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Edited on Tue Jan-05-10 03:02 PM by theFrankFactor
From his cabinet choices and his closest advisers to his deplorable impotence as a Democratic leader Barack Obama proves in his first year that there is no hope for change to be delivered by him and the Congressional Democrats unless you can consider the smooth, palatable, covert fraud of the great Black hope to the open, in-your-face fraud of the ham fisted, Good Ole Boy Republicans as change you can believe in.
The Corporatization of America is proceeding quickly and according to plan as the DLC, Barack Obama, Congressional Democrats and their leaders prove through their brazen, capitulation to corporate influence and their fuck you salute to their constituents, that their sole purpose is not to represent those citizens that gave them their jobs or the Constitution they were sworn to uphold but to provide cover for the Unified Corporate Party of America. Democrats and Republicans serve one master from the top down.
The charade has been going on for decades; the openly pro-corporate Republican party takes control, loots the treasury until the devastation reaches a tipping point and then when the citizens respond by filling former Republican seats with Democrats, the Democrats create the illusion that they are ham-stringed by so-called “moderate” Democrats and the all powerful Republican minority to enact real change and proceed to deliver the same quality of results as a Republican majority, to which they occasionally toss in a social issue concession to the masses as a smoke screen and consolation prize.
Democrats are not weak; they are not being vanquished by the cunning and strength of an opposition party of any kind. Nor are they just so darned civil and polite. They are performing according to plan. Their glaring failure to enact a health care plan that makes any sense at all is the desired result, not of their constituents, but of the real power brokers—the lobbyists, party leaders and their corporate sponsors.
So deplorable is the performance of this great Hope and Change Trojan Horse, Barack Obama, that the Democratic party is fracturing, as it should, between those that will protect their childish fantasy of the great black Liberal against any and all logic and attempts to raise the bar from the depths of “he’s better than Bush”, to those who actually believe in Liberal and Progressive values above the cult of personality—I consider this latter group to be reality based Liberals. Loyalists stick to blind party identification above and beyond issues and actions, but a growing percentage of both Democrats and Republicans are beginning to see the fraud and deceit that the coalition of the powerful rubs in their noses day after day for what it is.
Corporate media titillates both sides with lurid tales of corruption and moral failings while General Electric, Comcast, News Corps and a host of other real players pull all the stings. Will the corporate media stop blaming Republicans for the failures of Democrats… will Democrats? Will Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman uncover the channels of corporate cash that flow directly to Congress and the White House? Will they educate citizens to the flow of real power in America? With the corporate ties that the media has, it is highly unlikely that any Howard Beal moments will transpire. The change will have to come for outside the corporate shit machine—out here—you and me and the other budding voices of alternate media and the real grass roots movements.
At the same time we will have to be alert for signs that the Internet is coming under greater corporate control as well. It is only a matter of time before corporations find a way to silence the voices that challenge their corporate livestock to look behind the curtain of manufactured facts and the distraction of drama, at the new Plantation owners of the twenty-first century.
I was slow to warm to Barack Obama during the campaign for reasons more intuitive than of policy. When the primaries made it clear he was the candidate I accepted him and did as so many others did, I paid particular attention to what we would later learn were little more than policy teasers meant to maximize and appease the broadest possible base—to scoop up those Democrats who were actually Liberal.
He was stepping into a world of shit that the previous administration had so efficiently created. I allowed myself to believe that finally, the sensible measured approach of a bright Liberal President would so easily make clear that government is not the enemy. Finally nincompoops and corporate insiders will no longer be assigned positions of authority in government agencies and seats whose sole purpose is to protect citizens and the environment from exploitation and abuse, from fraud and marginalization.
It has been an enlightening experience since Mr. Obama has taken residence in the White House. I came out guns blazing to defend him from moronic slander from the no-information right. His birth certificate, his ties to domestic terrorists, his supposed love of Communism and fascism, his plans to kill off people over sixty-five, his hatred of his white family members and all whites in general and the rest of the bull shit. Give the man some time I said.
So here we are one full year into the historic Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama or Barry as he is also known, and what can we glean from activities so far? We have President Obama’s response to the second greatest economic attack on America by Wall Street in our nation’s history and the historic likely passage of a government mandate to buy a private product called “health care” Insurance.
For me the real telling event was watching this health care saga unfold. The Bush administration went out as a global embarrassment and even American’s, working against the megaphone of corporate media propaganda, sent Democrats in to change course. Democrats took majorities in both houses and we now had a supposedly vibrant, articulate, passionate, Liberal President in the Executive branch. It was clear we needed all we could muster to set this ship aright.
I naturally thought that in light of the way Democrats were treated when they were a minority and the way the Republican Congress gave the Executive Branch everything they wanted during the Bush Years, Democrats would seize this opportunity to get to work rebuilding the devastation left behind by the exiting administration and prove that government is not the root of all evil as the right loves to claim.
Then there were Barracks’ cabinet appointments. I was stunned, but still…I tried to understand his actions in light of what I believed him to be about. Perhaps this new African-American President was being shrewd in surrounding himself with establishment insiders—a way to soften the course correction from radical rightwing war mongering and corporate ass-kissing to the service of the citizens—a way to throw off the scent. Maybe he saw these cronies and insiders as mere window dressing because he was confident and felt no threat from these people. He would in a sense, keep his enemies closer as they say all the while rallying his Democrat majorities to deliver what the public wanted and he knew to be best for America.
But this turned into a clusterfuck of stellar proportions! As if the rewarding of Financial failure and fraud with billions, if not trillions of tax payer dollars wasn’t bad enough, the enactment of a public health care system that would take the profit motive out of the denial of health care and the murder of American citizens was more than the Insurance industry, who had so generously bank rolled Barack’s campaign, could allow. It became clear to me as the bill took shape and made its way through the system, the real power brokers in the Democratic party would eviscerate anything that smacked of common sense and practicality. I would never see this two party system the same again.
Right out of the gate, Max Bachus the DEMOCRATIC head of the finance committee refused to allow the clear cut sanity and efficiency of Medicare expansion to all citizens be heard. I asked myself, where did this fuckstick come from? Who appointed this asshole? Ya know who? Democrats, that’s who! Right there I knew this was a fuck job. But I had no idea how far it would go. Dennis Kucinich and Anthony Weiner had penned a bill that would do just that, expand Medicare but the real players had nothing to fear because the farther up in rank you go in the Democratic party the closer to the asshole of big business you get and the stink is a killer!
How wrong had I been for the last thirty years about how this nation’s government worked? Very, very wrong! All of my ranting and raving about the social retardation of the Republican party was true and amusing but really ignored the heart of the matter—corporate power—the invasion of the People’s government by a nest of rats that have been seeking to perfect their takeover for decades if not longer. 9/11 had been a “god send” for these pigs.
The two parties have their differences to be sure, that’s the beauty of the charade. Had a Democratic administration been in place at the time of 9/11 the transfer of power to corporations and the evisceration of our civil rights would still have occurred, but slower. Let’s remember, Joe Lieberman was on that Democratic ticket and while our present Joe doesn’t seem to have much authority we needn’t look too far to see what power and authority a previous Vice Presidential Dick had. The Democratic power structure has to maintain the appearance of a difference in the parties in order to effectively guarantee control of the issues of highest priority—corporate power. Multi-Trillion dollar, multinational corporations don’t really give a damn if homosexuals marry or not, this is just the stuff that election manipulations are made of.
Republicans can push the corporate fascism agenda faster than Democrats, so any opportunity to keep Republicans in place speeds the process with the added advantage to the corporate scum of funneling more tax dollars to them and making life miserable for the minority of their choosing. Democrats are important because when the havoc and destruction that the Republicans accomplish actually starts to make the average Jane and Joe take notice and make noise you send in the Democrats to put on a show. “Here come those protectors of the common man to undo all that raping and pillaging that those nasty Republicans did.”
That’s where we are now. This administration will set things up for the Republicans when they take over… and they will. Why? Because success is not the goal or function of the Democratic party. The Democrats play the part that the Washington Generals do in games with the Harlem Globe Trotters—a good cop bad cop kind of thing. They’re not there to win. The election system is set up to accomplish this. Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul; weather they know it or not, these people are play actors in the show. The headliners won’t let them get anywhere under normal circumstances. A conspiracy theory? I hope so but honestly, this is what I whole heartedly believe at this point.
Aside from the social issues the greatest divide between the Left and the Right may be the role of Government. I do not ascribe to the “government is evil and the free market is not” line of reasoning. As I see, it what has happened to our government is the result of a very effective attack on the citizens by corporate power and a citizenry that has bought into the anti-government propaganda spread so effectively by that same corporate power. It’s been a very effective public relations campaign. Tea baggers are the most openly proud dupes while self congratulating Democrats are the more smug elite dupes.
Taxes are not inherently evil, in fact taxes have been used to great effect by both parties for the wrong purposes and both parties will not pass serious tax reform because they need the tax issue as a tool just like they need homosexuality and other social issues. Serious tax reform and a budget that makes sense are possibilities only when we remove the wrong headed and criminal machinations that have taken control from the equation and replace it with representatives that answer to us and not lobbyists.
Health care is an ideal example for a service of government. The insurance industry is essentially nothing more than a risk pool. Government collected taxes, a portion of which are used for health care, from millions of Americans can perform the same function without the drive to cut care to increase profits. Would it have problems? You bet. Does private care have problems? You bet. But who controls private care, the citizen, the patient or the CEO? You say you can vote with your wallet, really? Do you really want to hunt for health care like shopping for a used car; does your employer even offer that as an option?
So what can we do? Well, the fact that they bother to put on a show means that they have some fear or need for citizen approval. I think whatever happens will have to be coordinated outside the mainstream. The mainstream media is useless on the big domestic political issues; they are the “them”. We are in a difficult position with the demise of real Journalists and investigative reporters that aren’t cowards and shills--signs of the further takeover by corporate media. But history has shown that populist movements can accomplish great things.
My vote for the first place to start is the removal of corporate person-hood and fortunately I’m not alone. This Democratic debacle has been so clumsily and brazenly executed that more than a few citizens are seeing behind the curtain and this is a good thing. The public financing of campaigns and the fidelity of the vote-count are all eligible for first place priorities as well.
We need to see government as a necessity as we move forward into the twenty-first century. Globalization is a fact and corporations are already becoming giant monopolies. The collusion of government and big business spells the death of Democracy. This is not pre-industrial America it is the twenty-first century and a government of, by and for The People has never been more important.
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