanced opportunity to skip ahead of the maddening crowd."
The silver lining of our economic collapse is that it has provided most Americans with the clear sight they've been lacking for the past 29 years. Like our parents and grandparents during the Great Depression, it's pretty hard to tell someone that a tax cut for the rich will help them when they're losing their job and home. Of course, that won't stop the GOP and its Merry Marketeers from trying but, according to the polls, only about 22 percent are buying these days.
You wrote: "We can at best lead them to the watering hole, and laud the virtues of its refreshing drink -- to relieve the weight of their lives excess baggage covering their true selves -- and to then frolic is the pure peaceful loving consciousness of ALL that IS."
Oh, I see them at the watering holes all the time – those that can still afford to buy a drink. The rest are cursing and shaking their fists at the sky in the privacy of their own homes – if they still have one. This was the anger the right-wing kleptocrats exploited relentlessly against the liberals – now it is being turned back on them in waves of disgust with the reign of Emperor George the Dunce. I may be a skeptic, but I still hold out hope that intelligence will win over ignorance, kindness will best selfishness, love will defeat fear, and peace will conquer war. I just wonder if I'll live to see it.
R S J,
We've much in common being both skeptics as well as overall optimists for the future of humankind.
With advancing PSYOPS techniques and massively illegal collusion of corporate "marketing" expertise being paid for through taxpayers -- we've reached such a low point in collective morality, that too many Americans now & still ( at least publicly ) are sold on the idea that greed, selfishness, fear, and war are the OK means to justify eventually positive ends.
What's a guy to do now days to support his/her family, w/o swilling from the trough of the corporape war mongering machinery ?
This stingy thinking is gradually opening up, as personal experience becomes undeniable, and bedrock morality held too long only in private, can resurface in to the clean air and minds of those committed to making better choices.
Yes Barak Obama elucidates a growing trend to thwart the salacious and malicious mendacity of petty shrubishness ( "Little King Junior" ) and I also hope to see the transformation myself.
Part of my current mindset is that things have yet to reach the required nadir of despondency -- that is needed to cripple the M$M's entrainment of people's perception and consciousness. People will make the choices that they can "see" to make, and with the election results so close with McShame -- I fear that more than half of Americans have yet to awaken sufficiently to "see" a different reality.
That is, a "new perceived" reality sufficiently enough different to make collective change incumbent and a natural outgrowth of awareness -- eventually a self-sustaining and emergent process.
I see this progressing like in physics with phase transition of a LASER, a quantum population inversion which "knows" coherently which way to go ( zapp ! ) . The real rub is creating that equivalent "pumping process" ( to a highly energized & unbalanced state ) that eventually avalanches with cascades of new meaning, which brings enough of the population to the needed new synergistic awareness.
We ( the non-linear synchronistic ~ 10 % ) must descend into the abyss to catch the wave of transformation that then catches and drags along the rest of society, in a high amplified "phase transition" of real change.
Please come and ride the wave with me.
Namaste
npwr.luv February 1st, 2009 2:18 pm, I'll give a little more detailed response later, if you'd like, but here's the shorthand:
-- PsyOPs and other techniques all have their limits -- again, reality intrudes, as it has on the GOP experiment in American Disaster Capitalism (I'm sure you've read Naomi Klein's thesis) the past eight years. Just in my neighborhood, I've seen some of the so-called blue-collar 'Reagan Democrats' go from post-9/11 support for Bush to utter contempt for all things Republican. Mainly this was due to his bumbling on the economy, a failure that can't be hidden as it affects us in everyday life. Conservatism, generally speaking, is an indulgence for good times, the kind of good times created by the programs of progressives like FDR. When the GOP's in power and things go sour, as they always do, blaming the 'lib'ruls' becomes as ludicrous as blaming Obama, after two days in office, for Bush's depression.
-- It's hard to get off the corporate teat, but times are changing and I think the multi-national mega-corporation is as dead as the dodo. In order to survive, these corporations will have to split up into smaller units, more friendly to the consumer and the environment. Just as racism is gradually dying out across the land, so is the era of Big Box Capitalism.
-- We might very well be in a transitional period as profound as the Age of Enlightenment. It's hard to tell when you're in the midst of the shift, but all of the indications are there.
You wrote: "Part of my current mindset is that things have yet to reach the required nadir of despondency -- that is needed to cripple the M$M's entrainment of people's perception and consciousness. People will make the choices that they can "see" to make, and with the election results so close with McShame -- I fear that more than half of Americans have yet to awaken sufficiently to "see" a different reality."
I think things will get worse before they get better, but people are feeling the pain in different ways and in varying degrees. (The poor and lower middle class, of course, in worse shape than the upper middle class.) Still, when even the rich are losing as much money as they have the past two years, and with the influence of Wall Street and the WTO waning, you can confidently predict that 'a change is gonna come.' Incidentally, I have read that the GOP tried to steal the 2008 election through computer fraud but the turn out for Obama was so overwhelming they couldn't manage it. He may have actually won by 20 million rather than 8 million popular votes and some of those states, like Republican-run MO, were very close.
-- Yes, these kinds of massive shifts in the public dynamic, in the way we think, may indeed, as Carl Jung asserted, have its roots in the changing of the collective unconsciousness, an organic process influenced by exterior events mixed with internal yearnings. This is the wave of transformation I think you're referring to, and, fortunately, there is nothing much the Power Elite can do to stop it (they aren't even aware it's happening) -- it's a change in the way the brain processes the information we call reality -- this is, I believe, the 'phase transition' that will bury the feckless neoconservative movement and render it as harmless and ridiculous as the flat earthers.
You wrote: "Please come and ride the wave with me."
Surf's up, npwr.luv!
Well boo hoo!
Very good reply indeed!
Mr. Obama is not doing the right thing, yet. He is not withdrawing from the phony war in Iraq and Afganhistan nor is he taking over insolvent banks.
The war and the bad banks have solutions, but those solutions hurt his masters, the rich and powerful. Mr. Obama's solutions do nothing for the country or the economy. To Mr. Obama, it is preferable that the "little guy" suffer, but not his master.
If you don't know it by now, Mr. Obama is a House Negro.
MALCOLM X: THE HOUSE NEGRO AND THE FIELD NEGRO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQ
Some people may find this offensive. But it is curious that the facts cause such turmoil.
hoytdouglas January 30th, 2009 9:36 am, dear me, I do believe we have a full-blown racist right here at Common Dreams, Scarlett.
Tell me, does it ever get hot under that pointy hood, young man?
I am with you Hoyt, and so are all real Liberals. Obama is just another front man for the high finance military welfare state boys.
All the fake liberals take it as some kind of done deal that the new bailout will revive the economy. None seem to wonder how more debt will solve a problem of to much debt. Do you cure an alcoholic by giving him a case of vodka?
Then there is the three trillion dollar deficit for 2009. Can anyone tell me where this money will come from? Not to mention 46 states facing bankruptcy.
CHANGE! or as The Who said, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
hoytdouglas
Please check back....http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/30