Nothing underscores the Corporate Conservative Establishment's fear and paranoia of losing their choke-hold on the minds of the American electorate so much as the recent manufactured flap over Barack Obama's "bitter" truth-telling.
Obama, at an April 6 fund raiser in San Francisco, began a speech by referencing a New York Times article that suggested white, working-class Americans will more likely vote against the black Senator because of his skin color. The skin-color-as-determinant-of-presidential-race-outcome prophets have sounded off all across the media spectrum: the Corporate Media implies it, the people read it and the people act the way the Corporate Media tells them everyone else is acting, whether or not it is actually true.
The Times has turned Obama's remarks into a seeming crusade against the man.
"Obama Tries to Limit Fallout Over 'Bitter' Remark," the Times trumpeted in a headline on Saturday. "Opponents Call Obama Comments 'Out of Touch,'" ran another headline on Saturday. "On the Defensive, Obama Calls His Words Ill-Chosen," ran a headline in Sunday's paper, followed by "Clinton Keeps Up Blast Over Obama's Small Town Remarks," followed by "Penn Surrogates Weigh Import of Obama's Words." This after the Times and Obama's critics narrowed in on Obama's words like snipers.
The Times doesn't like to take responsibility for its words, and there are plenty that deserve the scrutiny now being given to Obama's remarks. Reporter Michael Powell, recently used the slang phrase, "talks smack" to describe Obama's perfectly articulate criticisms of President Bush. Powell, and Jeff Zeleny, who is the author of the several of the latest hit pieces on Obama, also wrote that Obama basically learned to do politics in Chicago with crowbars. In that article, also, was the suggestion that if Obama gets down and dirty with Clinton "he risks taking the shine off."
"Shine," as you probably know, was once a well-known racist label for a black man who shines shoes for a living. Right now, Obama is playing by the white man's rules--he's a shine, Powell and Zeleny suggest, if he goes on the offensive and takes the shine off, he is, by inference, a full-blooded black man with a crow bar. The Times has never apologized for these word choices.
In the following paragraph are the actual words that Obama spoke. You really have to fill your heart with malicious cynicism to interpret these words as signs of Obama's media-manufactured ELITISM--a word that, remember, pertains to the very limousine executives who are responsible for crashing our economy and sending millions of Americans into foreclosure.
Obama began by saying that ordinary Americans feel bitter when politicians don't follow through on their campaign promises, a piece of the speech that is missing in the manufactured flap. "So it's not surprising then," Obama said, that [people in small towns] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
In the days since those comments appeared, these very words have been spun to suggest that Obama disdains people of faith. In Saturday's story, The New York Times reported in an article that was re-written since that, "Democratic and Republican critics alike accused Mr. Obama, of Illinois, of being elitist and demeaning to working-class Americans." The two critics the Times cited were Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Oh, and John McCain's spokesperson makes three.
Hillary Clinton is now using the opportunity to depict Obama as an "elitist," the right wing's favorite descriptor for liberals. Geoffry Nunberg, a linguistics expert, has pointed out that in the 1940's the word evoked images of Wall Street titans. Today it is tied to liberals who read The New York Times, or drink coffee, or drive Volvos, or eat sushi. Lifestyle choices...somewhat different than, "Hmm, which small island vacation palace shall I visit this weekend?"
"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton," the Times reported Sunday, "activated her entire campaign apparatus to portray Mr. Obama’s remarks as reflective of an elitist view of faith and community."
According to linguistic experts, the word "elite" is poll-tested to arouse distaste when it becomes attached to a politician. Somebody run a Lexis-Nexis search for "Obama" and "elite," you'll probably find 200,000 hits in the days since this story broke.
Before we go any farther, let's recall that Barack Obama was a community organizer for a while. It's a job that takes one from door, to door, to door. In a year, a typical organizer can knock on 20,000 doors, talk to 10,000 people--see into the lives of 10,000 people! Do you know what you hear when you talk to this many people? "I'm sick of these immigrants coming across our border and taking all of our jobs." Or, "We'd have health care if the immigrants weren't going to all of our hospitals and closing them down, just look at that one in Texas." Obama was exactly correct.
And blame for the ignorance he describes falls on the media. It's not the immigrants that are causing our health care costs to rise, just ask George Halvorson, CEO of Keiser Permanente. It's people with one of five chronic diseases: asthma, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes and depression. These people, and others with chronic conditions, account for 75 percent of the costs in our $2 trillion health care economy.
Blame for American ignorance falls squarely on the shoulders of the media: Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Faux News; every day they make Britney Spears a headline story over health care; every day they do a puff piece about a cat stuck in a tree. The 6 o'clock news in America has the substance of cotton candy.
you can count on the conservative controlled news media to help their Republican friends destroy whoever the leading Democratic candidate is at the moment.Unfortunately the Republican slime have proven that name calling works even though most people say they don't approve of name calling with their lack of critical thinking they end up falling for it every time.
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liberalsrock (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 113 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 7:53:11 AM
I usually don’t like to comment on the Obama vs. Clinton kind of stories, since I have no horse in that race (hehehe, i think they should both be "scrubbed", and the jockeys and owners investigated for race fixing... Along with the odds-touting shills of MSM ;)
However this particular 2-day talking head hubbub red herring has an interesting element in it.
If the good people of Pennsylvania (and Ohio, Michigan, and many other states) despise what has happened to their manufacturing base.... And blame "trade" (read NAFTA) for it; then they have every right to and then some. Lord knows they have watched as all the good jobs for the non-college educated have moved overseas, along with their chances of a better future. They have seen their local tax bases crushed (damaging the schools and raising property taxes), the small businesses and local suppliers suffer, and their beloved small towns and cities shrink as young workers leave for a chance somewhere else. Obama trying to blame that anger over NAFTA and the deliberate gutting of our manufacturing on the psychological effects of general frustration is dead wrong; and blatant pandering to corporations. It is also insulting. If he really believes that, then he doesn't "get it" it all.... It is more likely that choosing the words as he did, and linking "trade" (again, read NAFTA) with the non-sequitur of "Immigration" was meant to deflect criticism of NAFTA and the other bad trade deals, a subject that both he and Clinton desperately want to stay away from; since it puts them into an uncomfortable situation of appearing to be "off the reservation" to their corporate sponsors.... Or, at least, being put into the situation of having to make promises to do something about it (which, if you all noticed from the Ohio campaign, they carefully did not do).
But let me make it clear that whatever faults Obama has regarding trade, Clinton has proven herself to as bad or worse. Both of these horses and their “betting stables” need to be banned from the track.
What the good people of Pennsylvania should do, is vote for neither corporate candidate. Send a message that this frustration is not about skin color, gender, or bad psyrink quackery….
But about bought-and-paid-for Senators who traitorously allow the deliberate destruction of our manufacturing base.
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Steve Windisch (jibbguy) (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 163 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 10:15:11 AM
I agree with the author, but am not sure it will "backfire"
This same technique of having the NY Times, followed by the mainstream media generally, savaging a populist figure is a tactic with a long track record of success. It's one of the main ways in which elite rule is maintained in US society -- by the systematic discrediting & distortion of anyone who tries to speak the truth.
I'm not an Obama supporter, & wouldn't say he qualifies as a real "populist." But he was dead right in his "bitterness" analysis -- and that's precisely what has the NYT's panties all in a bunch. They're even more upset because he has the ability to speak compellingly about such complex subjects. (Pity he hasn't really tried to do that about such subjects as the war, impeachment, empire, military spending, the nature of the corporate media, or the issue of corporate power generally.)
There's certainly a rich irony in the fact that this time, the charge is that Obama is guilty of being an "elitist." That's downright hilarious, coming from the NYT, or from Hillary ($108 million income in 7 yrs, for hubby & self). But shameless lying is the standard MO for the Clintons & the NYT (or corporate media generally).
Will the tactic backfire? I guess we'll see on April 22. I hope it will backfire -- but wouldn't bet much money on it. Media has the American populace very effectively brainwashed. It's entirely possible that they'll fail to see this matter for what it really is.
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1120 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 12:18:31 PM
