Conservative Media

The American people will get President George Bush’s unpopular $700 billion bailout bill shoved down their throats today primarily because of the nation's major television stations and newspapers, which serve as the current propaganda ministry for dead right-wing ideology.

Corporate media businesses, not surprisingly, are almost uniformly in favor of the bailout package, which will pay Wall Street bankers for their self-serving mistakes about the housing bubble. Still, it is frightening to witness how robotic, how goosestepish, the media businesses have been about the issue. Unfortunately, the lies and omissions of the mainstream press still have the ability to shape public opinion.

Let us be clear that reporters, editors and columnists are giving cover to those corrupt men and women who have been wrong about every domestic and foreign policy decision made on the national level in the last eight years. These journalists do so because they are paid—some quite lavishly--by corporations, which support the right-wing modus operandi of shifting wealth to a relatively small group of rich people. Everything they write and say is framed within this right-wing corporate rubric, within the confines of their paycheck. Their faux, tepid criticisms of the Bush’s bill are only a part of the frame. They exist, they “are,” because of corporations. It has always been that way, and it will be that way for the foreseeable future.

Let me state it once again: The Republican mythology that the corporate media is liberal is our era’s Big Lie. It is demonstrably false. It is not based on evidence or logical reasoning. Corporations exist to make profits for a small group of rich and powerful people, who then use their money to influence the political system.

So now that taxpayers have been saddled with a $700 billion debt to pay Wall Street corporations, which essentially employ most of our country’s paid journalists, watch the major media outlets attempt to get John McCain elected president.

Look, for example, at the prevailing media narrative about last night’s debate between vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. It was obvious that Biden won the debate overwhelmingly, and a CNN poll even reflected that people thought so. But the media spin is not that Biden trounced Palin, which he did. The spin is that Palin “delivers” and “outdoes herself.” These are lies. She is incredibly unprepared to become vice president or president. She proved that virtually every time she spoke last night. Most of the time, she did not even answer the debate questions. Again, look at the ridiculous, absurd Biden/Palin debate coverage. There is no rationality, no discernable center or substance to it. It is a fiction, a calculated lie designed to get McCain elected president.

So I ask you to take a moment to imagine a world in which John McCain is president and Democrats do not have enough veto votes in the Senate to counter his agenda. The economy collapses even further. You lose your health insurance. You lose your retirement. Your children and grandchildren cannot afford college or cannot get a job. The Iraq occupation continues. Meanwhile, rejecting diplomacy, McCain opens a new war against Iran. Oh, yeah, taxpayers remain saddled with a new $700 billion debt to ensure investment bankers keep their extravagant salaries.

Perhaps those Democrats who voted in favor of the bailout bill, and this includes presidential contender Barack Obama, believe November will give them a sweeping mandate to change things in Washington and thus a new economic plan that helps middle class people can finally win approval. This would mitigate the effects of the bailout bill. I hope this happens. I want Obama to win in a landslide. Obama is absolutely the best presidential candidate the Democrats or any political party have offered in decades. His presidency would be groundbreaking and signal to the world that the United States has come back from the brink of utter disaster.

Yet one cannot help but wonder if it will take a complete financial collapse, one that brings with it soup lines and massive poverty before people wake up and the fiction writers in the mainstream media can be supplanted as the arbitrators of our national reality.

This much is for sure: No matter what the election results in November, progressives need to continue to move away from the mainstream media and develop new ways to distribute information directly to the people.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how the GOP and its complicit enablers in the mainstream media were trying to argue that there is nothing seriously wrong with the economy right now and Americans were simply whiners.

Lost your house? Get over it already, whiner. Can’t afford that medical test you need? Quit your bellyaching. Can’t afford the gasoline to get to work? So what, crybaby? You got it good. Can’t pay for your college tuition or get a college loan? You’re simply in a “mental recession.” Yeah, that’s right. You’re crazy. Vote for John McCain and everything will be just as hunky-dory as it is now.

After the era of propagandist Karl Rove, these Republican talking points initiatives are incredibly transparent to anyone who is paying attention. This time it appears the Orwellian talking points have backfired on some level, but this GOP idea that everything is okay economically for Americans is probably not going away anytime soon. It will surely manifest itself in some other insidious lie during the months leading up to the November election.

Neoconservative ideology has desperately failed this country’s citizens, and the GOP leadership has no way out of that argument, except to lie that things aren’t that bad. In this way, the Republican political operatives hope to continue to appeal to that certain segment of voters who don’t vote based on economic issues.

The most recent example of this particular talking points initiative came when former Republican U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, a McCain surrogate, said Americans were in a “mental recession.” He also said, according to media reports, “"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline."

McCain supposedly disavowed the remarks, but the Gramm comments give us a good idea where the GOP is headed in terms of its political rhetoric this year.

Obviously, on some level, the Gramm comments echo the standard clichéd “America, love it or leave it” philosophy advanced by narrow-minded nationalists who goosestep in unison to the belief that this country’s government can do no wrong when, in fact, it now sanctions torture, unconstitutional wiretapping of its citizens and an imperial presidency.

In addition, a recent poll by Pew Research Center also concluded that Baby Boomers were a bunch of whiners. The Pew poll shows the fix is in on this particular talking point for the Republicans. The logic of the poll’s results goes like this: Baby Boomers have it better than people who grew up in the Great Depression so they should just shut their mouths. By extension, the logic would seem to be that unless you’re standing in a soup line, you should keep everything the same, i.e. vote for John McCain (wink, wink).

The main question is this: Why would any organization even conduct such a poll right now unless it is to supposedly prove the GOP talking points? But that’s how the political and media system work right now.

The point is not that there isn’t hope and optimism among voters this year. There is. But voters are saying over and over this country needs a major change in direction, and that is one of the major political stories this election year. Obviously, Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, represents change. McCain, in his political essence, is the status quo, Bush redux.

Okies For Obama

Oklahoma has at least one individualized Barack Obama bumper sticker.

Some online entrepreneurs are creating personalized state designs for the Democratic presumptive nominee for president. Here is what they have to say about their initiative:

We have created 18 stickers so far, including one for Oklahoma. Our aim is to really pull out all the stops with the design of the stickers to reflect the enthusiasm Obama inspires, as well as graphically demonstrate the diversity of voices uniting behind his campaign.

You can view the entire collection here. The site promises to donate 22.5 percent of its proceeds to the Obama campaign.

Ignore The Corporate Media

The corporate media’s coverage of the presidential election is as surreal and goofy as ever.

Do not count on getting any information about where the candidates stand on the issues. This election, according to the corporate media, is about innocuous comments made by the candidates’ supporters—not the candidates themselves--that get distorted way out of context. Oh yeah, then there are flag lapel pins and flip-flopping allegations. Here are two major stories the msm continues to ignore:

(1) Barack Obama has generated more genuine political enthusiasm in this country in a generation. He attracts huge, adoring crowds wherever he goes, and his speeches are electrifying a nation. This is truly a change in the political climate in this nation.

(2) All the polls, the results of three recent House elections in which Democrats won and the anecdotal evidence show this country wants a major change in direction in terms of the economy and the Iraq occupation. John McCain, obviously, does not represent change on any scale. If he did represent change, he would severely criticize Imperial President George and argue that GOP must undergo a huge transformation.

The corporate media, which is in a financial death spiral, continues to ignore these two storylines because it desperately wants a McCain presidency. The corporate media has been exposed as complicit enablers of the most corrupt presidential regime in American history. The media bigwigs obviously think a McCain presidency would validate or excuse their own negligence in helping to tear down this country’s democratic structures under the Bush administration.

The task at this point is to ignore the silly chatter and demand the media start covering where the candidates stand on the issues.