Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiBuying Brand Obama
Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to reinflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus.
Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country. Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different, but brands that are different. Brand Obama does not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush. The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with risqué art and progressive politics. It gave their products an edge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand with an experience.
"The abandonment of the radical economic foundations of the women's and civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to be called political correctness successfully trained a generation of activists in the politics of image, not action," Naomi Klein wrote in "No Logo."
Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a brand. He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate, lacked any moral core and could be painted as all things to all people. His brief Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate interests. He was happy to promote nuclear power as "green" energy. He voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872. He refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676, sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. He supported the death penalty. And he backed a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action Fairness Act, would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits and deny redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporate challenges.
While Gaza was being bombarded and hit with airstrikes in the weeks before Obama took office, "the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs' and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel," according to Seymour Hersh. Even his one vaunted anti-war speech as a state senator, perhaps his single real act of defiance, was swiftly reversed. He told the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 2004, that "there's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." And unlike anti-war stalwarts like Kucinich, who gave hundreds of speeches against the war, Obama then dutifully stood silent until the Iraq war became unpopular.
Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a marketer's dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertiser wants because of how they can make you feel.
Celebrity culture has leeched into every aspect of our culture, including politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called "junk politics." Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights. Junk politics personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. "It's impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America's optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture," DeMott noted. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes - "meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage." It redefines traditional values, tilting "courage toward braggadocio, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains." Junk politics "miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats from abroad. It's also given to abrupt unexplained reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating problems previously miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks at every turn to obliterate voters' consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their midst."
An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle and manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, earthquakes, untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks-these events play well on computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union negotiations and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal narratives or stimulating images. A governor who patronizes call girls becomes a huge news story. A politician who proposes serious regulatory reform, universal health care or advocates curbing wasteful spending is boring. Kings, queens and emperors once used their court conspiracies to divert their subjects. Today cinematic, political and journalistic celebrities distract us with their personal foibles and scandals. They create our public mythology. Acting, politics and sports have become, as they were during the reign of Nero, interchangeable.
In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek reality. Reality is complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion. We ask to be indulged and comforted by clichés, stereotypes and inspirational messages that tell us we can be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and prosperous, either because of our own attributes, or our national character, or because we are blessed by God. Reality is not accepted as an impediment to our desires. Reality does not make us feel good.
In his book "Public Opinion," Walter Lippmann distinguished between "the world outside and the pictures in our heads." He defined a "stereotype" as an oversimplified pattern that helps us find meaning in the world. Lippmann cited examples of the crude "stereotypes we carry about in our heads" of whole groups of people such as "Germans," "South Europeans," "Negroes," "Harvard men," "agitators" and others. These stereotypes, Lippmann noted, give a reassuring and false consistency to the chaos of existence. They offer easily grasped explanations of reality and are closer to propaganda because they simplify rather than complicate.
Pseudo-events-dramatic productions orchestrated by publicists, political machines, television, Hollywood or advertisers-however, are very different. They have, as Daniel Boorstin wrote in "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America," the capacity to appear real even though we know they are staged. They are capable, because they can evoke a powerful emotional response, of overwhelming reality and replacing reality with a fictional narrative that often becomes accepted truth. The unmasking of a stereotype damages and often destroys its credibility. But pseudo-events, whether they show the president in an auto plant or a soup kitchen or addressing troops in Iraq, are immune to this deflation. The exposure of the elaborate mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its fascination and its power. This is the basis of the convoluted television reporting on how effectively political campaigns and politicians have been stage-managed. Reporters, especially those on television, no longer ask if the message is true but if the pseudo-event worked or did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear real are relished and lauded. Those that fail to create a believable illusion are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. Those who succeed in politics, as in most of the culture, are those who create the brands and pseudo-events that offer the most convincing fantasies. And this is the art Obama has mastered.
A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure bits of data and trivia are used to bolster illusion and give it credibility or are discarded if they interfere with the message. The worse reality becomes-the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment skyrocket-the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe. This is the real danger of pseudo-events and why pseudo-events are far more pernicious than stereotypes. They do not explain reality, as stereotypes attempt to, but replace reality. Pseudo-events redefine reality by the parameters set by their creators. These creators, who make massive profits peddling these illusions, have a vested interest in maintaining the power structures they control.
The old production-oriented culture demanded what the historian Warren Susman termed character. The new consumption-oriented culture demands what he called personality. The shift in values is a shift from a fixed morality to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural values of thrift and moderation honored hard work, integrity and courage. The consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination and likability. "The social role demanded of all in the new culture of personality was that of a performer," Susman wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self."
The junk politics practiced by Obama is a consumer fraud. It is about performance. It is about lies. It is about keeping us in a perpetual state of childishness. But the longer we live in illusion, the worse reality will be when it finally shatters our fantasies. Those who do not understand what is happening around them and who are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they did not expect or foresee search desperately for saviors. They beg demagogues to come to their rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the Obama Brand. It effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft being carried out by our corporate state. These corporations, once they have stolen trillions in taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of millions of Americans bereft, bewildered and yearning for even more potent and deadly illusions, ones that could swiftly snuff out what is left of our diminished open society.
223 Comments so far
Show AllExactly.
I agree with the earlier poster.. we must all try to grow our own organic vegetables now, just like in Cuba..!
Re the second last para..
Maybe some of the wasted cyber space here has to do with the author waxing poetic.. a distinctive change of style.. perhaps his ghostwriter turned up..
I have followed Mr. Hedges writings during the election. Funny, but I don't recall him articulating this "New Boss = Old Boss cum different brand" during Pres. Obama's 'Rope a Dope' campaign strategy.
If he believes in what he says, He'd be a Ron Paul libertarian all the way.
"...consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination and likability."
Lickability?
" Heh! Wanna Lick Obama?"
No he means "Likeability"
It's inspiring to read the cacophony of voices and viewpoints expressed on this and a few other comment boards for CD; as Whitman (I think) might have said, I hear America singing when I read them. Democracy is not dead, for all that so many decry the encroachment of fascism on the land. What so many of the thinkers who express themselves hereon are proclaiming, each in her or his own way, is that "I shall not be branded." Label me if you will as a pessimist or optimist, a realistic or idealist---label me as you will---but I shall speak from the dictates of my heart and leave branding to the image-makers of our "leaders" who in fact are the least free of us all in their captivity in the shells of their brands.
Pelosi most likely needs to be replaced and outvoted.
We have so many issues to deal with in this time frame but back in the '60s our motto during the peace marches was "if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.." We need to be vocative, communicate daily with our representatives and hold them accountable to all the above concerns. Passive democracy doesn't work, helplessness doesn't work, but an active, involved, vocative electorate means that democracy and decent human values, from which our land was founded, will survive and evolve with lessons of the past always in mind.
Time for workers corps to rebuild America, recruit medical, dental, alternative health graduates and have them staff our public health clinics for 3-5 years in return for repaying their student loans. No American citizen should be without health care, a universal right in any democracy.
Help President Obama find his way through the mire, the obstructionists, the dark selfish minds in our country which Norman Cousins typified beautifully in his last interviews.
We need our old allies who are returning to our sides to help President Obama evolve the most enlightened international policies possible, including the litigation for the horrors of Mr. Cheney and his heathenistic tribe.
Fascism=Serfdom
Of course..............Create a 'tuition bubble' with cheap student loans.
Then make Doctors 'Serfs of the State' to pay back what they 'owe'.
Feudal fascism = 'Progressive' agenda
Maybe you need some Chris Hedges insight to see it.
I am glad someone is finally coming out calling a spade a spade. Obama is just another corporate product marketed to the masses through an ingenious advertising campaign. It's like the "fresh, home-made, hearty, healthful cuisine" in a can.
Bring America Back !!!!.............The Obama Brand of the campaign was truly one to behold==hope, promise, change !! That Brand is now an illusion and it only took 100 Days for Team Obama to back off most of the Dreamy Stuff !!
****The 100 Day Brand of Obama is a Cave-In Brand. Thus, when you finally get inside the Culture of Corruption in DC, you don't change it, you become engulfed by it and melt into it !!!
****The Beast of the Military-Industrial Complex rolls on, and on, and on !
***The best thing about Brand Obama now is that 100 Days really is too soon
to make solid predictions about his overall Term, and what it will bring !
**It is pretty obvious that, if Team Obama keeps going, as is, we will eventually know their brand as the Four Year Obama Brand, NOT the Eight Year Obama Brand !! LBJ learned the hard way; Jimmy Carter learned the hard way;
and Clinton probably spent 4 years wishing he did things differently.
"***The best thing about Brand Obama now is that 100 Days really is too soon
to make solid predictions about his overall Term, and what it will bring !"
"****The Beast of the Military-Industrial Complex rolls on, and on, and on !"
You betcha! And so do the illusions and delusions. Obama is the "Tony Robbins" of the MIC. You can "hold his feet to the fire" and hope all you want, it's not going to get any prettier. We didn't need 100 days to see how this might play out. The New World Order is mostly in place. The emergence of this bio-engineered "swine flu" hoax and a promise of a more seriously deadly "mutation" and recurrence in the fall and winter is one indication. Who knows what other atrocities they'll throw in on top of bioterrorism. Obama is just a good little clicking soldier in the cause of global fascism.
The thing I find remarkable about this site and it's commentary section is that it has no congruency, rhyme or reason. It is thought disorganized, desire scattered, with the enemy always lurking in the shadows. I think when we see congruency, order and light here in the comment section we can expect the same of our government.
yes, while I know my suggestion to return to agrarian life proactively, up to and including a Global Start Date of September 22, 2012 (to foster a spirit of meaningful, shared sacrifice), may appear naive or unrealistic, I would at least expect rational discussion on the pros and cons of such a plan, given the obvious destruction our planet is currently suffering due to our invasive, industrial activity, and the blatant dependence we have allowed ourselves to develop upon corporations for our very water, food and shelter...throw in the sinister sides of surveillance, technology and weaponry, and the future looks very shaky...
Yet, when I propose this action on this site, which is the subject at hand, things quickly veer off into Obama, or Dems vs. Repubs., or elections, or jobs and the economy, or environmental damage, or whatever...I have had very few individuals endorse the idea of reducing and eliminating industry and energy use, including electricity and petroleum, although these seem like eminently logical choices to make...or the idea that we are each individuals, not Americans or anything else, and that we have responsibilities to ourselves and others to be wise and compassionate in our treatment of one another and the other plants and animals around the world...
if one views this site, then, as a general cross-representation of folks, even a population perhaps tilted toward my point of view, yet unwilling to discuss the agrarian suggestion realistically, including supporting other options in return (how do some of you see things moving forward without changing the electricity\petroleum\job\mortgage\groceries\America lifestyle?), then one begins to feel, as Leea has stated, that getting things going on a larger scale will be daunting, at best...
We can't go on destroying the Earth forever...we must stop...I propose we stop together, to ease the way...that we prepare now, in advance, changing the way our housing and land are allocated and financed, allowing us to stop working and begin planting food everywhere...that we, as individuals, leave our jobs and change to an agrarian way of life around the world, culminating on September 22, 2012...the right to water, food and shelter, liberty and free thought and speech are not economic or national in nature, they are inherent rights possessed by each individual on this planet...along with these rights come responsibilities...
Reconnect with your planet, your body, your spirit...define your own natural cycles of sleeping and farming, engaging with your family and neighbors, foraging...the planet will thank you...
If we can't agree to global, basic changes here, then where?
You're talking about agrarian reform which means taking the land from the agri-businesses which originally used the banks to take the land from the farmers. To do that on a certain date would require an armed insurrection.
I would suggest beginning with the land we already have in our possession, then go from there...grass and ornamental vegetation giving way to edibles...driveways and sidewalks disappearing under fruit trees...roads, parking lots, rooftops and alleys reborn as grains, soups and salads...the rise of the individual...effort required...
As to armed conflict, whether termed an insurrection or a crackdown, I'd say that's a factor in, oh, 4 out of the first 5 possible futures I could come up with, moving forward from where we are now...the end result is my concern...I see tribal groups, affiliated around watersheds, working their natural regions to produce sustainable crops, administering their own codes of behavior...trying to thread the needle and arrive there without violence is admirable and challenging, but get there we must...the most appealing non-violent way forward to me appears to be turning privately-owned land into edible gardens, and privately-owned homes into shared shelters...available water and food make everything else possible...without them, the future looks dark, and violent, indeed...even with them, there will be major upheavals around property and resources, I know...I see no way to avoid this, given the depth of our current psychological programming...
After awhile, psychological programming wears off in the face of need. Cuba is a country which has done a lot of what you are talking about, even extensively employing hydroponics and drip irrigation in the cities and towns. In Cuba they make the urban growing competitive among regions or districts with the most accomplished gardeners getting recognition in the papers and being interviewed on their best techniques.
ahh, now there is an excellent example for us to use as a template! thank you...it is very encouraging to me to know that these things are being done successfully, and with enthusiasm, elsewhere...
hopefully, the individual, regaining a sense of control over their 'food' destiny, will begin to re-examine why virtually every other facet of personal daily life (education\defense\law\religion\etc) has been 'outsourced' to others, and will proudly re-assume some, if not most, or all, of them...ultmately, we will, of course, arrive at property rights, ecological stewardship, and the core commonality of the physical planet...
the notion of celebrity, of one being worthy of more than another, of thought deserving mastery over effort...this must transform into the celebration of the self-actualized individual...those who would survive off of the labors of others, whether through manipulation, coercion or direct force, must be recognized and dissuaded from such...each working together toward the common good...
Dream on...dream on...
Your last paragraph is talking of throwing away culture. Perhaps you should start smoking pot.
I am very inline with what you have written here dubet. It is so valid and important, and so it has it's own life. Lucky you, sharing in that larger cosmic heartbeat.
Most of us surely wish people would use more restraint in writing non-useful notes, and that the trolls would dry up and blow away, but we can also celebrate the availability of this site for comments, even really stupid ones. Some people probably think that your and certainly my comments are stupid, so we must be careful what we wish for! Maybe a little imperfection is good. Also, consider that there is some organization in that comments usually relate to the topic of the lead article - unlike this little side conversation we are having, heh-heh...
But it is not what is written that I am thinking of, it is how we read what is written and what we choose to focus on of that which is written that I am speaking of, and this does effect ultimately what is then written and read in the circle of exchange. This is in fact very important and probably goes along with the whole re-education idea that is floating around.
If you would like to help pressure the administration and Congress to pass single payer health care please join our voting bloc at:
www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php
Let's not forget: Obama's people fought dirty and stole the nomination.
Obama was not the voters' first choice. He has no more business being President than did George W. Bush. This may help to explain why his administration is already a complete trainwreck.
What's PUMA for "I told you so"?
There is alot of truth to this article. While people quibble on philosophical differences between Liberal and Conservative, they are blinded and distracted from the facts. Truth is, there is only one party, and that is the CORPORATE party. It doesn't matter if our elected officials are Republicans or Democrats, they are put there by the corporations, for the corporations to serve their interests. Obama's actions within the past 100 days have really opened my eyes to this fact. I was one of the fools who thought that he was actually going to change things for the better. He did change something though, he put trillions more of OUR dollars into the hands of the banks and corporations. I long for the days in generations past when people would stand together against things like this. We are too fat, too greedy and too lazy to do anything about it today. The bubble will burst within the next five years and this country will tailspin into anarchy and chaos. I hope I never see that day.
Sioux Rose
SOLOMON: I'll bet we'll see some major fiscal reverberations THIS autumn... it's not going to take 5 years.
"We are too fat, too greedy and too lazy to do anything about it today." Let's take this one point at a time.
Lazy: In fact, most other peoples view America as a place where people are particularly industrious
Greedy: Go out into the world, and try to find people who would not trade their ox-drawn cart and thin rice soup for two new cars in the driveway of their 2500 sq. ft home with a designer kitchen to cook in. Good luck!
Fat: See greedy.
The real problem is the lack of something that we trust, that resonates, that is theoretically sound, and that is popular enough to seem plausible. Since liberals like Hedges cannot ever offer that, and conservatives don't even fake it, why would Joe Sixpack move his arse one little bit? Only communism offers a real solution, and at this moment, communism is about as popular as a swine flu victim in a maternity ward. It is the duty of the enlightened to change that! If you really want universal peace, sustainability, equality and affluence, build the party of international proletarian communist revolution.
Hey did you see the movie The Doors directed by Oliver Stone. In that biographical movie of Jim Morrison's life, Jim Morrison told Tom Baker: "Do you think that all americans want 2 cars and a house? What Americans really want is something sacred." And that's related with what you said about most people in the USA who feel empty inside and outside, alone, lonely without purpose, without an ideology, without a doctrine that would serve as a motivation and light for their future. Without national identity even since they know that the USA project, has been founded on blood, holocausts and kleptocracy. Unlike the people of the Bolivarian Revolution who are real energized, motivated and there is a true conscious-revolution going there in Venezuela and in Latin America (The Continent of Hope). Hugo Chavez, The Socialism of the 21St Century is a real change that people can believe in.
.
Exactly. And now that Rafael Correa has won his second term in Ecuador it is a given that he is going to take Ecuador into ALBA. And when all of Latin America is eventually on the path of Socialism, and when some may even have reached the Humanist plateau alongside Cuba, then Alba will likely spread into Africa and beyond. Without a doubt, ALBA is the organization of the future which will undoubtedly surpass the Non-Aligned Movement as the second largest international body in the world and, conceivably, ALBA could even supplant the UN.
I really want to believe what you say, but history does not support it. Nationalism under a left or right flag is hardly the way forward! It is flawed philosophically, and is doomed to capitalist degeneration. The movement for universal peace, sustainability, equality and affluence is necessaruily internationalist and communist. Show evidence to the contrary, if you can find it. Otherwise, build the party of international proleatrian communism and stop propping up half-baked socialists!
You are so funny! According to Marx it is necessary to have a dictatorship of the proletariat and that can only be supplied and supported by an armed uprising whereby control is wrested from the oligarchy. But Fidel, being much more innovative than previous Socialist thinkers, has virtually won the Revolution with doctors and teachers. A never before conceived of philosophy. A virtually stealth assault on capitalism and those goofy morons were completely oblivious.
In the geopolitical scene today there is Cuba and it's unassailable position, and then there is everybody else in their varying degrees of socialism and capitalism.
It seems Chris Hedges has been reading my Common Dream posts. : )
Everyone seems kind of wowed by this essay, but it's nothing that we haven't heard before. Maybe it just needs to be written by Chris Hedges for people to pay attention.
Some folks posting here still don't believe that they've been had, alas. I hear again and again how Obama's a "good man" or "the best." He's actually your public servant. And he's throwing away the commonwealth and giving it to banksters, insurance companies and the military industrial complex.
Well he smiles when he does that. He looks athletic and confident. But you're getting screwed and further impoverished as we kill people abroad. Please, people, wake up!
-TIA
There is no DEMOCRACY in Amerika. Its a damned CLASS DICTATORSHIP dominated by International Zionist Bankers, Wall street and the Zionist media monopolies. That’s why the US has gone for shit this past Century and degenerating down the river of Capitalism’s history.
Every dollar spent on the military represents energy resources both human labor and material resources. Wasted on extremely harmful activities to humans and the ecology.
Only a truly democratic economy of production for USE, not for the PROFIT of a few. Will set the world on a path to an efficient, rational economy to satisfy all humanities needs.
You're almost there, but the Zionist fixation is misplaced. The Zionist monster, like the Taliban and Al Qaida monsters are primarily the issue of American imperialism. Of course, each is made up of demented individuals, and it is no surprise that they are not always easy to control. Still, once we replace our native imperialists with a genuine workers' democracy, the spawn will also fall. The enemy is at home!
"Resist or become serfs." Chris Hedges.
Excellent analysis from Chris Hedges. The situation is so terrifying that the temptation to drift into illusion is all too understandable. I like to hope that more and more of us are catching on and approaching a critical mass of sanity and compassion.
Opal: "a critical mass of sanity and compassion." There could be no more succinct expression of the crying need of our time. This is the "hope" that we need to preserve when there's every indication that insanity and brutality are winning the day in our time. But in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome as we strive together to build that "critical mass" without which no meaningful revolution is possible. Thanks to MLK for the inspiration, and thanks to Opal for the reminder.
So what is new here? America's brands are seemingly limitless and are, in fact, what sells the American form of capitalism. Everyone has heard the euphemism, image is everything in American culture, forget about substance. Surely we do not expect that a president of the United States can be elected without particicipating in the very system he expects to lead! An optimist would say Obama has subscribed to many things at this point because they are the lesser of two evils and create time to accomplish his real goals. A pessimist will see more of the same, a continuation of a capitalist policy that believes in "survival of the fittest", more is better, America knows best, and greed is OK. Many of the problems we face today are deeply rooted in the world corporate system that requires expansion as a constant necessity and views conservancy as trivial. It may be that we are witnessing an honest attempt to operate differently within the system, hence the massive public relations campaign to build support for the Obama agenda (which he would call the peoples agenda). A pessimist would argue that in reality the system is fixed and no one can ascend to power without the approval of an elite set of international individuals. Let's be mindful of the issues of our day and give the president a chance without premature criticism.
So what you are really saying is that a pessimist is awake, aware of what is really going on, and expresses his or her disapproval of the excessive corruption and greed that has taken place within the past 100 days (and beyond). An optimist is someone who closes their eyes, clicks their heels together three times and dreams of getting swept away into the Utopia that so many of us thought Obama would create.
"A pessimist would argue that in reality the system is fixed and no one can ascend to power without the approval of an elite set of international individuals. Let's be mindful of the issues of our day and give the president a chance without premature criticism." Perhaps in your book a pessimist; in mine, a realist. Since day #1 when Obama packed his cabinet with the old guard, I have held out hope that he was following the adage: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. But now I'm at the point of accepting that he really is a great scam artist. Too many blatant lies and kicks to the balls of the non-elite. Sorry, but to claim you're going to reverse unemployment by giving the crumbs from the table of his cabinet and their cronies, and to claim he wants peace, when he's about to stick the US into another Vietnam/Iraq quagmire, ... no. You don't keep your enemies THAT close; so close that the masses can no longer distinguish between you and them. YOU can give him a chance to reveal his true colors, and I hope you're right! ME? As a friend of mine from Nigeria used to say: When there are a million flies swarming around it, you can be sure- it's shit!
As Obama would say, you want realism, check out the long-term effects of the latest Bush administration, ultimate result and tally yet unknown. If you are unwilling to reserve judgement and willing to pass judgement on Obama's legacy at this stage, are you suggesting a change in our form of government, an amendment to the Constitution, a recall on instant notice, and risk of chaos? The illusion created by image as discussed above works both ways. It enables fascists to conduct horrific acts and bolsters a president's ability to accomplish good things for the American people.
Granted, it CAN work both ways. However, to screw the common man in order to save him is kind of what GW did to the Iraqis. So, IF Obama IS holding his cards close to his chest he needs to demonstrate at least a modicum of who he really is, nonetheless. I do not have a final judgment of him yet. But if I had to play the odds, at this point I'd take the bet that he's more scam than truth. He simply has too many of the SAME assholes that have been screwing this country and the rest of the world on his team. Not a single true progressive in the lot! Geithner and Summers??? Their sleazeball connections are no less than Cheney's with Halliburton! But in fairness, he's only one person. It's the vast majority of Congress, as well.
"He simply has too many of the SAME assholes that have been screwing this country and the rest of the world on his team. Not a single true progressive in the lot! Geithner and Summers??? Their sleazeball connections are no less than Cheney's with Halliburton! But in fairness, he's only one person. It's the vast majority of Congress, as well."
I beg to differ on the progressive issue. If you know the slightest about American history you would see that Mr Obama's goals and objectives are not only aligned with progressive methodology but he actually is practicing it from the top down which really only began with FDR. Truly this is only the beginning and probably too early to make a call on whether it works or not. And Geithner has studied the CRASH and depression well enough that he is trying insure it doesn't happen again. Quite frankly it is too early to say yea or nea on Obama. He does have his feet on the ground with the needs of the people which is more than we have seen in years. Like Dubya really cared about what was happening in the American trenches of main street or beyond.
Regarding the brand Obama, iconography is the hallmark of capitalism and so to think that the American people could have leaders that do not fall into this theme is actually a bit naive. Honestly, what kind of car do you drive and clothes do you wear? Of course they delineate who you are. We are all brands. We all brand ourselves. Branding is the American way. If you don't believe me read Roland Barthes "Mythologies". Even by not branding we still brand.
Well, if you beg to differ with the quote of mine you refer to , then please DO differ with respect to IT. Please give me some examples of top cabinet members and head honchos who are really for the American people and not for the hands that feed them. Obama talks the talk- some of the time- whereas Bush couldn't utter two words without exposing his idiocy. As for walking the walk? So far, way to much hypocrisy. His focus to this point has been primarily on appeasing powerful lobbies- from finance to health care to military. His administration and Congress have thumbed their noses at the views of the vast majority of Americans on all these items. So please DO give me a history lesson in relation to how well it has worked for presidents to bend over backwards to accommodate the corporations who run the government in order to strengthen the masses.
Current alignment with yesterdays progressive methodology is yesterdays prison for todays' fresh ideas. These fresh ideas will be the only path forward, and the only path they have are with those of us freeing them from the slavery of the old paradigm that President Obama unknowingly has become the master of. We the servants of the way forward open the way forward. It is simple, but you cannot see it, you are a slave to yesterday and a master of it's demise.
I am not really sure what you said here. It sounds like postmodern speak aka jargon.
Lest us not forget that history is accumulative and hopefully we build by learning from out past mistakes and if understood in this framework is anything but a prison.
Finally, a straight shot across the USS Obama-can-do-no-wrong's bow.
CD, Alternet, Buzzflash--virtually all of the "alternative press" (current article excepted) fail to acknowledge the unequivocal diametric opposition of what Obama actually does vs. what most self-described progressives think he's done. Like end torture, rendition, war, extreme-upward wealth redistribution, no universal healthcare, ad infinitum, ad nauseum--
The signs were apparent long before the election, but the media built it up beautifully and the election and inauguration brought about the long yearned-for catharsis, and the fangs of a revolution were effectively pulled.
BHO as president is historic, sure, but for simple reasons of color. He is the first president with significant outward black appearance.
But picture for a moment President Condoleeza Rice.
I submit BHO's presidency is and will continue to be indistinguishable in policy and practice from what we could expect from Ms. Rice.
If there is a God, may S/he save us all.
/sarcasm, not religious, though now I may have to consider it/
Hedges, and the strong discussions his esays evoke, greatly stoke brain activity.
We probably have the most decent man holding the presidency that we have had in decades. The fraud is capitalism.
40 years ago today I was in college, and 4 kids were shot at Kent state. That and Vietnam were my coming of age. I remember that Vietnam ended because soldiers stopped fighting (did not make the headlines, I know). Today kids are going to the military because there are no jobs. They aren't gonna stop fighting. When the financial services sectors get everytning to be had, there will still be no jobs. I don't fault Obama.
In 1934 the longshore and harbor workers started a 3 month general strike (here in my San Francisco) that gave a middle class life. Now EFCA looks dead.
I have no answers.
sansf, I remember that day 40 years ago. It broke my heart. That 14 year old girl wailing over the still bleeding dead body of a boy who was just going to his next class. And the public opinion was "Good. Now maybe they will stop this protesting". And they did. So did I, for awhile. I realized, I'm not making a difference, they just despise me. But of course, I can't keep my mouth shut, so I came back.
And yes, men were refusing to fight and shitass officers were getting shot in the back - that's where the term "fragging" came up. I hadn't heard it before then. But the war ended because the public saw the price getting too steep. They rebelled against inflation and rising taxes to pay for the war. Back then, we were pretty much a pay as you go economy - unlike now when we just dump our profligate spending on future generations.
"We probably have the most decent man holding the presidency that we have had in decades. The fraud is capitalism." I agree. Unfortunately he did what he had to do to get elected. And I know he won't be allowed to upset the apple cart. I figure the masters are throwing him to the peasants as a crumb. He'll do a few good things to mollify the mob which otherwise might get out of control, but I see him as having very little wiggle room. But if you were to read historical reporting of working class efforts to organize, you would see the same story. Anarchists, Communists, troublemakers. Of course now, they don't even report what's happening.
People say we should do this and we should do that, but many of us know it won't change a thing. I think it's going to take a revolution (I'm not necessarily saying violent) and far more people need to realize that than do now. It's possible that by the time they do, the fascist state will have a lock on us. And then people will have to be willing to die for our freedom, as the union workers were 100 years ago.
We squandered away what they died for. Just sat on our soft asses and let it be taken from us.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
In spite of my comment above, I have to agree with you. Now, that doesn't negate my comments above. It only highlights my view of the presidents of the past 40 years. Every one of them have been scam artists- at the beckon call of their masters in the financial/military court. Carter? Oh, you mean the guy who got Saddam going by supplying him with chemical weapons and $$$$. Reagan? Not the brightest bulb, but at least he was honest when he espoused his trickle-down economic agenda. Clinton? The prez who even I thought was good? Boy was I an ignorant dupe! GW? The puppet of the darkest collection of psychopaths in US history. So, yeah, Obama. Mr. Hope? Not likely. His legacy won't come close to GW's in shear insanity. But his Branding of the term HOPE will find him no less reviled, I'm afraid. [I DO so hope I'm wrong. But I will not supplant my reason for hope.]
sansf those men stood up to machine gun nests on the Embarcadero armed by American Military prepared to murder them and some of them got killed. "Scabs" is a word that has long gone out of common derogatory use, much to our great loss. They were fighters. We don't have many of them left, and those that are have been infiltrated by 'stooges' another great word that we've lost, though you'll read some here.
Yes indeed. Bloody Thursday (July 5, 1934) killed relatively few, but many injured. Local police and 'guardsmen' used rifles purchased from the 159th infantry (for one), and your comment helps me know that the troops were on the streets in those times. Now the union building at the Embarcader is target for revamp. I called my supervisor just in case it makes a difference.
B of A is the largest creditor of SEIU. UAW is unrecognizable. Hard to know where to put energy. But hey, happy birthday Pete Seeger.
Chris Hedges'article reveals how deeply perverted our federal elections (and too often state and local too) have become. People are persuaded to accept an image of a candidate, not analyze their voting record for their real positions on issues. They are told that we must accept "the lesser of two evils" because our voting methods leave us no other choice.
Progressives need to regroup and focus on important causes such as electoral reform. We have to push for changes in how elections are funded and how candidates are elected.
We will continue to be back in this very situation of bemoaning the actions of Democratic candidates if we do not change how our federal, state and local candidates are elected.
Big corporate money, TV ads, and an electoral method that leaves us with only two choices will continue to bring us back to a place where the candidate elected is not the courageous leader for social justice and environmental preservation that we need.
You hit the nail on the head.
Democracy, in it’s current form, is the tyranny of a few cunning circles with controlling and omnipotent lobbies and mass media propaganda, that use the ignorant majority ‘mandate’ of the voting masses for their treacherous agenda. The two-party oligarchy manages the profit and wealth flow for a relatively small elite. Most pivotal parts of this machine are tightly interwoven and are made out of the elite’s cronies and benefactors of this abominable theft and fraud. Their lobby established a two-flavoured (Dems and Reps) system that plays ping-pong with citizens’ votes, draining all chance for a desperately needed radical change of ways (Any denial of the necessity of radical change shows either ignorance or parasitism).
This system has been able to keep the voting masses in a state of acquiescence and convenient ambivalence. Common lifestyle was provided by loan, education is geared around producing useful subjects rather than freethinking individuals, the masses were kept occupied with inane entertainment, silenced by welfare payments and war games, manipulated by corporate controlled mass media, and preoccupied by hope-inducing wishful hogwash that we have a choice under this system.
The system is unsustainable for various reasons and will undergo drastic change. The severity and direction of change depends on the severity of lifestyle destruction, economic depression and public mood.
The circus is still performing but they are running out of new acts. The crowd looks displeased.
Voters appeasement used to be maintained by cleverly appearing to place effort and 'money' at burning issues. The downside is devaluation of the dollar by inflation. The impact of this wealth reduction impacts hardest on low-income families. The obscene elite of banking, corporate fascism and political cronies will maintain exploitation with inflation-adjusted obscenity. For now...
The addicted system just ran out of smokes.
We are still denying addiction.
We have to get to the shop tomorrow.
We've found a nicotine patch in the drawer.
On it it says: 'CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN'.
Just wait until turkey sets in.........
This is what America needs more than anything, a severe critique of American culture and the destructive nature of corporate capitalism. But the mainstream corporate media denies a critique of capitalism.
This month, Rabbi Michael Lerner and his Tikken Magazine did a major critique on capitalism titled "SHOULD CAPITALISM BE SAVED? To bad it wasn't Time Magazine or Newsweek Magazine.
I believe we the people can only get our voices heard by massive non-violent demonstrations, with millions of people lying face down in the streets.
It is time to terrorize the rich and the U.S. Congress.
Barak Obama deserves the critical support of progressives, liberals and people of good conscience. He is a good man, well meaning, talented and has a lot of potential. However, in order for the left to get its way on crucial issues like climate change, ending the war, promoting social justice, etc, it is important the left have no illusions that it will take a lot of hard work to undo the damage wrought by the Bush team.
Obama is a million times better than either Bush or McCain but we must pressure his admininstration to do the right things, if nothing else, to make sure he does not buckle into the pressure from the neoconservatives.
You've just ingested the most potent delusion of the Obama brand, namely that Obama is FDR. This idea was an invention of the Obama campaign, which also suggested he was MLK.
Maybe 60 or so years ago a pressure campaign would have worked, under a different president like Roosevelt. However, we're not in that time now. Back then, socialist revolt in the United States was a strong possibility, which is why pressure worked, along with the obvious crushing depression.
To pressure Obama, you'd have to counter the millions of dollars put up by the banksters who funded Obama's campaign. You'd have to have his popularity rating plunge based on his positions on issues.
Wake me up when the first pressure campaign succeeds. The antiwar campaign should have done it by now. However, Obama, like Bush, just continues to ignore us.
No one who advocates pressure has really explained an effective campaign. The only thing that works is an outside threat, like a strong third party or riots in the streets.
-TIA
He's an Overseer on Master's Slave Plantation and he is here to Kill the $$, Empty the Treasury into the hands of richfilth animals while he Kills SSI/Medicare/UI and while he makes Rapacious Health Care Premiums that never deliver any health care MANDATORY to us so that Americans will be subject to the full force and coercion of the State - so that richfilth animals can live in palatial wealth and privileged immunity from the Muck (that's us). Just ask Larry Summers. He's here to give you a life expectancy of 46 just like he did for the folks in Russia - and of course by 46 you'll be glad to be dead. Master's Paradise.
"...richfilth animals ..."
This is pretty much off-topic, but I stopped calling sociopaths and psychopaths "animals" out of deference to animals. I now call them "monsters."
Just a thought...
¿ Do you know why our children's stories have monsters and dragons in them ?
It is not because kids need to be told that such evil exists,
as they already know that very well.
The stories are to demonstrate to the children
that the monsters and dragons can be killed.
Namaste
Great analysis. From seeing much good and having hope for Obama, I'm seeing little change and his choices with sadness. While one can list accomplishments he's made that count, they are increasingly outweighed by how he "opts in" with the good old boys.
CH's equating of modern political consciousness with a TV mentality is spot on.
TV crawls out of the swamp in about 1960. An actor is elected President a generation later.
And Gangsters thereafter.
I'd hoped BO was an exception but I see that prospect dimming fast.
At about the same rate of speed the rich are getting richer.
"Those who do not understand what is happening around them and who are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they did not expect or foresee search desperately for saviors. They beg demagogues to come to their rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the Obama Brand. It effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft being carried out by our corporate state."
Ah, I could have written this, but from an opposite angle.
For me, Obama is not a savior, at least, not my savior. He is merely the best chance in a very rigged game. Plug in anyone else (who, btw, would be _someone's_ savior) and we'd have the same thing...maybe worse.
The corporate state is the problem and our enemy. The corporate state will not allow dissent, even from the White House. The corporate state will do what it has to to survive. That's the deal.
So, what are we going to do about it? Where are the leverage points? What can we do to take back some power? The elections are rigged. DC is a shark tank. The state is against us. No one will come to our rescue. No one. As the late and great George Carlin said shortly before his death: "They don't give a fuck about you!"
The voting is done. Obama is the man in the storefront window. The status quo is happy. We're still outside. What will we do?
"What will we do?" - Allow for the possibility that we are inside, not out.
I'm not sure what you mean, Leea, but what I am doing is living as if no one is coming to my rescue. I am building social relationships that share knowledge, food, support, and in time, wealth, housing, and who knows what else. I am also working to become less dependent on the just-in-time line of products and food.
Is this possible? I don't know. It's certainly not predictable. However, I do know that this wholly unsustainable system cannot be sustained much longer. How things will evolve/devolve is anyone's guess. The thing is, what WE do from this very point forward will dictate what happens. It always has.
What will we do? We will use the land and the brains and bodies we have been given, and stop relying on others to feed and clothe us...we will stop working, share housing, remove pavement and grow food...it will mean changes in material wealth, but will release us from dependence upon those who would keep us disadvantaged...
After the collapse, and after your fellow Americans run out of bullets and gasoline. Call it the Great Shattering. That's where all the lies of a self-deluded tribe of genocidal monsters meet the consequences of their lies. Ugly baby.
lucky,
Don't tell me you're not an American! If so, what's with the word "their?" Shouldn't that be "our?"
And if you're not an American, do you think the US is going down alone? Have we ever? Unless you're sleeping in a hammock with the Yanomami along the Amazon River, you're coming along for the ride.
I am not a flat-earth fixed creation marginally literate worshiper of the genocidal blood god from the ME so I guess I'm not an American, although I was born and raised in segregated red lined Phx Az back when Ozzie & Harriet were American fantasy parents and everybody boo-hooed for Ricky Nelson (first teenage millionaire) because he paid Roosevelt Legacy taxation of 91% on earned income over $1mn. While I would willingly let any such 'artist' live tax free, his travails were part of the campaign to free the richfilth animals even back then from their 'chains'. The large in the small and the small in the large.
Ted - America is going to try to take 6bn humans with them as an "honor guard to Valhalla". You see, on top of everything else, melanin deficient Americans have gone from 87% in '65, to 70% in 2000 and very shortly will be a numeric minority in an ocean of humanity the color of the Earth. They have already begun to go mad and this will multiply into rabid insanity in the coming years. You see, my melanin deficient cousins KNOW they can expect the same expansive Xrstian Charity they have always shown to their subjugated minority populations. Think: "White boys are genetically disposed psychotic predatory animals who should be preemptively castrated and placed in prisons to protect the 'good folks'. Sound familiar?
Along for the ride, Ted? For 25 years the only way I've been able to accept my life here is to compare it to 1885, they did a book on it at the time called, "How the Other Half Lives". Along for the ride? My retirement is two ounces of lead introduced orally through an explosive projectile device - that's because there are worse things in America than being dead. That is also why you read accounts of parents murdering their children, then themselves after they've been thrown under the bus - they know what this monstrous country will do to those children and death is better.
Well, when I say that it is within OUR power to change things, I don't necessarily mean with a bullet to the head. Though, if that's what you decide to do let me know how it goes.
BTW, if you think you're the only one having a rough time living in this culture, you should get out more. The courageous ones are doing things DESPITE their culture shock. They're the ones I look to.
TM, I said that's retirement not a plan to "Change America" although changing policy through assassination IS a proven method for producing particular kinds of change for those who have the "Will". None of your fellows would ever do anything like that of course. And no, millions and millions and millions have gone and are going under the bus and your fellow White Americans will not resist because the alternative is to create a society based on Inclusion which they have rejected with bullets for 50 years and reject to this day. They won't make an equal place for everyone at the table, they won't reject war as the force that gives their lives meaning, and they won't kill off the Oligarchy that they worship with groveling obeisance. They wouldn't 40 years ago. They won't today. And so they descend into hell on earth. Enjoy the ride.
Apart from that save your pussy-mouthed patronizing condescending crap for people who've never "been in the shit" Teddie. Keep looking. Voyeurism is very much in vogue I'm told.
Sounds like you're due for retirement.
Bon voyage!
"...genocidal monsters ..." THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!
Give INDEPENDENTS a chance to take over Congress in 2010 and possibly the White House in 2012. Stop falling for the silly corporate media tricks of duping you into choosing amongst their own corporatists candidates.
On the off chance that independents don't take over Congress in 2010 or the White House in 2012, what do we do? What will you do?
Waiting for our savior just ain't in the cards. Time for a new strategy.
(P.S. A savior is defined as anyone but you.)
Oh Ted, you pulled my skirt on that one. :)
Well? I guess we keep trying ? We'll have to reform the progressive and liberal focus groups. In the meantime, hope the new batch isn't a clutz. I wouldn't mind the Democrats or Republicans but only if they get the issues right. I vote on the issues which is why I end up going independent 9 out of 10 times.
And there's nothing wrong with indies...except that the game is so rigged against them that unless the American people revolt on election day, it's not going to happen.
What I'm getting at, Jennifer, is that we really should start looking to ourselves and each other - the people - as our saviors. And I don't mean the people, writ large, I mean you and me and the guy over there and those reading this. We keep falling for the same ol' pea-in-a-shell trick and expecting the pea to show up under the shell...but it never does. WE, are the pea! WE, are the ones who can change things. WE, are the ones we've been waiting for.
Yeah, let's kick some political ass, but if we only do it from our comfy chairs, ain't nuthin' gonna happen, baby! It's time to really change tactics, not merely rearrange deck chairs. We are the structure that all politics and business rests on. We are the ones holding it up. We have the power to change (at least, for now), and in doing so, we have the power to change everything else. It's time to go local.
(P.S. I hope you're not a minor, 'cause I don't wanna go to prison).
No, I'm 28. :)
Phew...good!
I'm glad you're 28. Gives me a little "hope" (that isn't a dirty word now, is it?) when I see younger folks out there kicking up some dust and getting dirty and fired up. It's a good fight we're in and we're aaaaalll in it!
Thanks for that post Ted.
You betcha! We got some brand new bright and shiney Independents that the Lobbyists have had in development for the last 4 years. They are ESPECIALLY designed to say all the things you want to hear (while doing the opposite), and they're all pretty and clean and well spoken and come in a variety of colors to choose from. They're even working on a Wind-Up Wellstone Doll with prerecorded Populist Sayings. Not quite like the original of course, there were 'design flaws' in the first. This one doesn't fly in single engine aircraft and doesn't mean a word that it says.
Anything outside yourself and the ones you know are likely placed there by the Feds or the boys on K Street. Vilcomin du America.
I refuse to believe that the Independents are what you claim they are. There's got a be a limit somewhere. Of course, if only the Ds and Rs were even somewhat immune to the lobbyists.
Go ahead and refuse Jennifer - it's the policy of "The Gold or the Bullet" developed and implemented in the mid to late '70's. No, there doesn't have to be a limit, hell on earth is the only limit, take a look at day-to day life for ordinary folks in Columbia, that's your future. Maybe we could inoculate them...
But the way you're framing it all, it sounds like you're telling us to shut up and accept the status quo. No, changing parties isn't a bad idea. And if the Indies screw up, throw them out as well and keep replacing the pols until we get the correct representation. You have to keep kicking their butts so hard until they actually pay attention. :)
rfloh, thanks for validating my statement.
unbelievable.
I totally concur with those many posters here who see this essay as one of the finest ever pieces of Obama analysis: it locates the problem just where it belongs which is the "culture" in which we live and which, difficult as it may be, will have to be addressed at the level of civic re-education of our population: a No Citizen Left Behind kind of education. From this perspective, I disagree with those who thought the 2nd to last paragraph "sucked": in fact it brings out a perspective on a cultural shift in our time from character to personality, a distinction captured long ago in David Reismen's The Lonely Crowd description of the emergence in our culture of an "other-directed" mentality.
If anyone mentioned this in this string I didn't see it: There's a very nice companion-piece of Obama 100 day analysis offered by John Pilger: http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=530 He as well notes the "branding" nature of Obama's popularity and, while he doesn't quite cover the "buyer's remorse" aspect of the "purchase" of that brand as well as does Hedges, he goes into some detail and "names names" of the mass media entities that have provided the "market" in which that brand has been promoted.
Here is a piece of civic re-education that will leave you stunned: The ‘culture’ at work is the culture of sedition and terrorism.
America is hijacked by a handful of ‘Good Men’. The US dollar is ransacked, Democracy is perverted, treason and subversion are committed. Read the links below and you will see who’s behind the curtain. The two documents are NOT just another conspiracy theory. They are lengthy, in parts hard to follow but very well referenced. They will change the way you look at history, politics, finance, war and terrorism. You will find out about real terrorism. Many persons in these documents are well known; many are right now in pivotal positions of politics and finance. These people do shape YOUR life and that of our children right now. The details are researched and referenced. The consequences are beyond belief.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9442970/Collateral-Damage-US-Covert-Operations-and-the-Terrorist-Attacks-on-...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9421535/Collateral-Damage-Part-2-The-Subprime-Crisis-and-the-Terrorist-Attac...
Yachtie, thanks for these proposed additions to a syllabus for Civic Re-education 101. Your links provide me with my first exposure to the seemingly valuable works of E.P. Heidner, though I've scarcely been able to do anything so far but skim them quickly. My reading list has mostly been from writings of Peter Dale Scott and, more recently, Lost History by Dave Perry, Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer and the current works of William Blum especially Freeing the World to Death. And speaking of losing history, we're not only "losing" it but never "making it" because the alternative media like CD are marginalized and any really critical "journalism" is practcally gone from any main stream media for reporting the news of the day, busy as they are in promoting "brands" of Obama and others.
There is a lot of angst and anger in these CD postings in which people propose lines of action for the malaise of our times and others throw at them "sure, like that's going to work" when someone proposes calling or writing letters to Obama or Congress, joining in street demonstrations or boycotts, "pressuring" Obama to make him more progressive, developing 3rd parties to counter the corporate duopoly, whatever. And in a way the critics of critics are right, and none of these actions is going to be "the" solution, but any one may be a "a" solution that, cumulatively with other approaches, may move us in a progressive direction. Me, I've cast my public career on the pillars of public education and journalistic advocacy; and my little bit is a way-little-bit given my age (75), my health (average) and my desire to maintain a "life" with my family and my other extra-curricular interest, play acting and directing. Within those limitations I seek to publish my daily "progressive headline news" for my website, to blog my views for the like-minded and post on these CD articles, with an occasional Letter to the Editor or Op-Ed column. The "education" thing finds me searching for an outlet; there's no Civic Re-Education 101 in any college, high school or middle school that I know of but I have to believe there are still-active educators in "social studies" or still active political clubs of students. Having spent my active career as a college sociology professor, I know that universities at least have (or did have) some holes in the cracks of orthodox curricula into which serious academic efforts to deal with unofficial and critical history and current events discussion could be crammed; if only we could find where those holes are. Any suggestions?
Sure. Community centers provide space you can reserve to present civics courses. Promotion via hand flyers and street mags and internet. Let the air out of the elites' tires via such grass roots projects, heh heh. Soon enough, O'Bamba will be left stranded with his makeup artist.
rtdrury: Great ideas, thanks! Maybe we'll actually get around (as they did for Viet Nam war "teach-ins") to think again of educational efforts as "actions". (We did one at Gainesville FL as a re-enactment of the Downing Street Memos, it went pretty well.)
You are right, there's no civic re-education 101 in any college, high school or middle school and it’s ‘unhealthy’ to be too political at universities or even student clubs.
Obama will not be a savior. “Obama, after all, was faculty at the University of Chicago Law School. They don't hire liberals; at best they hire go-along to get-along corporate tools (see the two links) or people so immersed in their subjects they are apolitical and leave the structures of power alone. A liberal might sneak into a totally non-threatening field like art history, but not in the key areas of law, economics and business. The Board of Trustees of the University consists mostly of financiers and business executives, including the president of Goldman, Sachs & Co. - see http://trustees.uchicago.edu/ They don't want anyone using the prestige of their position at U of C to advocate 'dangerous' ideas. These are the people whom the chairs of departments have to please. Professors may have tenure, but otherwise the power of the trustees to set university policy has changed little since Upton Sinclair wrote The Goose-step circa 1921’.
It is great to see that people like you gain dynamic and momentum. And THIS is our only chance. Shout out loud. The country needs re-education and that can happen only through the freedom and the power of the Net. History has to be re-written, democracy has to be enabled with thinking citizens, and the monetary system has to be designed for the people and not the elite.
Suggestions how to get there?
Don’t ask me, ‘cause I don’t have a happy picture. I see lots of pitchforks.
Marshall McCluan "The Medium is the Message" was functioning on a prohetic level - note he was marginalized. One of his observations was that it is necessary to recognize a pattern and intercede in time.
One of the most heinously banal outputs of the current system is that it both depends on and results in a marginalization pattern. It is no accident that profit is based on a differential commonly referred to a profit margin. What needs to come front and center is the fact that this paradimatic cabal has marginalized life/existance in its entirety and is incapable of seeing the insanity of regarding itself as benign. It is not benign it is narcissitically banal, which means it defines what is beyond itself as itself. It cannot do otherwise, it is the nature of the beast. Nature/the planet, people and balances must feed it according to its own appetite. Thus it's environment (which it deigns to 'share' in some cases) is being poisoned, raped, used, abused, altered polluted with impunity - and it claims to be "in charge".
The cycle of marginalization and the singularity of projection is based on a child/adult power/infantilization polarity.
It has been noted that when Descartes came up with his much celebrated phrase 'cogito ergo sum'- it could have been 'cogito ergo est'. The difference between the two is the recognition that knowledge implies a learning process hence being incomplete. The "I" of cogito ergo est, implies that it recognizes 'being' as existing within the greater whole/unity - otherwise referred to that which cannot be named, or God.
As the Tao te Ching notes - if you can name its name, its not it's name.
What happens to perspective when a distinction like this considered?
Yes, well said O L D _ G O A T,
Besides marginalization, we have complicit sins of externalization ( of costs ) and normalization of skewed and toxic morality choices.
Our lives are set upon by apparently unrelenting compromising forces, which cinches our open perceptions and then perforates them with constraints, only to send them into the obilette of discernment, to exit at the end -- as shredded shards of what reality really is.
To me that is exactly "What happens to perspective when a distinction like this considered"
Beauty ____ IN
Garbage __ OUT
And then we wonder why it looks like shit.
Namaste
ideally if millions of people understand the distinctions you note, a paradigm shift would occur (maybe is occurring).
similar to the rather sudden (although the signs were obvious to the soviet people that their physical/social infrastructure was in trouble) tsunami of consciousness in the late 1980's that swept the former soviet elites out of power in russia.
it can happen here.
...peace...