“Yes, Obama did!” (Or did he?)

Another Maddow apologia pro Obama causa
N0. 2 IN OUR WHY THE MEDIA SUCK SERIES 

While no one with an atom of decency will deny that Rachel  Maddow has on many occasions performed exceedingly well as a progressive journalist (denunciations of GOP criminals and hypocrites, reports about the BP-Gulf Coast tragedy, come readily to mind) his good media persona is now rapidly being eclipsed by the unabashed boosterism she enthusiastically exhibits on behalf of Barack Obama and the Democratic party, a posture that pushes her ever more deeply into the folds of the sytem, and, in effect, toward the right.

We don’t know if and to what extent Maddow, currently basking in adulation, his career in ascendancy, is aware of this transformation, but if she’s conscious of what is increasingly sounding like outright sycophancy and still persists on that course, she’ll soon become not only a loss to the triumph of authentic progressive politics in this nation, but yet another obstacle to its realization. 

Gui Rochat / Patrice Greanville, Editors TGP

Maddow praises, but does Obama deserve the accolades? 

We have answered this question many times in these pages, always conclusively in the negative. Barack Obama is a fraud. A flagrant continuist and shameless expander of  Bush junior’s signature policies of endless wars, lawless police surveillance and shilling for the plutocracy, his arrival on the scene quickly disarmed what passes for the left in the U.S., and, more seriously, has gravelly stained the name and idea of a true progressive ascendancy in America. (On this topic, check out the dispatches by—among others— Paul Street, David Michael Green and Stephen Lendman, three formidable critics who have provided numerous bills of attainder on Obama.)   

Myths however die hard, especially when they are backed by the next-to-inexhaustible media resources of the biggest power on earth, a power whose expertise in the underhand art of selling lies and hypocrisy as truth remains unmatched in the annals of modernity. And at this point in history, it is to the advantage of this power to have Barack Obama at the nominal helm of the American hegemon.

It’s hardly surprising then that recently, during this much-ballyhooed “lame duck session” of Congress,  the fortunes of the alternatively clueless and treacherous Obama have begun to rise again.  Much of this amazing and wholly undeserved resuscitation —a phenomenon we have seen before with Reagan, for example, the “teflon president”— is owed to the power of the “free press” in the modern world, a monstrously huge and misnomered structure liberally sprinkled with battalions of apologists in the service of mythmaking, a type of mediacrat that now unfortunately includes Rachel Maddow.  

Monopoly of access

The power of mainstream media to set the national tone and agenda has been dented but not broken by the free internet (actually the left portion of the web, since fully 2/3 or more at least are colonized by corporate entities and the usual assortment of rightwingers, nutcakes, and misguided sorts, i.e. Obamaniacs, all of whom do not really challenge the plutocratic status quo, and represent a total waste of this precious resource).  In this context, the selling of the president, the interminable wars and criminal foreign policy, the injurious economic policies at home, or the corresponding supporting ideologies, is fairly feasible in a nation like America, where the ignorance and confusion of the public has been assiduously cultivated for generations.  As Hitler well knew it, for the Big Lie to triumph all it takes is constant repetition from just about every visible pulpit, and the bigger the lie the easier the sell.  Still, we have easily gone one better on the Nazis. For totalitarian information works best when it’s wrapped in the illusion of freedom, without the benefit of some state-controlled “Ministry of Truth”.  That is exactly the insidious model of “information” that enslaves the American mind today and is likely to do so into the foreseeable future—unless an awakened citizenry manages to puncture the malignant bubble. 

Iron in the velvet glove

Propagandists are often helped by superficialities which they exploit with adroitness.  Things like matters of style. Thus, the contradiction between policies protecting vested interests and those benefiting the public are more easily perceived in a presidency such as that of George W. Bush, but far less so in that of  Obama. Besides, Bush directed but Obama seems to cajole and persuade and there is a distinct difference in outward appearances while the contents remain the same.

Obama has shown by now his true colors, namely those of a centrist conservative and a loyal imperialist to boot, as could have been learnt beforehand from his two books. But—as the elites came to understand— popular discontent with Bush’s policies and his unadorned recidivism needed to be placated by propaganda about an imaginary break with the past. Thus an Obama  presidency appeared to be ideal, supplying the mythmaking mills with a chief executive tangentially connected to a minority population but with a gift of the gab and with a brain nicely steeped in intellectual sophistry.

Media to the rescue

Since the rising public dissatisfaction—still leaderless— presented something of a yawning legitimacy crisis for the ruling corporate powers of which the infotainment machine is an important component, the ever treacherous liberal media were quickly mobilized.  Here was a trumped-up promise of hope and change—pure hogwash— that the perennially manipulated masses surely “could believe in” and that reverberated with a large part of the deluded public.  It’s worth noting that appearances are so effective when properly manipulated, that not only the legendarily gullible American masses swallowed the bait, so did huge sections of the world audience, including many in politically sophisticated nations such as France, Italy and Britain. A sad spectacle of massive silliness, the adulation heaped on Obama upon his win in 2008 was tantamount to an informal coronation. 

ABOVE LEFT: CBS news anchor Katie Couric represents the mainstream establishment branch of the liberaloid media.  She gushed about how “the president isn’t calling himself the ‘comeback kid,’ but some other folks are.”  Similar pronouncements were heard from The New York Times, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, and many others.

Political truths, however, can’t be kept under wraps indefinitely.  Reality—the raw matrix of truth—compelled a reevaluation. Now that Obama has been revealed to be nothing but warmed-over Bush, Reagan and Clinton, liberal media figures like Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, and the obnoxious self-serving bloviator, Chris Matthews, plus their counterparts throughout the TV and print establishments, are again in full battle gear attempting to whitewash Obama’s rather soiled public image. The golden opportunity for the makeover presented itself during the latest infamous Congressional “lame duck session”,  which saw a last-minute rush of pseudo-democratic legal accomplishments.  (See below for a fuller discussion.)

RIGHT: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. A shameless self-promoter with an unpredictable political compass. Of late, he has found religion shilling for Obama.

Leaving aside for a moment that other “great victory” achieved by Obama and his cohorts, the imposition of a scandalously defective and rapacious health insurance scheme on most Americans, yet another typical non-solution to a major crisis (more on this below), the liberal media have been busy justifying some of Obama’s more recent egregious betrayals of the public interest.  In this, they have their work cut out for them since Obama can be counted on to produce more historical lemons of this sort.

Selling the unsellable

Rachel Maddow (below) and her ilk are now doing reverse somersaults to make the unpopular palatable, and the indefensible tolerable, if not downright desirable.  It’s a tough call, but when you’re flying high in the privileged spheres of media royalty, the pain of such tasks is cushioned by fame, enormous salaries, and multiple perks, not to mention huge psychological wages, all of which, incidentally rarely fail to influence a person’s ideology, how you perceive the world.  Keep this in mind as you review the handling of their current propaganda challenges:

TAXCUTS FOR BILLIONAIRES

The outrageous an economically poisonous tax break for the superrich enacted by George Bush Jr. has been extended under The Great Bloviator, while the public has been cynically foisted off with token appeasing rewards of a thirteen-months extension of unemployment benefits and a small lowering of the social security tax.  This deal is a worthy successor to Obama’s give-away of public funds to Wall Street to the tune of trillions (no one knows or cares to spell out the actual amounts) and his legally enforced but woefully deficient health insurance “reform” program (a very poor substitute for single payer healthcare).  

That neither a tax break for the rich nor Wall Street enrichment across the board will create jobs that could help the general public in a sinking economy are glossed-over facts.   Meanwhile, the more obvious solutions to this part of the crisis,  that significant infusions of cash into the pockets of the working people of America either via a massive public works program or through the undertaking of a colossal energy shift program away from oil (neither of which would generate exportable jobs) would quickly re-energize the American economy are downplayed or poo-poooed by the punditocracy.  Incidentally, there’s nothing experimental about such policies.  Their dependability was established by John Maynard Keynes eons ago; it’s got to do with the so-called MPC (marginal propensity to consume of different income classes) and a multitude of governments—including FDR’s— have since implemented them in various ways to reasonable success.

PUSHOVER ISSUES HAILED AS GREAT VICTORIES

Consistent with the previously outlined efforts, the last few weeks have shown a resurgence of the old Obama myth, namely on the wings of relatively unavoidable legislations such as the repeal of DADT, the 9/11 Responders Act and the Start Treaty, all of which received full approval in the conservative and liberal press and in all other media. When all wings of the establishment close ranks, that should tell us something foul is afoot. The scam in these maneuvers is obvious: these legislative “breakthroughs” remain minor concessions by the powers-that-be, a fact hardly understood or mentioned, and the argument that even small concessions to the public weal are better than none is contradicted by the always nefarious hidden side effects.  For the record, what these issues and their “wins” have in common is this:

• All of them are “obvious” in their rightness, and in being overripe for approval. Low-hanging fruit for political underachievers;

• All that was required to get them over the top was a tiny bit of leadership, something Obama has repeatedly shown to have no talent or stomach for;

• Being perfectly “negotiable” demands, all of them COST NOTHING to the system.  They are and were part of the innumerable obsolete whimsical wrinkles of a rotten, decaying system.  Their enactment into law has no effect whatsoever on the nature of power in America, nor its class composition, nor its distribution, from factory floor to corporate boardroom and elsewhere into every nook and cranny of society. In short, none of them represent a win for the masses, while capitalism and its toxicity sail blissfully on.

DADT IN PARTICULAR A DUBIOUS VICTORY 

Besides placating an influential segment of the population, the spurious nonsense of the repeal of DADT, so lauded by Rachel Maddow, is but a ruse to re-attract valuable military personnel in an atmosphere where public dissatisfaction with the very costly Afghanistan war resulted in very much lower recruitments (now even Harvard in the light of this ‘enlightened’ act has permitted access again to ROTC on its campus).  But however you figure it, apparently we have a gay/lesbian section of the public eager to shed foreign blood, or advance their own personal ends at the cost of disregarding what the imperial army does, or, worse, give up the ghost for the fatherland in one of this nation’s endless adventures across the globe in pursuit of further power and riches for the puny minority that by now controls or owns pretty much anything worth controlling around the globe. Most of the conservative military establishment personified by the Republican Gates would sooner or later have forced this legislation through anyway.

The inherent falsehood in this “victory” has been laid bare by brave, uncompromising enemies of war and injustice, such as Cindy Sheehan, who have asked the obvious questions and found the tarnish under the glitter.  Says Sheehan, 

The recent repeal of the US military policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is far from being the human rights advancement some are touting it to be. I find it intellectually dishonest, in fact, illogical on any level to associate human rights with any military, let alone one that is currently dehumanising two populations as well as numerous other victims of its clandestine “security” policies. 

This criticism is nowhere to be seen on the mainstream media channels which, aside from customarily caving in to the imperial line, are loath to be seen as raining on a “gay victory”.  Calling it a “wrong battle for equality,” Sheehan clarifies:

 It is hard to separate this issue from the activities of the military. War might be a “racket”, but it is also the most devastating act one can be involved in, whether you are the aggressor or a victimised civilian, no one can shake off the psychological scars of war. No one. Its effects on the individual as well as collective human psyche are terminal. Championing equal rights is an issue of morality, war is immoral, and the US military is heading further and further down the path of immorality.

Such sentiments are echoed by numerous veterans and ex members of the security agencies. Among them decency and a superior form of service to country have prevailed, but apparently this notion has not gained much traction among the official opinionmakers. Hence, continued silence on these essential points.  Sheehan’s capping argument is an appeal to the progressive gay community, a community she sees in danger of succumbing to the system’s mendacious blandishments:

Some of us in the peace movement work really hard to keep our young people out of the hands of the war machine that preys on disadvantaged young people in inner cities and poor rural settings.Some of us in the peace movement work really hard to keep our young people out of the hands of the war machine that preys on disadvantaged young people in inner cities and poor rural settings.  To see a demographic that is (without appealing to stereotypes) traditionally better educated, more politically progressive, and economically advantaged fight to join this killing machine is very disheartening. (CINDY SHEEHAN: Don’t go, don’t kill! https://www.greanvillepost.com/?p=10894)

Is Rachel Maddow, herself a prominent member of the LGBT community, prepared to answer these not so minor criticisms?

9/11 RESPONDERS: THE ORPHAN ISSUE

Similar criteria apply to the 9/11 responders “non-issue,” one of those incredibly ridiculous and incomprehensible political battles often fought in America over nothing.  Nothing because even the revolting Republicans and the forces that they front for had nothing to lose and much to win by simply giving the green light to this legislation, which in any case represented peanuts in terms of money as things usually go in America. Incomprehensible because there was no real principle of any kind involved, except the desire of Republicans to posture as guardians of deficit control (another false issue) and it would have been very bad propaganda for both the administration and its putative opposition not to have shown a modicum of  compassion in a case where the general public is still so traumatized by the blow-back (rare, when we consider the crimes of our foreign policy) and so united in its willingness to grant anyone and everyone who was even remotely connected with the 9/11 tragedy or the towers’ relief  operations the designation of “hero”.  Not for nothing did crass opportunists like Giuliani and Bush descend like locusts on the newly consecrated ground, eager to grab some popularity via the inevitable photo-ops. 

What’s more, the drama attached to the 9/11 tragedy keeps the whole system of terrorist threats alive with all the concomitant onerous security measures which only serve to reduce any resistance to the demands of empire, namely a tightening of the economic belt for the masses and a continued obscenely bloated military budget.  Indeed, as the leading weaponry exporter to the world, heavy military investments keep this flagging economy alive.

A TREATY OF SORTS

As for the Start Treaty, one wonders why Russia would acquiesce to it; probably they assume that something is better than nothing and that as a pragmatic consideration it may contain to some degree American aggression against Russia. Nevertheless, for the American elites, it remains chiefly a propaganda ploy. At the same time that Congress is deciding to approve the Treaty, the administration is aggressively promoting the development of nuclear materiel for other uses than bombs and for the weaponizing of space, with the requisite commitment of many billions of taxpayers’ dollars. (For a full discussion of the treaty’s real and not-so-real feastures, check out

Start Treaty Hypocrisy

https://www.greanvillepost.com/?p=11025 .

SUMMATION

The soi-disant ‘liberal’ press and television figures such as Maddow and Matthews, who all serve to make the population more servile and accepting of their overlords demands, are having a field day under the crypto-conservative Obama.  In doing so, they are prolonging the fraudulence of the Obama administration non-solutions, and delivering the nation to the tender mercies of the Right.  Cynics say that people get the governments they deserve, and the same may be said about their media. Maybe this is a case of karmic Schadenfreude because having for so long profited from the Empire’s depredations, the American population is now slowly descending into the same economic and social hell they caused other countries to undergo, with no chance of rescue from the pervasive, deadening and very soulless  effects of Capitalism.  Via active (if misguided) support, or sheer indifference to “politics”,  preferring to remain focused on their own personal “dreams”, a vast segment of the American population has created its own prison with no chance for escape, neither for themselves nor for their fellow citizens, along with long-suffering billions in poorer lands.  

Time perhaps to proclaim: A bas les sales Capitalistes !

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GUI ROCHAT and PATRICE GREANVILLE serve as senior editors with The Greanville Post.