Australian Press informs America about Obama… read “The Illusion that is Barack Obama” plus other leading journalists discuss this election…
One of the things about Obama is the difficulty in knowing just exactly who he is and what he stands for. These things are coming out slowly, and the public is getting to see behind the scenes for the first time. It’s obvious that he has done massive target marketing. These boxes are from Nevada. This is something Axelrod must have orchestrated. It’s slick and shiny and beautifully presented. But does packaging a Presidential candidate a President make?
No.
It’s the value system of the candidates that matter most. It’s what they will do to represent AMERICA as a whole, not just one portion of America. Not by dividing America up into target demographics. This election is looking more and more like a Wall Street hostile “business” takeover.
Right now, average Americans are concerned with ending the war and the economy overall, in my opinion. Average Americans have been in shock for the last eight years, post 9/11. Regardless of whether you are pro-war or anti-war the cost of the war is escalating in both human and financial tolls daily. There are food shortages around the globe. There is the reemergence of a hideous creep of racism across the board. We need a president who can take all these things into account so that the country can begin to repair itself.
It’s been hard to make a judgement about Barack Obama based on what has been revealed about him so far. It’s as if the press is doing a cover up. That isn’t a good thing, especially when you have to go outside our own country for news. There have been articles in the web about fascism taking root here on our soil. Bad. In history these movements started as a result of the economic health of the country. People threw themselves at various leader’s feet in the past when times got desperate. We live in America. We do not live in a militant, fascist state. No American would want that. The web has changed how Americans “do politics.”
In the future, more than likely all the people running will use the web to advertise themselves. This election, rules need to be established by the FEC for how this is going to look now and in the future. Target marketing in the case of Barack Obama can serve as a model to help Americans understand how opinion is shaped by advertising. This campaign is visual, yet elusive. There are words, but what do they actually say? There are pastors who have preached hate. There are logos that shape shift to fit the desired demographic. Even the fonts are branded so they match. All the way over to “CHANGE CONGRESS.org”
Our critique is about the target marketing as fundraising. If the candidates are going to be able to do this in the future who will regulate it? The more money they bring in, the more advertising they buy and the more materials are printed up. A president is not a “bought” thing. A president is a voted for “thing.” That is how it works, here in America.
After 9/11 the States split along Blue and Red lines. Blues didn’t want the war. Reds bought big SUV’s when the president wanted the country to support industry here. Now both sides feel it. The toll of war and the toll of escalating gas prices. Jobs for the common man have disappeared overseas, fattening up other nations. Not us.
There are so many problems here now. What we don’t need are more. Axelrod should be unexcused for stirring up a racial cauldron in this country that didn’t exist previous to all his target marketing. Average Americans do not hate each other. They work side by side in peace. At least in California, we do.
One of the reasons that Church and State should be separated in this country is because the two do not mix well. Everyone in America is entitled to practice their own religion, and hold their own religious views. Reverend Wright blew the lid off of something Average Americans of all colors didn’t know about. Well, perhaps it’s time the American faith based communities get together for a dialogue about that. All throughout history people have made scapegoats of others. Right now though, for the good of the country as a whole, we do not need that. As we continue to slide into poverty as a nation who is going to bring us back from that brink?
I don’t trust the slipperyness of Barack Obama in discounting the twenty years he spent at Wright’s Church. I don’t trust what “Chicago” politics look like, either. I don’t trust the concept of “operatives” running things here. Personally, I think David Axelrod should be brought before some committee or other for what he has incited in the American mind. Right now, we didn’t need this. There are so many basic needs that the country has. Can we afford race wars here?
Can we afford rabble rousing right now?
I know one thing, we don’t need more lies. We don’t need politicians with slick ad campaigns. We need a president willing to put the issues on the table in very straight ways. The American public can’t be fooled right now. The American people need some help right now, in practical ways. Don’t force the country to go Republican again. Take the middle way. On one side we have a Republican, in the middle a Democrat and on the left a Corporate Alinsky hard left winger backed by people who cheated Blacks in Chicago.
This article from Australia finally begins to explore Obama’s ties, associations and history.
The illusion that is Barack Obama
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Fred Siegel | May 05, 2008
“…POLITICAL campaigning necessarily produces a wide gap between words and deeds. This is the price of bringing together a broad coalition with disparate interests. All effective politicians are at times authentically insincere or sincerely inauthentic. Exaggeration, embellishment, overstatement, doubletalk, deception and lies presented as metaphorical truths are the order of the day.
So, of course, Barack Obama is no different. He exaggerates the credit he deserves for a limited piece of ethics-reform legislation. He embellishes when he presents himself as having had a consistent record on the Iraq war when in fact he’s done a fair amount of zigzagging.
He engages in doubletalk when, on free trade and Iraq, he tells the yokels one thing and the policy people another. He overstates when he presents his minimal accomplishments in the Illinois Senate as proof of his stature. He engages in systematic deception when he says he doesn’t take money from lobbyists…”
More here as a back up out of Chicago itself…from The Chicago Daily Observer
Taking Stock of Barack
“…Time to take stock of Barack Obama. He lost decisively in Pennsylvania despite outspending Hillary a whole lot. Yes, she was expected to take the state, but not as handily as she did. Obama moved on to Indiana and North Carolina for his next test. It’s his to lose, but he’s on the defensive, and why is that?
Who is he anyway? And how many more surprises will come up between now and November? Already there are more than I can ever remember for a presidential candidate. With George W. there were the trumped-up charges on the National Guard and an October surprise low-speed drunk-driving charge in small town Maine. They used to be policy shifts, then secret plan conspiracy theories, then congressional witch hunts criminalizing policy, lately personal “dirt”. But who needs to pull any of that with Barack Obama?…”
It’s the ties and associations that count, in this case. Not the slick branding. Not the advertising. Not the packaging, and in this case, after you read MyDD’s blogger, not the threats. We don’t elect American Presidents who use threats…
Response to Color of Change Obama Propaganda
“…Many of you know Color of Change as a grassroots organization. Instead of telling you what they do, I’ll let them set the stage:
ColorOfChange.org exists to strengthen Black America’s political voice. Our goal is to empower our members–Black Americans and our allies–to make government more responsive to the concerns of Black Americans and to bring about positive political and social change for everyone.
And how they do it:
Using the Internet, we will enable our members to speak in unison, with an amplified political voice. We will keep them informed about the most pressing issues for Black people in America and give them ways to act. We will lobby elected representatives using email, the telephone, and face-to-face meetings. We’ll bring attention to the needs and concerns of Black folks by holding coordinated events in different parts of the country, running TV and print advertisements, and demanding that the news media cover our issues. We will also work with other groups–online efforts and other organizations that are doing related work–to magnify our impact.
So how did I – - – a caucasian – - – get involved with Color of Change, you ask? Simple, during the Jena Six scandal, I received an email from Color of Change, and signed petitions in favor of the release of African American kids from jail as a result of bogus convictions from a racially charged incident.
Today, I received a very different kind of email from Color of Change.
Dear [PJ Jefferson],
Some leaders in the Democratic Party are playing with fire. They think that they can betray the will of millions of voters and choose Hillary Clinton as the nominee, regardless of whether or not she is the choice of the voters. We can’t let this happen. It would be the largest disenfranchisement in modern history, and it would mean the Democratic Party giving their stamp of approval to a clear and consistent pattern of race-baiting by the Clinton campaign…”
The Clinton campaign has not used race-baiting as a tactic — this is an important read, very important in the wake of the Katrina disaster and Jena Six. It is interesting to see what is taking shape via the target marketing Axelrod has done. I just ask, as an American who grew up crossculturally in an America at Peace, what this campaign wants in toto.
For a great view from the Black perspective you’ll want to read Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report, and there are other writers there as well. Getting behind a candidate is not a black and white issue. You pick a Presidential candidate because of their values and deeds. And in our country, each American is free to vote for who they want to represent us. Given this mess with Michigan and Florida, it looks like we need reforms across the ENTIRE country. Paper ballots? That all look the same? That would be a good move to get all the states on the same page, wouldn’t it? Glen Ford speaks to all of America. I read someplace he has been a journalist for 40 years. It shows. Too bad more of the American Press doesn’t look like his writing. He isn’t afraid to be honest. We can be thankful for that.
Obama’s ‘Race Neutral’ Strategy Unravels of its Own Contradictions
| Wednesday, 30 April 2008 | |
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by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
racial/historical visions, and in doing so, performed a service on behalf of clarity. Obama lashed out in a startlingly personal manner, calling Wright a “caricature” of himself and linking the minister to forces that give “comfort to those who prey on hate.” Rev. Wright exposed the flimsy tissues of so-called “race neutrality” in a nation founded on racial oppression…”
