Growing disillusionment forces Obama to retry internet tricks - International Social/Political

At times it is extremely amusing watching an outmoded thinker like Rupert Murdoch gibbering irrelevancies while refusing to relinquish control of his media empire to his sons, who may or may not be equipped to meet the challenges they would face; nonetheless, one thing IS certain, Rupert’s time is past.

The Murdoch boys and the Obama team are acutely aware of the power inherent in personal digital technologies. However, these technologies require a different approach to that employed by the mass media. Unlike the mass media the internet is NOT a ‘sledge-hammer’ medium, take note some contributors to this and other independent publishing sites!

The digital age provides an opportunity for every communicator to hone their skills and compete for a greater share of the GLOBAL audience. Competing on the internet would have been a pure form of social Darwinism but for the fact that search engines, especially Google, favour paying customers and also comply with the wishes of various governments to de-list and/or background sites – though certain counter-measures exist the ability of search engines to manage flows of information on the internet is enormous.

Over the past decade the world witnessed millions of small voices on the internet combine to form a popular attack, one which destroyed the mendacious, geriatric, (international) conservative push for power. The popular voice was highly effective, as today’s loathing of Bush-Cheney, Blair and Howard would indicate -- conservative leaders continue to run from the prospect of war crimes trials.

[Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, who is currently facing trial at the Hague for the alleged murder of 8000 civilians, is a relative ‘mosquito’ compared to Bush, Blair and Howard who together are directly responsible for one million civilian deaths, four million displaced persons and a ruined State!]

The real ruling executive of the USA is currently facing the knowledge that the world will not tolerate the (puppet) Obama administration ignoring war and other crimes committed by the outgoing Bush administration.

[If Karadzic was smart he would exercise his prerogatives, as a Leader of State, and subpoena previous and serving leaders of Western Governments and expose the entire sordid farce behind which Western Imperialism hides – but intelligence and heart are rare among Serbs these days, the Serbian people are shadows of their former, fighting selves! Do today’s Serbs really expect the world not to recognise Kosovo if they refuse to FIGHT FOR THEIR OWN SOVEREIGN TERRITORY, wake up, donkeys?]

Obama’s team witnessed the cost to Bush and his allies of relying principally on the antiquated mainstream media for propaganda purposes; they were not about to make the same mistake! Obama’s team was the first mainstream political group to successfully exploit the internet for funding, support and propaganda! It was a superb effort that devastated the opposition.

However, it is now evident that Obama’s team had no intention of sweeping into office on a wave of popular (real democratic) grass roots support; instead they utilised successful internet funding as a threat to the ‘powers’ in order to leverage BIG MONEY in their direction, and it worked beyond their wildest dreams; hundreds of millions were made available overnight, and more if needed. But money is never given without conditions; today it is clear that Obama agreed to support the status quo! Doesn’t it just break your grass roots hearts?

This guy is worse than Bush; idiots can’t hide their condition but this smooth, black, no-conscience, opportunist deceived millions of loyal and trusting citizens – makes reaching for the keys to the cabinet hard to resist!

Facing mounting discontent and insistence from the public that Obama display some INTEGRITY and pursue SELF-CONFESSED TORTURERS and other guilty members of the former administration, Obama’s handlers have offered a digital distraction instead. They forget, it's far more difficult to renege in the digital world – of very fast learners -- than the world of mainstream moron media, where black becomes white then any other shade you care to name!

For Australians the meaningless distraction/gesture offered by the Obama team is déjà vu; Kevin Rudd, the current PM, voted into office primarily to replace the universally loathed John ‘lying rodent, deputy sheriff’ Howard, also promised 'change' but delivered the status quo instead!

Soon after Rudd’s ‘inauguration’ he demonstrated his inability to govern in his own right; in order to hide that failing and allow corporate interests to continue their wholesale pillaging of the nation’s wealth, Rudd embarked on a number of meaningless political gestures to give the APPEARANCE he was actually doing something. He held a summit and asked various citizens to contribute ideas for the running of the country – nothing came of it but it did provide loads of ‘photo ops’ with famous Australians, including professional actors!

Rudd’s handlers forgot that strategies designed for banjo playing morons do not cut it in Oz – Rudd was soon exposed for the no-account, visionless, incompetent, Murdoch lackey, HE really IS!

[Prelude America!]

Faced with ENORMOUS ISSUES ON EVERY FRONT what do Obama’s handlers offer the public? A “service” program!

Following are some excerpts from an AP story titled:

In less than one week, the U.S. Constitution will be front and center as Barack Obama solemnly swears to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. Given all that has happened over the last eight years, that oath is not nearly as pro-forma as it used to be.

During his final press conference earlier this week, President Bush said that when it came time "to protect the homeland" he "wouldn't worry about popularity." He would "worry about the Constitution of the United States." It wasn't clear, as it hasn't been for most of his time in office, whether his concern was directed at upholding the document or circumventing it.

So as the Obama Years are about to begin, one of the questions facing the new president is what will he do about the transgressions of the Bush Years? Will his promise to protect and defend the Constitution include an investigation into the assaults on it perpetrated by members of the Bush administration?

On change.gov, the website of the Obama transition team, there is a section where people can submit questions and readers can vote on the questions they most want the incoming administration to answer. The top question last week, receiving over 23,000 votes, came from Bob Fertik of democrats.com:

"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"

Instead of having Obama respond to Fertik's question, change.gov posted an earlier reply from Joe Biden who had said, "President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past... I think we should be looking forward, not backwards."

Picking up the dropped ball on Sunday, George Stephanopoulos directly asked Obama Fertik's question ("the most popular question on your own website").

Obama echoed Biden's reply: "I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards... My orientation is going to be to move forward."

Given the multiple -- and massive -- obstacles looming directly in front of him, Obama is wise not to be driving into the Oval Office looking in his rearview mirror. But I hope he will realize that moving forward and looking backwards are not mutually exclusive. Particularly if he isn't the one focused on the past.

There is no doubt that the economic crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan, health care reform, and the regulation of Wall Street should be the Obama administration's primary concerns.

But that doesn't mean we, as a country, should allow Bush and Cheney's offenses to accompany their perpetrators to a peaceful retirement in Texas and Wyoming.

That's why I am in favor of John Conyers' efforts to create a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties -- a DC version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission created after the fall of apartheid in South Africa. The new Commission would come with subpoena power, a $3 million budget, and the mandate to investigate a host of issues ranging from Guantanamo, to torture, to extraordinary rendition.

The Commission members would come from outside government -- appointed by Obama and leaders from both political parties. So the administration and Congress could continue looking and moving forward while the country avoids falling into the trap of allowing the outrages of the Bush administration to be forgotten or, worse, implicitly sanctioned.

Dawn Johnson, Obama's pick to head the Office of Legal Counsel, has eloquently made the case against turning the page and not looking back:

This becomes all the more important as Bush and Cheney continue their Polish the Legacy Tour -- aka Lie-a-palooza '09.

During his Monday presser, which he dubbed "the ultimate exit interview," Bush thanked reporters for giving him a chance to defend his record "because I think it's a good, strong record." And defend it he did, standing behind the war in Iraq, his handling of Katrina, the use of Gitmo, and his tax cuts. And he strongly disagreed with "the assessment that our moral standing [in the world] has been damaged."

As for the economy, Bush insisted, "I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted growth." Which is kind of like saying the flight of the Hindenburg was fabulous up until the landing.

Cheney has been even more relentlessly on message -- ie pathologically in denial. Say what you will about the VP, the guy is savvy.

Watching him make the exit interview rounds, including his brazenly unrepentant turn with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday, has been like watching a brilliant lawyer defending a clearly guilty client. He has constructed a narrative of what has happened, cherry-picked and twisted every fact to back up his story, and then repeatedly hammered home his rendering of things, refusing to give an inch. His version of what has happened over the past eight years is air tight, iron clad -- and completely wrong.

Among the lowlights from his interview with Blitzer was his demonstrably false claim that the administration "did not base going after Saddam Hussein on any connection with 9/11," his demonstrably false claim that "there wasn't anything the administration did to create that inaccuracy on the part of the [pre-war] intelligence," and his demonstrably false claim that waterboarding "is not torture" because "we don't do torture."

Cheney also has a masterful ability to pass the buck, as when he told Bob Schieffer that the chaos and bloodshed that followed the fall of Baghdad should be laid at the feet of the Iraqi people: "There weren't any Iraqis early on who were willing to stand up and take responsibility for their own affairs." And that torture, which isn't really torture since we don't "do torture," was, in any case, okay because morally creative legal flunkies like John Yoo told them it was: "What we did was authorized by the legal authorities that were to be the source of that kind of advice."

As ridiculous and deceitful as Cheney's closing arguments are, inflicting this much damage to the Constitution then coming up with rationales that allow high crimes to dissolve into Sunday morning rhetorical squabbles requires an impressive level of brainpower. But it's brainpower at its most dangerous -- divorced from judgment, wisdom, and reality.

I am all for moving forward. We can move forward as a nation that looks the other way when it comes to torture and lawlessness. Or we can move forward as the nation envisioned in the Constitution that Obama is about to solemnly swear to preserve, protect, and defend.

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