http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/player/player.html

http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/player/player.html

Oh, the pain of the believer: The decline of the Obama illusion

http://kasamaproject.org/2011/08/30/pain-of-the-believer-barack%E2%80%99s-betrayals-offer-lessons-we-can%E2%80%99t-deny/

Oh, the pain of the believer: The decline of the Obama illusion

Posted by Mike E on August 30, 2011

Danny’s essay first appeared on his News Dissectorsite. (Salute to Danny for his many decades of tireless resistance and excavation.) This article tracks the illusion and the disillusion in personal detail.

Is it accurate on the “lessons we can’t deny” or is there more to extract?

By Danny Schechter

Journalists are not supposed to have political opinions, and yet we all do. Our “biases” are usually disguised, not blatant or overtly partisan, and can be divined in what stories we cover and how we cover them,

Even ‘just the fact’s ma’am,’ journos for big Media have to decide which facts to include and which to ignore.

Our outlooks are always shaped by our worldviews, values and experience, not too mention the outlets we work for.

Which brings me to the challenge of seeking truth and recognizing it when you see it.

I have to admit that I was seduced by the idea of Barack Obama.

The idea of a black President, the idea of a young President, the idea of an articulate President, and the idea of a man married to such a stand up women from a working class family was hard to resist.

Here’s a guy who seemed really smart, not just because he went to Harvard but because professors there I liked were impressed with him. (I taught at Harvard, and know very well how not so smart many students there can be!)

In the end, it doesn’t mean much, but in that period he lived about a block away from the House I once shared on Dartmouth Street in Somerville.

Was that a degree of separation?

He had also been a community organizer, starting in politics at the grass roots in Chicago. I also worked at Saul Alinsky-style organizing and even knew the iconic organizer personally.

Was that another degree?

He’s invoked the spirit of the civil rights movement but was not part of it. He treated Dr. King as a monument before the new memorial was conceived, embracing him as a symbol of the past, not a guide to the future.

He took an anti-war stance on pragmatic grounds only, preferring Afghanistan to Iraq. He hasn’t extricated us from either battlefield.

His strategy borrowed heavily from the Bush Doctrine. What’s the difference, really, as US troops now intervene worldwide and Guantanamo remains open for business?

There was a lot I didn’t know. I didn’t know the backgrounds of those that groomed him and funded him. His relationship with the centrist DLC was murky as were the details on the services he performed for a shadowy firm, Business International, said to have CIA links.

There were those who warned, but I guess, I didn’t want to listen.

Why? I didn’t want to reinforce my own skepticism and sense of despair. I feigned at being hopeful even as I took quite a few critical whacks at his positions in my blog. His deviations from a liberal agenda and his paens to the “free market” were considered necessary for his “electability.”

I was also influenced by the euphoria for him overseas that had become infectious but has since soured.

To be honest, I was so disgusted with eight years of George Bush for all the right reasons that I wanted him gone full stop, as did millions of Americans.

Hillary didn’t appeal to me, not because she’s a woman but because of her slavish affinity for the Israel lobby and middle of the road Democrats. (Yes, Obama, did his mea-culpa to AIPAC too!)

I was denounced as a super sexist by a few for not buying into her centrist Clintonista crusade.

She had gone from a student advocate to part of a ruling family; he went from bottom-up activism to top-down elitism.

When she joined his “team,” you knew they were always in the same league.

When the right bashed him for associating with radical Bill Ayers, who I knew, it made me suspect he might even be cooler than I thought, even as he raced to distance himself. His membership in Reverend Wright’s church hinted at a deeper consciousness until he buckled in the media heat and threw the man that married him under the bus.

And yet, I wanted to believe because I needed to believe, needed to believe it was possible to change the American behemoth, to believe that, as he kept saying, “it could be different this time.”

As the late writer David Foster Wallace put it, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life…there is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship… else (what) you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough.”

So, in a sense, I became a worshiper like so many, not of the man or the dance he was doing in an infected political environment, but because I convinced myself that I worshiped possibility, that there are times when the unexpected, even the unbelievable occurs. I had seen Mandela go from prison to the presidency of South Africa.

History happens.

After all, how does a progressive blast a candidate who has Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger singing the uncensored version of “This Land Is Your Land” at his inaugural?”

Yet, there was always a nagging question: was he with us or just co-opting us?

Yes We Can?

Slowly, despite the glow and the aura, deeper truths surfaced, realities I had winked away. Its not surprising that his mantra has gone, as the Washington Post reports, from the “fierce urgency of now,” to “ Be patient, democracy is big and tough and messy.” Now journalists who supported him use terms like “wimpy,” “meek,” “anemic” and “tone deaf” to describe his discourse.

Yes, I knew, I may have been rationalizing a false god, who was only another, if more attractive, politician who says one thing and does another in a political system where power, not personalities prevail.

Like many of his predecessors he would be “captured” by the power structures, by the military men and contractors at the Pentagon and the money men on Wall Street.

He was in office but never really in charge. Clearly, he didn’t have the votes to enact a real change agenda. But that was because his own party was long ago bought and paid for.

He never had a chance, even if as I wanted to believe, he wanted one. He said he wanted to be transformational figure but the system transformed him—and quickly.

Everyone runs “against Washington,” even a Senator, who was part of it.

And so I held my nose and voted, hoping against my wiser instincts. I even made a positive film about the campaign that showed how he used social media and texting to mobilize new voters. When I tried to get a copy to the White House, through an insider there, I found they couldn’t be less interested.

By then, he had gone from playing the “outside game” to opting into the “inside game” built around compromise in the name of “pragmatism, or ‘getting it done,” in his words. In the end he was a rookie who may have outsmarted himself or just served the interests who put him there.

He couldn’t dump his most passionate and issue-oriented followers fast enough.

While his backers were still hot to trot, he became cooler toward them, and, in effect, repudiated them with few progressive appointments. He put on his flag pin and relished the symbolism of the “office.” He became the master of the uplifting speech disguising a quite different policy agenda.

He spoke for the people but served the power. His wanted the other side to love him too, even as his stabs at “bi-partisanship” proved non-starters.

When you lie down with those “lambs,” (or is it snakes?) you betray not only supporters, but their hopes. FDR was soon spinning in his grave.

I am not surprised that knowledgeable critics of his economic policies not only consider him bull-headed and wrong, but, actually corrupt, aligned and complicit, with the banksters who are still ripping us off. No wonder he’s ”bundled” more donations from the greedsters and financiers this year than in 2008! No wonder, he turned his back on consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren and is trying to kill prosecutions of bank fraud in high places.

Christopher Whalen who writes for Reuters say there will be a cost for his doing nothing, “The path of least resistance politically has been to temporize and talk. But by following the advice of Rubin and Summers, and avoiding tough decisions about banks and solvency, President Obama has only made the crisis more serious and steadily eroded public confidence. In political terms, Obama is morphing into Herbert Hoover.”

Yet, at the same time, many of us who now know how we have been used, will vote for him again, because, as he rightly calculates, there is no one else, and the alternative is even worse. Watch and weep as today’s rebels become next year’s rationalizers.

It reminds me of when activists were asked to vote for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 with the slogan “Part of the Way with LBJ.” That way ended with an endless escalation of war in Vietnam, and guns trumping butter. Sound familiar?

The search for truth and reality has hit a wall but has to continue. The lessons need to be learned. We have to say we were wrong, when we were, not in our beliefs, but in pinning our hopes on a shrewd, ambitious, and double-faced political performance artist.

While people who still back him dismiss the accusation that’s he’s a hidden socialist, Kenyan, or space alien, all too many suspect he may be a secret Republican. He is who he is, aloof, cautious, and a man in the middle. He’s staying there.

Let’s give David Foster the last word.

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness,…

… It is about simple awareness – awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over…”

Filmmaker and News Dissector Danny Schechter edits the Newsdissector.com blog. He directed “Barack Obama: People’s President” (2009) for a South African media company.

Publicopoly: ALEC and the Bid to Make Private All That is Public | Center for Media and Democracy

Publicopoly: ALEC and the Bid to Make Private All That is Public | Center for Media and Democracy

New Oil Leaking from Deepwater Horizon Macondo Well

New Oil Leaking from Deepwater Horizon Macondo Well

BP Hires Fleet of 40 Shrimp Boats to Lay Boom Around Deepwater Horizon Site.

http://projectmindwake.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-oil-leaking-from-deep-water-horizon.html

BY WAY OF DECEPTION...

BY WAY OF DECEPTION...

The "terrorist" attacks in israel are a false flag op to be used against the cause of Palestinian statehood.

http://www.bobtuskin.com/2011/08/18/attacks-in-israel-as-palestinian-statehood-gains-momentum/


Israel may be changing the story becaise they realized nobody was going to believe that HAMAS or Palestinians are going to carry out such an attack on the eve of the UN vote on Palestinian statehood.

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/filling-in-the-blanks-on-terror-attack/

Weather Modification

http://consciouslifenews.com/mainstream-media-tesla-weather-modification-real/115612/

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26773/

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/stonefukushima30may11.shtml

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/15/hey-facebook-are-you-really-censoring-political-free-speech-in-america/

Hey, Facebook: Are You Really Censoring Political Free Speech in America?

Either Facebook’s spam filters are completely out of whack or political free speech is being actively censored on the social network.

What’s happening: On Sun. Aug. 14, liberal page administrators and bloggers in my network started spreading the word that they had been blocked from posting ANY content on ANY other wall for 15 days. No prior warning was given.

The offenders are charged with posting links to news/opinion articles – such as this liberal’s guide to Republican talking points – a small number of times to LIKE-MINDED pages with which they regularly interact. (Some reported making posts to as few as 4 other pages before being suspended – for 15 days – with no warning!) I’ve also been alerted that Facebook has revoked some administrator’s posting privileges for sharing links to their liberal Facebook page on the walls of other liberal pages.

The slap:

Facebook indicates these activists have been posting “spam and irrelevant” content. So, Facebook seems to be deciding for community pages what is spam or irrelevant before the actual page administrators are ever able to see – or re-share – the content.

A check of Facebook’s community standards confirms that NONE of the blocked content or pages I’ve heard about have violated ANY of these rules (engaging in hate, violence, phishing, theft, spam for commercial purposes, etc.)

Is it Facebook’s Fault?

This isn’t the first time a Facebook-related free speech restraint has come up on my radar, and that’s why I’m not biding my time before I talk about this. People should know what’s going on so Facebook can isolate and rectify the errors that are causing unfair censorship.
The previous red flag: A few weeks ago, I came across this webpage that catalogues Obama’s accomplishments (with citations). When  I went to share it on my wall  I was blocked from doing so.
The explanation: The link had been reported as “abusive or spammy” content. No one else can post the above blog link to their Facebook wall either – even now as I write. Even though I and others contacted Facebook to appeal that block as a violation of political free speech, Facebook never responded or unblocked the link. Therefore, this list of Obama’s accomplishments seems to be permanently banned from Facebook – and for no good reason. Remember that just because you may not share a favorable view of Obama, that doesn’t mean the content should be censored. People have a right to information!

Or is it Right-Wing Trolls?

I am willing to give Facebook the benefit of the doubt. It’s entirely possible that Facebook’s overly sensitive spam trigger is a bug that Facebook will rectify pronto.
Of course, another explanation has occurred to me. Right-wing trolls might be gaming the spam reporting feature in order to trigger Facebook into blocking populist information from spreading.
I am talking about the same type of right-wing vandals that:
I guess they don’t think they can win without playing dirty.

And back to Facebook …

Then I considered a more disturbing explanation after I read a Wall Street Journal article. What if the right amount of pressure has been put on employees of one of the world’s most powerful social networks to keep liberal free speech quiet?
Mark Zuckerberg himself has no bones about saying that free speech is a negotiable. From the WSJ:

“Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others,” said Adam Conner, a Facebook spokesperson. “We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we’re allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before.”

I must ask: Is America now one of the countries where you’ve decided to block free speech content?

Solutions

Facebook: Please don’t start to enforce the notion that there is “too much free speech” in America. We are using your site as a message board, we’re in this to help inform others, there are thousands of liberal pages, and we all want to share content with each other.
So, please:

• Undo the draconian 15-day posting suspensions for sharing news articles with the welcoming walls of like-minded community pages.
• Adopt a more lenient policy for how often users can post articles to other community pages before being labeled as a spammer.
• Consider investigating users who frequently report content as spam/abuse. Realistically, people should only rarely have the need to report spam/abuse on someone else’s community page.
• Set spam triggers for posting to community pages based on whether a significant number of page administrators label content as spam, not based on reports from random visitors to the page who might be gaming the system.
• Audit the content that Facebook employees ban. If, as you say, someone is reviewing the content I’ve linked to here to decide whether it meets community standards and then ruling to ban it, there’s a good case that they are doing so for political motives.

Our country is at risk of losing the rights and dignities of its middle class.

Don’t help the wealthy and powerful crush us on Facebook. Now that Citizens United has given corporations free speech (in the form of anonymous political donations), don’t limit the People’s First Amendment Rights.

Where is OUR Arab Spring?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Scrubbed – Explosive London Riots BBC Interview: Violence Sparked By Police Beating 16 Year Old Girl

Scrubbed – Explosive London Riots BBC Interview: Violence Sparked By Police Beating 16 Year Old Girl

(http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/08/08/scrubbed-media-live-bbc-interview-witness-claiming-police-beating-girl-sparked-london-riots-52191/)

While there are claims the riots were sparked by rogue criminal elements, race, poverty which may all be contributing to the ongoing riots the fact that the corporate media is not reporting is the violence was triggered by 15 police officers beating a 16 year old girl.

A video of the beating is posted on this page.

I have decided to mirror an explosive BBC interview with an eyewitness live at the scene of the outbreak of the violence which the media is refusing to report to the public.

References of the beating of this teenage girl have been scrubbed from all news sites, with the exception of this Daily Mail article which interviewed another witness that corroborates the claim.

Pornographic False Flag Op

http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/sony-hack-private-details-million-people-posted-online-telegraph

http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/here-comes-propaganda-push-use-attack-directnic-force-us-accept-government-licensing-and-reg

Back in 1995, Senator James Exon, Democrat of Nebraska, added an amendment to the Telecommunications Reform Act (S. 652) which would punish anyone using "indecency" or "obscenity" on the internet. In the weeks prior to the Senate debate on the amendment, the internet, especially USENET, was flooded with pornography, poured into entirely inappropriate places. When other users complained, the porn-spammers would scream it was the First Amendment right to put fisting pictures into the USENET recipe newsgroups, etc. and act in a most rude fashion. So, we did a little digging and sure enough, the porn was coming from government and military servers (the reason the CIA has since set up operations like Domains By Proxy to conceal the source of the covert games). In other words, the US Government, trying even then to justify censorship of the internet, was the source of the very pornography cited as a "crisis" by Senator James Exon, and once the debate on the amendment ended, the flood of porn stopped as if a switch had been thrown.

Given the sudden spate of articles such as this one calling for the internet to be "fixed" (even though it is not really broken), and Obama's call for a new CyberSecurity initiative he can campaign with in 2012 (because he can't run on anything else he has done) I conclude that the attack on DirectNIC over the last few days was done by the United States Government itself to create the crisis it intends to sell you a solution to; one that will make sure only the "correct" information is available online.

We have been down this path before.