A tremendous wave of sadness overcame me today. I have always tried to be an optimist about this country and our prospects for the future. Sure, I know that things are worse now then they have ever been in our history. Sure I know that a handful of powerful people control everything. I wasn’t a blind optimist, just a hopeful realist. I am starting to think that I have been wrong and maybe we are just beyond political and cultural redemption.
It saddens me because we are six months out of the most important election of our times and we should be discussing the merits of each candidate. Does Hillary really have the experience she brags about or is it all smoke and mirrors? Does Obama’s lack of experience really disqualify him? If elected will John McCain really blow up Iran? What are the candidates’ plans for this country? What would they do about the economy? The environment? The war? Are these the salient questions we find ourselves discussing today? Unfortunately not. Instead we are led around by the nose by the machine that does not want us focusing on what is truly important and instead wants us debating whether barrack Obama is really a closet Muslim. Instead of having meaningful dialogue we are reduced to character assassination by association.
The first distraction is the Muslim question. Designed to prey upon our worst fears and basest emotions of hate, the idea doesn’t have to actually stick. The big lies never have to. They just have to plant a seed of doubt. That’s it. An article here or there, even one that is agreeing he is not a Muslim serves the purpose. It starts the dialogue. The hate starts flowing, the fear starts spreading. Then you walk into the voting booth in November and when no one is looking and the curtain is pulled, those needling little doubts come back to the hairs on your neck and the next thing you know you are voting for the other guy. The guy they want you to vote for. Not because he represents anything. Not because he has a good plan for the country. Just because you’re afraid; or you succumbed to the hate. You must understand America; you are being manipulated. You are being played. They do not care if you actually believe the lie; as long as you are talking about it. The notion that he is Muslim is patently ridiculous. I could go into the moronic logic that says because someone who is five years old is growing up in a nation that is predominately Muslim that somehow that magically makes him a Muslim by default. Never mind that his mother is a Christian and his father was not religious at all. Never mind that a five year old has no concept of religion. Never mind any of that because it doesn’t matter. Once he has to defend the charge he has lost the battle. Why? Because the truth lies dying in the aftermath of the politics of distraction.
The second distraction is the old politics of personal destruction. Only this time it is guilt by association. The Muslim argument attacks the man directly for things that are simply untrue and this attacks him by trying to link him to someone who said anything reprehensible. Enter Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Somewhere there are people working around the clock to comb through the rantings of anyone Obama is associated with so they can hang those comments around his neck like a millstone. Seems Pastor Wright has made some inflammatory remarks over the years. Some remarks that can be construed as anti-American even. Of course Obama did not say these remarks. He did not even hear them. So we play this little game where he is forced to repudiate comments he never made but in doing so, the objective is achieved. The debate has switched. Instead of talking about change and what he can bring to this country, he is forced to defend something he had nothing to do with. Never mind that the guilt by association thing can work both ways. McCain is endorsed by John Hagee, who is certainly reprehensible in his own right and do we really want to dig up whitewater again? What about Geraldine Ferraro? It is beyond shameful that this is what is left of politics in America today. A country devoid of substance waiting for a train wreck. The truly sad part is not in the waiting for the train wreck but the hoping for it. The living for it. We have been indoctrinated with so much reality TV that we are mistaking what is and what is not reality. What should be the most important discussions are replaced by the freak show. When we stand around the water cooler we don’t want to talk about healthcare but would rather discuss the fact that Obama once had to walk past a mosque in order to go school. We don’t want to talk debate the virtues of the war in Iraq but would rather pontificate about the rumor that Obama’s gardener is really a closet homosexual so Obama must be a communist somehow. This is what is left of the political discourse in this country. This is what makes me sad.
What makes me sadder is that people fall for it over and over again. In 2000 the machine wanted George Bush because a puppeteer needs a willing subject. The media went into overdrive to paint Al Gore as a serial liar. We heard story after story about how he claimed to have invented the Internet, was the basis for Love Story and allegedly discovered the fist toxic waste dump. None of the stories were true of course but why let a little thing like the truth matter in a national election? Bush was given a free pass of course. The man couldn’t put together a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight but he was portrayed as “folksy” by the compliant media. Suddenly the issue for who would be the next president became who you would want a beer with instead of who could run the country. One rigged election later and we got the Bush administration. Fast forward to 2004 and the machine went into overdrive on John Kerry. They created entire organizations designed to distract and lie about who he was. He was swift-boated to within an inch of his life and another rigged election later; we got Bush II, the sequel. Both times mainstream America stood by and didn’t even realize the role they played. The puppeteers pulled the strings and America danced for them.
So now we fast forward another four years and see that the machine again wants to distract. They want John McCain in the White House. The reason why is so we can have “Bush III: Bush on steroids.” Then we can have perpetual wars. War with Iran, Iraq and any other country with enough oil to pique our interests. Hundreds of thousands of people will die unnecessarily. Flags will be waved and grandiose speeches will be heard from sea to shining sea about such poignant topics as democracy and freedom. No –bid contracts and corruption will continue as national policy. The Bush tax cuts will be made permanent. The dollar will continue to crumble. The neo-con vision for America will continue. McCain has already reversed his position on torture, which is amazing considering his POW past. If he is willing to sell that out, what is left?
This is real America. If we do not learn from the mistakes of the past then we are doomed to repeat them. In both 2000 and 2004 the machine went into action to distract you. They knew what they were offering, Bush, was simply not palatable. So they sold you that Gore was a liar and that Kerry was a traitor and you bought it. Now they are using the race card, the religion card, the fear card and the hate card. That is a full house of sleaze. Their product again is completely unpalatable so they are left to feeding America on why they should hate or fear Barack Obama. Start the dialogue and have the people talking about Muslims and pastors and hate; oh my. No need to talk about healthcare, war and poverty. No reason to question the McCain record or rhetoric. Don’t fall for it folks. I have learned over the years that if they are spending so much time telling me not to vote for someone, that is probably the right person for the job. Hopefully the sadness will pass tomorrow and people will start to see through the politics of distraction. I hold out some hope but it is fading. I see the fake polls are already in full gear. The country is 70-30 against the war but we are supposed to believe that the pro war candidate in McCain is only trailing the anti-war candidate in Obama by three points? Setting up the sales pitch for how McCain pulls it off in November? Guess I am growing more jaded as well. Don’t fall for the distraction. Talk about what matters, not the tripe they try and sell you on. See you in November.
Anthony Wade, a contributing writer to opednews.com, is dedicated to educating the populace to the lies and abuses of the government. He is a 40-year-old independent writer from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies and excess.
Ron Paul won his congressional seat with over 37K votes, but lost the presidential primary in his district to McCain because he received less than 7K votes.
I don't know anyone who would vote for McCain over Ron Paul..Ron Paul will not conceed to McCain. Ron Paul conceeded to MSM. You can call it "Politics of Distraction", but I call it "Entertainment" because it's not so depressing to me when I see it that way.
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Jeanette Doney (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 304 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 8:32:40 AM
I would posit that about two thirds of our nation, those with common sense who haven't been brainwashed by religious cult mind control, are not buying into the distractions. That doesn't mean they are keeping up with the dearth of information such as the Iraq and Afghaistan occupations. It does mean that there is only so long that they swallow bulls--t before they catch on that they have been had. Note that Tucker Carlson is losing his soapbox for lack of an audience. Fox News only keeps up its rating by holding fewer people for longer viewing times.
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Pat Williams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 82 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 8:41:00 AM
"The Sadness of the Politics of Distraction" Anthony Wade
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Although I am not an American, nor Christian, nor White, I am as sad as Mr.Wade to see US Politics going down the gutter, as they would say in England! Sewerage it is and it stinks but where we are, where the crude oil and gas reserves are, US Politics translate into its stinking Foreign Policy, which stinks of blood, rotting cadavers and depleted Uranium. If you can not identify and go after the 'puppeteers' who are destroying you and us, together, what can we do except...................
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syed mahdi (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 123 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 9:15:54 AM
I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and hopes alive that Americans will be able to see through the "distractions" in the race for president this year. Obviously this has been a GOPer tactic for years now, and it's about time folks wake up and smell the coffee.
Of more immediate concern to me is the Eliot Spitzer distraction we've been subjected to 24/7 lately. When you get right down to it, who really gives a damn except perhaps the folks in New York. All is boils down to is a sex story that Americans just cannot resist. It's even better than a missing or murdered white girl.
What we really need to be paying attention to is the timing of the Spitzer story. No doubt the Justice Department has been on the case for a while, so why was the story introduced to the public this week. And I do believe the timing wqs deliberate.
A couple of days ago, Admiral William Fallon resigned-retired-"was fired" as head of Central Command covering the Middle East and Asia. By all accounts, Admiral Fallon was the "last" remaining obstruction to the Cheney/Bush/neo-con desire to begin bombing Iran. Admiral Fallon had spoken out, and was thus known and respected for his rational opposition to a third war in the Middle East; and I along with other folks placed great hope in his ability to prevent a war with Iran. With the departure of Admiral Fallon, America is in immenent danger of another war.
But alas, the story of his resignation has registered little more than a blip on the MSM, and unless one has access to and follows the stories on the internet, folks have no way of undertanding how important this story is to America's future.
This is the point where the "politics" of distraction really comes into play, and where it really matters. The Eliot Spitzer saga will fade, as have all the other sensational sex stories. Fallon's departure could very well hasten the commencement of McCain's wet dream of "bomb, bomb, Iran".
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Bill (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 9:30:01 AM
I agree that the media blows up the natalie Holloway stories to distract but in this case two points:
1) The Spitzer story is a real story. It is not just about sex, that is a cop out. This is about a sitting Governor, who made his bones being the tough law guy, breaking federal law and spending 100 grand on hookers. That is a legit story. Yes I am from NY, lol.
2) If it was meant to be a distraction, it may not be about Fallon. Fallon got coverage but there is little to say unless we start seeing a real push to war with Iran. Read Palast's latest piece about the Spitzer timing.
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Anthony Wade (135 articles, 2 quicklinks, 44 diaries, 434 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 11:23:44 AM
for all this distraction ? One is the looming world depression and the food riots that will follow.The US Canadian agreement to move foreign troops over the borders freely under UN direction (see Operation Garden Plot) deadly force has been selected as the procedure to quell dissent. Gunderson Steel of Portland Oregon is building white boxcars with shackles for the UN to transport citizens to the labor and prison camps recently constructed by Kellog Brown and Root a division of Halliburton. RFID bracelets are ready to be placed on disaster evacuees, those with no criminal record. The "undesirables" as Jack Colley descibes them, will take the bus to the dark side, or a boxcar.
The elections are not the reason for all the diversion, just a part of it.
The Gunderson Steel boxcar story is O.L.D. news - that circulated about 3 years ago... So far, no supporting evidence. (google Gunderson Steel + Portland)
Gunderson even offered cash rewards for anyone who could provide photograph(s) of said boxcars which they strongly deny building.
Admittedy there ARE (or were) a helluva lot of idle boxcars sitting on sidetracks around Portland in the coast range mountains west of PDX metro - I have seen them and thought to myself "damn, that's sure a lot of rolling stock not making anyone any money!" But these days when "farmers" living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan can get thousands in government agricultural subsidies...? Then who knows how the insurance companies & banks who own all those box cars make money off them when they are just parked in the Oregon mountains like that. Strange daze indeed.
Yes, something is afoot *BUT a shipload of it is DISINFO and psyops.
Remember Field Marshall Rumsfeld admitted the Pentagon is definitely going to engage in disinfo - and a lot of it is aimed DIRECTLY at the US public.
INSIST on multiple unrelated sources when you come across rumors.
The sewage is flying thick and fast - it's a literal sewage blizzard.
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mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 294 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 5:17:59 PM
I found the two MTV links very interesting. Does anyone know if they actually ran on national TV? I also tried to run down pictures of the white box cars, but all of the links were missing. I have noticed lately that a lot of links to sites that formerly covered the "martial law" and "mass imprisonment" conspiracy type of material, along with links to Rules of Engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, have gone missing. In short, these and numerous other sites I have had bookmarked for years to check in on once a month or so are suddenly disappearing with suspicious regularity. I hope this reflects more on the economy than on an organized attack on the internet. But, I doubt it.
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W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 259 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 11:54:51 PM
I'm sorry but I don't follow your logic. When king george was running, not much was said about his past and I wonder how many would have voted for him is they know about it? I do think that the public needs to know if a candidate goes to a church that preachs hate against another race. As long as religions preach race we will always remain divided. I'm sorry but this kind of religion scars me. I think the democrates are at a point of where they are almost going to have to find another candidate to run and fast.
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beccy (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 87 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 3:22:29 PM
I'm sorry but I don't follow your logic. When king george was running, not much was said about his past and I wonder how many would have voted for him is they know about it?
The key is HIS past, not the past of someone that preaches to him, or someone he knows by association. That is patently absurd. I am not voting for Jeremiah Wright any more than i am voting for John Hagee who endorsed McCain. It dilutes the debate and denigrates it to tabloid television instead of debtaing the issues that really matter.
I do think that the public needs to know if a candidate goes to a church that preachs hate against another race.
Well, if Obama went to Farrakhan's church and embraced hate, i would agree. That is not what happened. In this instance you have a pastor with decades worth of public appearances and a small handful of objectionable comments. I would hardly call that preaching hate.
As long as religions preach race we will always remain divided. I'm sorry but this kind of religion scars me. I think the democrates are at a point of where they are almost going to have to find another candidate to run and fast.
Hogwash. People need to grow up. There is no teflon candidate. Everyone is comrimised on one level or another. My point is lets concetrate on what they have done and will do, not who they know and lies about their cultural background designed to spread hate and fear.
Thanks.
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Anthony Wade (135 articles, 2 quicklinks, 44 diaries, 434 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 4:32:49 PM
All religion should "scare" everyone. Dogma, esoteric deities, folklore of yore as fact - rather than recognition as ancient, imaginary tales - should beg the attention of every cogent person. The reactionary throng of certitude in mysticism as authenticity stands only as an unmovable, monolithic voice due to generational incuriousness, baseless guilt, and imprudent gullibility.
Religion, in every form, is merely an occult of belief in a superlative set of human conduct laws - divvied out by dogmatic charlatans - that provide suppressive camouflage for reprehensible, intolerant, and spiteful judgment of others.
It is time to confront once-sacred canon as dubious and not beyond reproach. Religion is, in all its forms, intellectual slavery. When one frees their mind of baseless guilt, gullibility and gods, they - as did I five years ago - find a renewed vigor and clarity that unshackles the psyche to pursue truth over piety.
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Frank J. Ranelli (59 articles, 141 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 331 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 4:52:41 PM
In politics it's all about perception. I fear Obama is done. He cannot tell me that he has been with this church for 20 years and never heard this "man of God" express these vile sentiments or that no one told him about them if he was not there. Obama should have not only repudiated and denounced Wright's statements at the time they were made, but moved his membership to another church---that is, if he didn't believe the same garbage. What else are we going to find out about Barrack Obama--as if this is not enough!
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Merylr (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 18 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 7:21:30 PM
The truth hurts. Jeremiah Wrights statements have been presented as a Black vs White issue by those who wish to divide us, and certainly as an African American, his spin will be racially oriented. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, and what he says has Truth that crosses racial lines.
What hurts Americans is that most believe in the myth that America is Gods country, a Christian nation representing Christian values, who fight for Justice, Democracy and the American way, at home and abroad, and who value human rights and freedom for all. Too bad it was not true.
This does not mean that we, as Americans, are bad people and do not have these ideals individually or collectively. It does mean that the power elite who control our currency, government, oil and media have been doing some pretty nasty things in our name, and telling us otherwise. Fooled us not once or twice, but mucho numero times.
It started very early in our history. We conquered America by ethnically cleansing the Indians, those who were left were rounded into concentration camps (reservations). Manifest Destiny gave us this right. We invaded and stole half of Mexico from the Mexicans, who were Christian, but the wrong color. We butchered ourselves in the Civil War, which was not a War against Slavery, another myth we swallowed. We discriminated against African Americans for 100 years after the Civil War. We occupied the Philippines at the end of the 19th century and killed over 200 thousand people to suppress the resistance against the occupation.
And then we got to the 20th century, and it did not get much better in fact it got much worse as we went global (the reasons given the the American people for many of the listed interventions were lies or distortions covering our real reasons) and gave our currency up to the bankers in 1913, many of whom were in bed with the European bankers that saw America as a colonial treasure house for them to plunder. Since then, our Military marches indirectly to the orders of the crypto Anglo-American Commonwealth, and so too does the Fed. No wonder so many of our leaders get knighted by the queen.
The rest of the world sees through it, as many have been our victims at one time or another. At home, African Americans certainly are not blinded, and even some of us white folks and others see it. Yet when you try and expose it, you are branded as someone who hates America or a terrorist sympathiser, or even a terrorist. And if you happen to be in government or with a company or institution that relies on government, you get Spitzerized while the Larry Craigs of the world are free to terrorize the mens room in the Senate and airports. So most people just keep quiet and pretend the Emperor is finely clothed along with the flock. They are the ones we call "Patriots".
And people like Obama and his wife, who also see the naked Emperor, they back off when confronted since they know most of their constituents do not have an open mind on the issue. I understand why Obama has broken with Jeremiah Wright, it would be political suicide if he did not. But it does not bode well for change in this country. Only if we see ourselves as we really are can we identify the problelms and change. Denial or minimizing the problem will prevent us from removing the cancer in it's entirety.
Instead, the politics of the day are about a politician who went up against the bankers and a prostitute (practicing free trade, infidelity and fighting banking fraud), Obama (muslim roots vs christian values), Obama (christian priest with non-mainstream views that highlights black vs white issues), Hillary (playing the fear and sex card, and the exploiting the rift between Hispanic and African Americans) and McCain (wooing the Christian Right and the MIC).
So your pessimism is well founded. In fact, African Americans and Whites will all have the same thing in common. Here is an interesting article on the modern form of slavery they have given us.
"This form of "debt slavery" or "debt peonage" was not just an accidental development of history. It was a deliberately-planned alternative to the slave arrangement in which owners were responsible for the feeding and care of a dependent population, and it is still with us today. Although European financiers were in favor of an American Civil War that would return the United States to its colonial status, they admitted privately that they were not necessarily interested in preserving slavery. They preferred "the European plan": capital could exploit labor by controlling the money supply, while letting the laborers feed themselves. In July 1862, this ploy was revealed in a notorious document called the Hazard Circular, which was circulated by British banking interests among their American banking counterparts. It said:
"Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a means to control the volume of money. To accomplish this, the bonds [government debt to the bankers] must be used as a banking basis. . . . It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that.""
Slavery will be color blind this time.
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pft (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 236 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 7:43:03 PM
No, it was not a personal affront, nor was my intent to highjack a great article with an assault on religion.
However, I can't sit by idle while we, as a species, continue to devolve using ancient, apocryphal cannon that is archaic and dubious to guide us or to explain the world around us. I am a staunch atheist who believes religion is the most divisive, fallacious, and deadly unfounded premise that man has ever devised.
I will concede that this article is not the appropriate venue for "that" discussion. I am, and continue to find your articles well-written and do my best as a senior editor to give them, and you, the full attention deserved.
I digress...
Peace.
Frank R. Senior Editor OEN
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Frank J. Ranelli (59 articles, 141 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 331 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 8:00:51 PM
