The Swiftboating of Barack Obama / Regressive Antidote / David Michael Green

[Demeter]

http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/The_Swiftboating_of_Barack_Obama.html

If there’s anything I’ve learned about American politics over the past decade, it’s this: First, regressives will do anything – and I mean anything – to obtain power (the real purpose of which is to loot the public fisc of all items not securely nailed to the floor). And, second, just about everything they try works when employed against an American public possessed of stunning political immaturity...It comes as little surprise, therefore, that two things happened over the last couple of weeks. One, that Barack Obama was swiftboated by means of a bogus inference in order to make him look like an angry black radical. And two, that a lot of dumb voters went for it.

It was pretty inevitable, really. I mean, the guy was getting rather, um, uppity, if you know what I mean. Winning elections and all. Mobilizing millions of voters. And so on. Plus he’s talking like he might actually, really, seriously, shut off the government teat of Iraq war no-bid contracts, NAFTA/WTO-based cheap labor, and massive tax transfers for the hyper-wealthy. This shit had to end.
True, John McCain is not quite as reliable a special interests whore as, say, Mitt Ownme, but he knows where his bread is buttered, and sometimes it seems like he even genuinely believes all the crap they feed him. Anyhow, he’s far more controllable than some Democrat, especially one who seems increasingly able to get voters (with a massive assist from the complete failure of Bush and the regressive agenda) to cease responding to the cues for which they’ve been so well trained these last decades. Hear that bell? Salivate now. We say “Jump”? Ask “How high?” See that grainy image of a black criminal? Vote Republican. Oh, and please be sure to hand over your wallet before exiting the building.

No doubt about it, people. The American plutocracy paid good money to create such a well disciplined voting class, and they’re not about to let that investment go down the drain without a fight.
The damn thing about it, though, is that Obama hardly gives them anything to work with. I mean, the guy is mild-mannered to a fault. He’s inspirational when he speaks, never angry and alienating. He was supposed to be vulnerable for opposing the stupidest foreign policy decision ever made, but instead all except the most low-wattage voters see Iraq as, well, the stupidest foreign policy decision ever made. I mean, the guy doesn’t even really seem black.

That only leaves one option remaining, then: Swiftboat the SOB. Find some tangential pseudo-vulnerability that goes after Obama’s biggest potential asset and turn it into a negative. Is he coming off to a mesmerized public as some kind of post-ideological, post-racial-divide healer who could unite the country and return us to our sanity? Then he must be turned into Eldrige Cleaver. All that’s needed to complete the picture is a big ‘fro, a beret and an AK-47 with a menacing tilt to it...Preposterous? Think it can’t be done? So did I, until I saw a guy with three Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross turned into a weak, wimpy, lying coward, in order to make sure that a weak, wimpy, lying coward who went to Margaritaville instead of the Mekong Delta during the Sixties could be portrayed as some sort of macho tough guy, and thus steal another four years in the White House.
Fortunately, Obama is no John Kerry. The latter waited three weeks to respond to the attacks against him. He might as well have waited three years. Obama didn’t make the same mistake. And when he did speak, what a tour de force it was.

The most stunning feature of his speech was the least overt. This was a speech about his pastor, but that was not its central motif. This was a discussion of race, of course, but that was not its deepest theme...What really mattered most about this speech was the way in which Obama addressed us. American politicians have treated the voting public with barely concealed contempt for so long now, we’ve largely forgotten what respectful discourse looks like. On March 18th, Obama reminded us.
Forget about charisma, a very much overrated if not dangerous characteristic in politicians anyhow. What matters instead is this: It’s been decades since someone spoke to the public with this much honesty and sophistication about our society and its choices. It was breathtaking just to witness that level of esteem pointed in our direction....

ARTICLE CONTINUES WITH WELL-CRAFTED THOUGHTS--WELL WORTH THE READ!

[EFerrari]

1. Great read. The thing that struck me about that speech was

that Obama was teaching.

That's very different than just speaking as a politician.

I don't remember the last time that a politician sounded like that.

Teachers have this funny way of thinking, how can we use this situation? -- and then, speaking from that viewpoint.

It's not condescending in anyway, not as if teachers have anything to "teach" in reality but it's a way of approaching a problem. What can we make of this? How can we use this? That's what Obama did and I find that remarkable.

:)

[Peace Patriot]

2. The 2004 election was not stolen with images. It was stolen with voting machines

--and the images were crafted to provide a plausible narrative for the theft.

That is the only thing I disagree with in this article--that the American people were conned by the images--the "swift-boating" of Kerry, Bush's codpiece. They weren't. The article is otherwise brilliant and right on.

These parts of it downplay the deliberate installation of electronic voting systems, all over the country, run on "trade secret," proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls, during the 2002 to 2004 period.

-----

"...everything they try works when employed against an American public possessed of stunning political immaturity."

"...responding to the cues for which they’ve been so well trained these last decades."

"The American plutocracy paid good money to create such a well disciplined voting class."

"Think it can’t be done? So did I, until I saw a guy with three Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross turned into a weak, wimpy, lying coward, in order to make sure that a weak, wimpy, lying coward who went to Margaritaville instead of the Mekong Delta during the Sixties could be portrayed as some sort of macho tough guy, and thus steal another four years in the White House."

-----

He acknowledges that the White House was stolen, but doesn't give accurate emphasis to what that means. It means that the will of the people was thwarted..

I paid very close attention to a wide spectrum of both corporate and independent issue and approval polls during the 2002 to 2005 period, because I really wanted to know: Had my fellow and sister Americans gone bonkers fascist, goosestepping to Bush...or was something else going on? And I was amazed at what I found. For instance, in Feb. '03, just before the Iraq invasion, 56% of the American people opposed the war (NYT poll; other polls 54-55%). 54-56% is a significant majority. It would be a landslide in a presidential election (and believe me, it was). Now it's grown to a whopping, epochal anti-war majority of 70%! And still the political system is not responding. A 70% anti-war majority, and we get a Congress that escalated the war!?

These kind of amazements hit me on all issues--whopping majorities against every Bush policy, foreign and domestic.

The American people have been maligned. They are not "sheeple," most of them. They are actually rather well-informed--or, if they don't have the facts, they have good instincts (they knew not to trust Bush)--and they are much, much more progressive that the fascist 'news' media reflects.

So-o-o, what has gone wrong with our democracy? It ain't the people. And you just have to take one look at the new vote tallying system--which is egregiously riggable--to know what it is. They are not counting all the votes! It's as simple, and as mind-boggling, as that.

Much as I like this article--it's funny, and jazzy, and contains a lot of truth--I feel the need to point out this error, because it's such an important one. If we base our assessment of the American people on the impression of them created by the corporate media, we are not going to effectively prescribe the remedy for our near-death democracy. Count all the votes--in public view--and our democracy will start to get well very fast. Suddenly the voters will seem smart again, just as Thomas Jefferson hoped they would be. Democracy works! But not with "trade secret" vote counting.

[Demeter]

3. While It Is True That the Voting Machines Are Rigged

They can only be rigged so far--as was shown in 2006. Rove had his "numbers", but the angry and informed voters outnumbered him and his programming. There's only so much fraud that can be introduced before it becomes blatantly obvious to even the casual observer--3 to 5%. Rove thought he had enough "margin" built in. He didn't plan for the complete unraveling of his propaganda effort, however, and the amount of pre-election publicity the voter suppression efforts got.

In a very close race, where the Swiftboating has confused and distracted and outright discouraged an otherwise lackadaisical voting populace, it is possible by a combination of the propaganda, outright vote theft via those crooked machines, and voter suppression (another important factor!) to steal a hair-thin margin of "victory".

All three sources of election fraud must be dealt with. As David Michael Green is in the "news" business, or perhaps more accurately, the "opinion" business (propaganda by any other name is so much more palatable), he addressed the issue of which he was intimately familiar and skilled.

It took the GOP 50 years to build up this massive criminal enterprise. The amount of detail work is astonishing. Of course, they stood on the shoulders of giants: not just Hitler and Goebbels, but also Henry Ford, IBM, Randolph Hearst, and the massive loot collected by generations of corporate thieves.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Yes, I agree. The rigged voting machines have been the 'coup de grace'--the final

blow to a system already rigged with money and fascist imagery. But it is a decisive blow. The people actually overcame the propaganda in 2004 (long before that, actually); the grass roots matched the Bushite money machine dollar for dollar--an amazing feat--and furthermore blew the Bushites away in new voter registration, nearly 60/40, in 2004. Greg Palast estimates that 1 million black voters were purged from the voting rolls. But the difference between Kerry and Bush was 4 million. The rest of Bush's phony win came from the voting machines. And I'm convinced that it wasn't even close. Kerry won by a landslide (55% range).

My point about the voting machines--why I think it is so critically important--is that we cannot even begin to address problems like the fascist/corporate media or the filthy campaign money/lobbying system, UNTIL we can start electing REAL representatives of the people. The rigged voting machines blockade the normal, natural process of correction that democracy is designed for.

And the proof of this is how wild the corruption is--and how wildly out of control these fascists are. Where is the corrective? You say, the 2006 election. Well, with 70% of the people opposed to the Iraq War and wanting it ended, we somehow managed to 'elect' a Congress that is 60% to 70% FOR the war--and escalated the war, and gave Bush/Cheney billions and billions more of our money to keep killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights. We somehow 'elected' a Democratic Congress that is hardly better than a Bushite Congress on many critical issues, and furthermore has earned itself a 22% approval rating--worse than Bush!

I do agree that the people outvoted the machines in some cases, and that this caught Rove by surprise. The discontent is boiling over. It's been there all along, but now it's producing more votes than the rigged system can steal without raising suspicions. This is true of '06. But, in many cases, people were pushing the 'D' button--voting for a Democrat--with their main issue being the Iraq War--but a Democrat who would then go to Congress and vote FOR the war. How did that happen? In two main ways: rigged voting machines in the PRIMARIES, and DLC money pushing antiwar candidates out at an early stage. Without the DLC, we would have had more anti-war representatives in Congress, and without the rigged voting machines, we would have had many more--likely enough to stop the war funding.

And this is what we, of the leftist majority, are not facing. The top echelons of both parties form ONE party--a pro-war, pro-corporate party that rigged the voting system (yes, most of our Democratic leaders were/are in on it--they voted for it; they are still supporting it) to favor war and global corporate predator profit, vs. all the rest of the citizenry (the Democratic grass roots, plus progressive independents (most independents), and including some Republicans who have also been disenfranchised much more than anyone realizes). The political establishment vs. the people. And the political establishment has rigged the system to keep itself in power, for the most outrageous war profiteer/corporate looting we have ever seen in this country, and perhaps in the history of the world. But the key to undoing it--the key to unlocking OUR power as a democratic people--is the vote counting system, which is now almost entirely non-transparent and very insider riggable. We have to fight on many fronts--including imagery and message--but our actual POWER, as a people, resides in our vote, and, as long as the fascists have control of the vote counting, they can blockade and frustrate other kinds of efforts.

[Demeter]

7. You Are Absolutely Correct. That Is Why Golub Is Taking on Pelosi

and a lot of other truly pissed off are taking on other DINOs and Bush Enablers. Rome wasn't destroyed in a day...and the GOP has been working on this for 50 years, since Roosevelt broke up their cozy little tea party, the class traitor!

[Enthusiast]

4. That is just excellent! nt

[truedelphi]

5. A sad episode this one, the Swift boating of the Obama campaign

So now a politician has to answer for every weird hate-filled thing their pastor says - unless of course it is a weird, RW hate-filled guy like Falwell or Haggerty etc.

I like PJ OP'Rourke's line on Bill Maher. Being Catholic - he really did not want to get into a discussion of supporting the clergy:-)

[Demeter]

8. The Twist Is---It ISN'T Working!

somehow, Obama knows how to handle this kind of thing. That's why I can't run for office--I would never be able to defuse this situation.

[Peace Patriot]

9. I agree. It does not seem to be working. Obama is one cool customer, I'll give

him that. And I very much appreciate his not talking down to people, in "sound bites" and stupid, focus-group tested phrases, and also this article's nailing that point. And one of the reasons that the "swift-boating" is not working is that the American people have been far better (more progressive, more intelligent, better informed) than they seemed to be--as portrayed by, and reflected in, the corporate media--all along.