Suffering Fools Poorly

A few moments ago I turned on the morning news. It was like a right hand coming out of the television grabbing my collar and a left hand slapping me repeatedly in the face. The strange reality of a former Republican Congressman named Joe Scarborough and Tucker Carlson, a right wing Republican writer for the Weekly Standard whose father is a member of the Scooter Libby Defense Fund, on an alleged News outlet that is owned by a defense contractor bringing me the politics of the day. I'll wager you could guess what the first issue was? Here's a hint, there were clips of Reverend Jeremiah Wright being shown within the first five minutes of the program and a discussion of the WHITE voters reaction to Obama's speech. Apparently, the only issue they noted was that Senator Obama refused to completely disown Wright, which would have obviously been of little consequence since the next order of business was to attack him for being a member of Wright's Church in the first place. Should I have been shocked that a news station owned by General Electric, a massive defense contractor, would work to insure that U.S. voters could have only a choice of war hawks John McCain and Hillary Clinton as President. Here are some tidbits of information about the owner of MSNBC:

• GE is the holder of several massive military contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• In a list of the 100 biggest defense contractors the company is ranked number seven.
• Throughout the 1990s GE was involved in so many fraud cases that the government set up a special investigations office specifically for the company in the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency. GE was indicted on 22 criminal counts.
• The CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt, gave $4,000 for President Bush’s 2004 campaign, and $1,000 for Bush’s 2000 campaign.
• NBC’s parent corporation, General Electric, had $14.6 billion in total military revenues during 2003-2006 (10th biggest U.S. military contractor)

The right wing media outlets are following Hillary's lead for an all out full court press on Obama and the anti-war members of the electorate. Many months back Senator Obama warned that the Status Quo will not go down easily and that Exxon-Mobile will not give up their profits without a fight. It should be obvious to even the most casual observer that there is a bi-partisan effort by the mainstream political machine to stop the "Change Movement" from upsetting the apple cart and weakening the military industrial complex's stranglehold on a Country that at least had the appearance of democracy. The race issue may appear to be the center of this controversy but in reality it is merely a tool of a desperate bi-partisan right wing political order facing its greatest threat since the Civil War. Hillary's desperate "do anything to win" tactics are actually reflecting the fear, desperation, and determination of her Republican and Democratic supporters.

I don't believe that Senator Obama has been blindsided by recent events. If you have ever been deep sea fishing you should think of the analogy of a fish fighting on a line. The fish puts up a tough fight then appears to fade and give up at one point. However, when the fish gets close enough to see the boat and recognize the reality of its impending doom, it makes its last run which is also its most powerful. Any seasoned fishermen knows that this fight is coming and that if the fish is going to break the line, this is where it is going to happen. The veteran fishermen is not fooled by the appearance of a victory just before that last run by the fish. He or she keeps steady pressure on the fish all the while anticipating the strongest resistance near the end of the battle.

It is at this critical point in the fight that progressives need to recognize that the current attacks are not on Senator Obama or any particular group of his supporters. There are much larger issues in play and falling for the race bait helps the bi-partisan right wing political establishment hide their true motivations. Like you and I, Hillary's core support groups recognize that she is near the boat. The real fight has just begun.