Pilger: Obama a Product of Corporate Marketing

Many will be abhorred by what award-winning investigative journalist, John Pilger, has to say about President Obama. Many will ignore Pilger's thesis altogether but will pounce on his cited examples as proof positive that Dubya was right all along but that Obama is still a socialist. Or a fascist. Or Kenyan. Or not really the president cuz it say so in the Bible.



Now that you've heard Mr Pilger's comments about Barak Obama, consider this: why should the idea that the US president is a product of marketing strategies, public relations tactics, and corporate planning be a surprise? The role of PR firms in US elections goes back at the very least to the Nixon/Kennedy campaigns. Joe McGinniss’s ‘The Selling of the President’ recounts Nixon’s successful re-packaging and his triumph in the 1968 presidential race following his loss to Kennedy in the nail-biter of 1960.

Winning the contest for the highest elected government office in the land (if not the world) is most assuredly a prize that corporate America and those in its thrall would do nearly anything to accomplish. This is the self-evident fact of the matter and incontestable. Putting the concepts Bernays and Lippman proposed in the early 1900’s for manufacturing consent, shaping public opinion and thereby controlling the ignorant herd is standard operating procedure. SOP. So last millennium it’s hardly worth mentioning. Nothing new here. Move along.

How many movies have come out of Hollywood –itself a creature of marketing and PR alchemy – that have told the lurid tales of backroom deals, media handlers, corporate shills, wardrobe consultants, press agents and PR strategists? How many summer-reading novels?

The notion that the US president is a corporate marketing creation should not come as a revelation. (A dispassionate observer might need look no further than the twice successful candidacy of Ronald Reagan to confirm the proposition that the quality of packaging and promotion out-weigh the quality of the candidate in a run for the White House.) Nevertheless, the truth of it is disturbing. Mr. Pilger is doing us all a favor by pointing this issue out to us and rubbing our noses in it.

The chief executive of our government – you know, the one that is of the people, by the people, for the people-is a product. A product that is shaped by focus groups and groomed by market research and then sold to the electorate by callously well-crafted media ads in combination with attractive product placement and the scripted pronouncements of pundits in the pay of corporations.

(I’m not really an expert, but I play one on TV.)

Understanding that Americans insist on feeling they are independent in their actions - exercising their freedom, in the parlance of patriotism- the marketing mavens offer a choice of products. Sales departments also know that making a choice can be daunting. Especially when there’s a lot at stake and the choice is to be made in near total ignorance; some of it willful, some by design.

In the US the electorate’s choice has been limited to two so as not to confound the troublesome herd; crispy or extra-crispy? Paper or plastic? Democrat or Republican? For here or to go?

Third-party candidates become the target of PR attack dogs and relegated to obscurity by corporate programmers and editors and made to appear an irrelevancy to the presidential contest.

And may the one with the bigger war-chest and the better sales campaign win!

What Hollywood movies do not typically deal with is nevertheless very closely scrutinized: the source of the funds in a presidential candidate’s war-chest. Although there are laws regulating campaign financing, there are many ways around those regulations. Laws, lawyers and loopholes; this is not a revelation, either. It’s axiomatic. Little could be more obvious than the fact that legal services cost money in the USA; as do the services of public relations firms, marketing consultants, ad agencies, media advisers, speech writers, press secretaries, wardrobe and make-up specialists, to name but a few that are essential to the selling of the president.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics , a research group which has tracked the money in U.S. politics for a quarter of a century and which does not accept contributions from corporations, trade associations or labor unions, Obama’s presidential war-chest was an unprecedented $745, 000,000. That astounding sum is based on the Federal Election Commission data for the 2008 election cycle. John McCain, the Republican runner-up, raised a paltry $368,000,000 according to the same sources. Third party candidates’ campaign funds were beggarly in comparison; raising a measly $5,457,000 to finance four separate campaigns. The lion’s share of which, $4,000,000 – little more than one half of one percent of Obama’s record-setting total - was raised by seasoned campaigner, Ralph Nader.

The source of campaign funds should raise no eye-brows. The money comes from the political action committees (PAC) of major corporations and institutions.
• Goldman Sachs, Morgan-Stanley, Citigroup, Inc, UBS AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co were among the top 20 contributors to Obama’s presidential bid.
• The PACs of media conglomerates National Amusements Inc (which owns media giants Viacom and CBS Corporation) and Time Warner, the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate contributed more than a cool million.
• International business law firms, Sidley, Austin LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, Skadden, Arps, and Wilmerhale, kicked in an even cooler $1.6 million.
• Hi-tech powerhouses, IBM, Microsoft and Google nearly doubled the lawyers’ contributions.
• Although it may prompt a warm and fuzzy feeling that Obama’s alma maters, Harvard and Columbia were major contributors along with Standford and the University of California each of these renowned educational institutions is also funded by government research contracts and should be considered part of the military-industrial complex.
• Rounding out the list is General Electric, which benefits directly from the research done by the aforementioned institutes of higher learning as one of the largest recipients of military contracts.

A pattern emerges; international law firms, mammoth media groups, financial sector behemoths, hi-tech giants and colossal military contractors were primary supporters of Obama’s presidential campaign. To risk stating the obvious once more, highly successful corporations and institutions do not go around tossing millions of dollars into wishing wells. They make well-considered and sober decisions, choosing, investments that offer low risk and high probability of profitable returns. An Obama presidency, while seen as ‘dark horse’ by the general public (if you’ll pardon the pun), was assessed as a sound political and financial investment. That these corporate and institutional entities hedged their bets by investing in Obama’s competitors is part of what is known as a balanced investment portfolio and should further negate any lingering illusions that they were foursquare supporters of his message of Hope and change.

This is not news. That this sorry reality is not news exposes the fraud of what passes as democratic process in the United States. The 2008 election campaign of the Chief Executive, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States was paid for by major corporations. That this is merely the most recent one in a long uninterrupted series of corporate-sponsored political contests leads to one incontrovertible conclusion: the US is a Corporatocracy, plain and simple. There should be no one of voting age so naïve as to cling to the fantasy, the irrational will-o’-the-wisp that Goldman-Sachs, Morgan Stanley, IBM, GE and Microsoft et al. will not claim ownership of what they have paid millions to acquire.

Should this depress Obama supporters? Only if they actually believed the PR hype. One more instance of belief as an obstacle to reason.

We should all be abhorred and politically radicalized by this truth.

To view Mr Pilger's speech 'Obama and Empire' in its entirety go to the Real News.

For more about John Pilger and his work; http://pilger.carlton.com/
To view Mr Pilger's speech

Winning the War in Iraq

There’s no ‘winning in Iraq’.

This illegal conflict cannot be considered in terms of hopeful ‘win-win’ euphemisms and silver-lining slogans.

There is no ‘up-side’ to the war in Iraq.

Bush, Cheney, Rice, McCain and any other politico gas-bags sounding off with such absurd rhetoric should take a look around.

The war in Iraq is a debacle. Any attempts to paint rosy pictures of the war and any promises of happy endings involving honorable victory are pathetic delusions or the callous manipulation of public fear by those at fault for this catastrophe.

The invasion of Iraq was a psychotic nightmare scenario whipped up by power-mad socio-paths who think in terms of the ‘Grand Strategy’, the ‘Great Chess Match’ and other fantastic delusions that are brought on by monumental egos and class-based megalomaniacal self-confidence that they are the sole arbiters of truth and the rightful Masters of Mankind.

There’s no ‘winning in Iraq’.

‘The Surge was successful!’ cry the Dogs of War who have unlawfully taken control of our government and thrust us by devilish deception into this lethal calamity.

‘The Surge was successful!’ they bay in dissonant unison. Successful for the bottom-lines of Exxon-Mobile, BP, Total, Shell, Halliburton, KBR, Lockheed, Boeing, Rockwell and all of the Senators, members of Congress and those colluding with the Bush/Cheney cabal? – Yes! Resoundingly so.

We, the people, do not live our lives by the de-humanized rubrics of the corporate board-room. Yet, we have been thrust into this lethally untenable, calamitous conundrum by those who have vowed and taken oath after oath to protect our Republic, uphold the Constitution and act in accordance with the will of the people.

They have failed us and criminally dishonored their oaths of office.

Should the hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians who have been slaughtered during this ‘Campaign for Democracy’ for the sake of ‘National Security’ consider the ‘Surge’ successful? Or the 4,000+ American troops?

The ‘Surge’ was a short-term rudimentary change in tactics and nothing more. ‘Send in the Reserves!’ Now the reserves are spent and there are no more to be called on for more senseless sacrifice either in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

Our ‘Troops’ are coming back from staring down Death and dealing out Death for so long - tour after tour, rotation after rotation in a ‘hot’ zone - that they are returning to the ‘Land of the Free’ and committing suicide at an unprecedented rate for combat veterans. These deaths, like the number of Americans injured or incapacitated are not generally known to the public. Neither is the number of Iraqi civilian dead, wounded, missing and displaced. That is official policy; the perpetrators of this nightmare want to keep us in the dark and under wraps lest we know the extent of their debacle and rise up in arms, bearing torches and demanding a righteous pound of flesh.

There’s no ‘winning in Iraq’.

There is no such thing as a successful exit strategy from Iraq or Afghanistan. There never was. There never will be. No matter how or when the US (or NATO or the ‘Coalition’) removes its troops and its mercenaries from these nations, people will lose their lives for a venal, dishonorable, ignoble enterprise engendered by despicable people to serve their insatiable greed for power, glory, fame and riches beyond the dreams of avarice.

There is no happy ending. Not for the Iraqi people. Not for the American people. Not in the short term. Not for another generation, at least.

There’s no ‘winning in Iraq’.

Bush's Murderous Vision

Can anybody be so naïve as to persist in the belief that Bush/Cheney et al. actually had a ‘grand vision’ of delivering ‘Democracy’ to the people of Iraq by going to war, particularly in light of the demands by the US which undermine the sovereignty of Iraq; immunity for American troops and contractors, a free hand to conduct military operations without Iraqi approval, control of Iraqi airspace, and maintaining fifty-eight permanent military bases in Iraq?

Apparently, yes.

Despite his nagging conscience which prompted him to write his expose, Scott McClellan, given his “deep affection for the president”, still clings to the nonsensical illusion that George W Bush’s intentions in Iraq were altruistic.

Here is an exchange from an interview with McClellan conducted by Amy Goodman on ‘Democracy Now!’:

Goodman: Scott, you said you believed the President was pushing for democracy in Iraq and that you still believe that, and yet Bush and Cheney’s closest allies were the authoritarian regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. How could you believe they were pushing for democracy?

McClellan: Well, I came to learn that by sitting in on meetings with the President. He cares very passionately about this vision. I think that’s what he put his hopes in, and that’s what he looked at as a chance to really achieve a lasting legacy of greatness.

Talk about denial. Or maybe that’s indicative of how everybody in the Bush administration plays fast and loose with reality.

No one in their right mind could conclude, after looking at the facts, that the primary goals of the Bush administrations’ waging the illegal invasion and ruinous occupation of the Republic of Iraq had anything to do with promoting democratic values or political freedom. The primary, over-riding purpose for this war was control of the oil. Note: the war was not about guaranteeing US access to oil but rather full, absolute US control of the resources of Iraq.

Considering the previous statement as the generally accepted truth of the matter, Bush’s war is a calamitous, disastrous failure. The war has not left US in control of Iraqi oil. Furthermore, the US has less access now to Iraqi oil than before the war due to the destruction of the infrastructure of the petroleum industry in Iraq as a direct result of the conflict.

And Bush’s ‘passionate vision’ to deliver Democracy to the people of Iraq, like a 16-inch pizza?

Perhaps Messrs Bush, Cheney and McClellan should ask the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, the estimated millions of Iraqis wounded, the millions of displaced Iraqis and the millions of justifiably bitter survivors of this illicit war if they appreciate their high-minded gift.

Or they could ask the 4000+ US servicemen and women who have given their lives for Bush’s ‘lasting legacy of greatness’. Or the 300,000 returning veterans the Rand Corporation estimates suffer from emotional and mental disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder. Or the 6,256 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom who ended their emotional and mental torment by killing themselves in 2005 – the victims of the ‘suicide epidemic’ that has been discovered by a CBS News investigation.

Yet, our Commander-in-Chief has proclaimed that he has “no regrets” about his decision to invade Iraq.

Really, George? No regrets? Not even for the fact that your ‘lasting legacy’ will be in the infamous, exclusive company of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and Suharto as the most heinous mass murderers in history?

Impeach Bush.

Impeach Cheney.

Bring all of the complicit war criminals and war profiteers to justice. It won’t bring back the dead but it will provide a desperately needed sense of comfort to the survivors of the Neo-con-men scourge not only in the US and Iraq but around the world.

Maybe that’s being naïve.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/11/former_white_house_former_white_house

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3496471.shtml

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/11/bush.europe/index.html

US & Somalia Tied for Last Place

To hear some, the USA is the champion of the down-trodden, and the oppressed, the Johnny Appleseed of Democracy. The truth precludes such prideful bumptiousness. In fact, the US is one of the last two states out of 192 to ratify the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. (The other is Somalia.)

The United States has, however, signed two optional protocols on trafficking in children and on children in armed conflict. Very noble of us.

Furthermore, having signed the optional protocols of the Convention, the US has expressed its intention to eventually adopt it completely. Eventually.

What’s stopping the Bushites or the Congress from ratifying this convention? This is a no-brainer. Or should be, even for the half-wits running this farcical fiasco.

According to the Unicef site the Convention is summarized as follows:

“The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.”

“The Convention sets out these rights in 54 articles and two Optional Protocols. It spells out the basic human rights that children everywhere have:

1. the right to survival;

2. to develop to the fullest;

3. to protection from harmful influences,

4. abuse and exploitation;

5. the right to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.

The four core principles of the Convention are:

1. non-discrimination;

2. devotion to the best interests of the child;

3. the right to life, survival and development;

4. and respect for the views of the child.

Every right spelled out in the Convention is inherent to the human dignity and harmonious development of every child. The Convention protects children's rights by setting standards in health care; education; and legal, civil and social services.”

“By agreeing to undertake the obligations of the Convention (by ratifying or acceding to it), national governments have committed themselves to protecting and ensuring children's rights and they have agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community.”

This seems straightforward, proper, just and right. It is the expression of an ideal, one would think, of which all people, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, Jew, Animist or Atheist would approve.

Obviously.

190 out 192 nations have ratified it.

What’s stopping the US from ratifying this convention?

Could be that the thousands of youths who have been jailed in US prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo might pose a tough issue to spin-doctor into anything close to resembling sentiments and opinions acceptable to anyone outside the Oval Office or Fox News.

The ‘Real World’, in other words.

Since the March 2003 invasion, the United States has detained 2,400 children under the age of 18 in Iraq, including some as young as 10. Human Rights Watch said as of May 12, U.S. military authorities were holding 513 Iraqi children as "imperative threats to security".

The upside is that youths charged under Iraqi law receive access to legal counsel.

The downside? Read on…

"Those who are not referred to the Iraqi criminal courts do not have legal counsel because they are not charged with a crime," said Major Matthew Morgan, a spokesman for U.S. detention facilities in Iraq.

Not charged with a crime but imprisoned nevertheless.

Sandra Hodgkinson, deputy assistant secretary for Detainee Affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense, told reporters in Geneva "There is nothing in the optional protocol that prevents the detention of individuals under the age of 18, so the United States is in full compliance with its treaty obligations."

So, imprisoning children without charging them with a crime, without the basic legal rights of Habeas Corpus, due process or legal representation is acceptable to the Neo-Con-men in Washington. This is the level to which the United States has sunk under the stewardship of the Bush Administrations.

Tied with Somalia for last place.

http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSL21923136

http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/C8CDC017719763AE4393C90EEC4E6602.pdf

http://www.unicef.org/crc/

US Politics

You know, my grandfather, Papa, was a real pro wrestling fan way back when. Killer Kowalski, Mad Dog Vachon, Gorgeous George. Crusher. Haystacks Calhoun.

He was totally rapt with the action bristling from that little black ‘n white picture tube.

By ten years old, I suspected that what was taking place was something other than a pure athletic competition. To Papa, it was real. I couldn’t tell him otherwise.

It was stage play. Sure people got hurt – two bruisers going at it in tights, somebody was bound to get banged up. Andy Kaufman found that out.

But win or lose, each wrestler got paid because they both worked for the same company. Whichever grappler got the champion’s belt depended on what back-room deals were made.

It’s the same today; the owners of the ‘league’ market muscle-bound goons as entertainment.

Is it sport? No. The outcome of a sporting contest is not known beforehand. If the outcome is pre-determined, it’s called a ‘fix’. The fix is in and the sport is out.

There have been more than a dozen US presidential campaigns during my life-time. Several, I have actually paid some attention to. Some I’ve even voted in.

The US presidential race, to me, is just a more wordy, less physical form of the Sunday afternoon wrestling shows that kept my Papa on the edge of his chair.

More stage craft than states craft. More showmanship than statesmanship. More PR than policy.

And when the ‘pin’ is made and the votes are counted will the results have already been determined?

Well, you figure it out. Presidential campaigners go begging for upwards of $500,000,000US to get a job that pays $200,000.

$500 million bucks comes with strings attached and those purse strings lead straight back to the fixers.

The fix is not for which of two representatives of big business gets to live in the White House for a few years. Whichever one will be awarded the temp job in the Oval Office, the new administration's policies have been determined in advance by the fixers. And, dollars to donuts, they will have little to do in the long run with what was promised on 'Meet the Press' except those that would further sweeten the pot for the moneyed elite.

Is it politics? Sure, down and dirty.

Is it democracy? Not even close.

OpenSecrets.org - Race for the White House

Dems, What About the Military Budget?

Insult to Injury

You enlist in the US Army.

You want to serve your country, learn a trade, see the world, wear fatigues.

After training, you’re sent to Iraq.

Two weeks in country, you‘re sent on a patrol.

Your vehicle is struck by an IED. It’s not adequately armored because the DoD is trying to hold down the expense of bringing Democracy to the Iraqis.

You are wounded. In the disorder resulting from the attack, you lose your helmet.

You’re medevacked to Germany. One of your limbs is amputated.

You go home. A hero. You’ve sacrificed on the altar of Democracy.

After a while, you get a bill from the government for the cost of your lost helmet.

According to the book, The Three Trillion Dollar War’ by Nobel laureate and former chief World Bank economist, Joseph Stiglitz, and co-author Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, that’s just what happens.

You defaulted on your contract with the government to serve three years by getting injured too soon, thus ending your service before the contract allowed.

Pay up you deadbeat.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/29/stream