Barack Obama

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.

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president Thursday in a historic moment for the country. As the nation’s first African American presidential candidate for a major political party, Obama breaks and creates new ground in the long struggle for equal rights.

No matter what happens in the general election, Obama’s accomplishment Thursday night as he accepted the nomination will live on forever, and it gives all of us—no matter what the color of our skin—a reason to hope that we, too, can accomplish what seems to be impossible.

Obama greatest gift to his country so far is that he allows us to dream again for a better future.

Obama’s speech was magnificent, and, more importantly, he showed the Democrats are going to fight this election by clearly outlining their positions and attacking the Republican Party’s nominee, John McCain, who is a serial liar and will continue the failed policies of George Bush, the most unpopular president in American history.

On Thursday, pointing to the horrid legacy of the Bush administration, Obama said pointedly, “We are a better country than this.”

We are. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, all of us are better than how the world now perceives us because of Bush’s torture policies, his lies about the Iraq invasion, his attack on American civil liberties, his disdain for science, and his embrace of oligarchy, an imperial presidency and political corruption.

Oklahoma, one of the reddest of red states, will most certainly vote for McCain, of course, fueled on by The Oklahoman and other corporate media outlets here. These media outlets will simply not give residents fair coverage of the election, and there will undoubtedly be much coded and implied racism. The Oklahoman, in particular, has a long racist legacy.

I know it is destined, but the vote here for McCain will be tragic and senseless and send a wrong message to the country and world. Obama offers the state—even its mega-wealthy citizens—an opportunity to recreate Oklahoma as a place of unlimited economic opportunity, to improve its struggling educational systems and to finally fix many of its chronic socioeconomic problems

Obama’s plural energy policy, one that still embraces existing sources, such as oil, will create an abundance of new economic opportunities for Oklahoma business. As the country moves to natural gas, wind, solar and biofuels, Oklahoma is positioned to benefit greatly through federal programs and policies encouraging independence from Middle Eastern oil. The potential for economic growth here in Oklahoma would be staggering under an Obama presidency. It might forever change Oklahoma’s “poor state” image.

Obama’s pledge to create a new “army of teachers” will also help Oklahoma. These new teachers—and Oklahoma could use them—will improve our schools by teaching with the latest and best technological equipment. New federal educational initiatives and grant programs, along with the sustained local commitment, could finally raise the level of Oklahoma education to national averages and above.

Obama’s commitment to provide decent health care for all Americans and to lift people from poverty would also greatly help Oklahoma. The state now has inadequate access to medical care, as evidenced by study after study. The state has long struggled with and even led the nation in hungry families. The cycle of family poverty continues here and has worsened under the Bush presidency and the local conservative juggernaut. Poverty affects everyone, not just the poor. It causes mental illness and leads to crime. It reduces property values and overall quality of life.

Oklahomans who will vote for Obama this November are voting for their own economic interest as they embrace the community around them with hope and with the promise of change. Those people who choose McCain, perhaps blinded by ideology, are voting to continue the failed policies and corrupt actions of the Bush administration

John McCain is a serial liar and a kept man who does not even know how many houses he owns. McCain is so out of touch he is just now learning about the Internet, and, really, it seems more than a little creepy that he talks obsessively about his prisoner-of-war experience in the Vietnam War so much.

McCain’s proposed political policies and programs may be framed in different language, but they clearly follow President George Bush’s pattern to reward the ultra rich at the expense of the middle class and to continue the botched Iraq occupation. The idea that the 71-year-old McCain cares about ordinary Americans is simply ludicrous. The vast majority of people who will vote for McCain will do so against their own economic interest.

Given all that, along with the disastrous Bush presidency, you might think this would be the year for Democrats to recapture the presidency.

Yet as the Democratic National Convention opens in Denver today, there remain questions that have plagued the party for years now: Will the Democrats fight? Do they even have “fight” in them? Why does the Democratic Party leadership always let the Republican Party define the terms of the fight? Why are Democrats always on the defensive? Why do they always play it safe?

Here are three specific concerns of many Democrats—do not be fooled by the mainstream media gibberish—as the convention opens:

(1) Will presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama fight McCain in a down and dirty campaign? He must do so to win. In recent weeks, Obama and his campaign have shown they may lack gumption. Obama should have been traveling the country in recent weeks attacking Bush and McCain at every stop for their reckless policies related to the economy and the Iraq occupation. Instead, many people will remember Obama’s nuanced answers at the right-wing Saddleback Church, where McCain trounced him in the image war. The decision to appear at the Saddleback Church forum was ill-advised, and it shows how the GOP—and this includes the millionaire Rev. Rick Warren—will treat appeasers and bipartisan politicians. There is not a shred of bipartisanship in Warren or McCain. So will Obama fight?

(2) Why did Obama’s campaign start tilting to the right? It has accomplished nothing but a growing alienation of the Democratic Party base and especially its younger voters. Seriously, when Democrats go to the so-called center these days, they are really going way to the right. All the polls show Americans want a true Democratic Party economic program and they want out of the costly Iraq occupation. So why is Obama running around making sure he falls in line with GOP ideology about offshore drilling? Why does he consistently praise U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, one of the most right-wing members of the Senate? Obama needs to back away from the bipartisan rhetoric and start standing up for his own political party. He will not win without an enthusiastic base.

(3) Why did Obama choose U.S. Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate? Many Democrats I know believe it was a “safe” to negative decision. Biden, for example, was once a major player in ensuring the nation’s bankruptcy laws were changed to help credit card companies at the expense of ordinary Americans. Biden’s son was actually getting paid by MBNA at the time he crammed this bill down everyone’s throat. The selection of Biden will be marked as one of the great political gaffes in all American political history if Obama loses the election. Obama and his campaign staffers had a chance to truly unify the party, make more history, and, in many people’s minds, ensure a victory by selecting Hillary Clinton. They did not choose to do so. Why?

A few short months ago I was fortunate enough to hear Obama speak on Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas. Simply put, it was the best political speech I have ever heard, and it made me feel hopeful for the future of this country for the first time in eight or so years. The Austin crowd adored him, and they chanted and cheered.

All that is left from that night now is extreme worry. McCain gains in the election polls on a weekly basis as Obama moves further to the right and as he alienates many Democrats with his safe choice of vice president. Will he fight? Will he stand up? Maybe we will learn the answers to those questions over the next few days.