I hope the democrats wake up before it’s too late. When I saw karl rove’s name mentioned in an advisory role for mccain and then the infusion of other surrogates to bush’s campaigns of 2000 and 2004 it was obvious what to expect. They were planning their version of the “kitchen sink” strategy that Hillary Clinton threw at Obama during the primary battle. One thing that may have gone unnoticed during that time-frame, considering Obama ended up winning the “battle,” was that Clinton totally turned everything around with this strategy. By the time she began the so-called kichen sink strategy, the battle for all intense and purposes was lost. However, it allowed her to hold on until the last possible primary and she was able to show Obama’s vulnerability in several key states. I believe that most Obama supporters, including myself, can’t even invision mccain in the White House. However, we all better wake up to the fact that these rogues behind the scenes are masters at manipulating the media to the point where it appears to me that even the people you would feel are clearly opposed to their message are eating out of their hands. They understand how people will react and they have no limits to the “message” they are willing to put out. They can twist any message in whatever direction they wish, and it looks like to me, the people they are using don’t even have a clue as to what is happening. Take for example the Keith Olberman show on MSNBC, Countdown with Keith Olberman. I was watching it the other night after mccain’s ad had come out using the images of Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears to supposedly show Obama as nothing more than a celebrity. The discussion during Olberman’s program was centered on figuring out “why” they would do this, and during this same discussion there was a clip of mccain accusing Obama of injecting race into the campaign for comments Obama made to a conservative gathering in Missouri pointing out (correctly) that the republicans were in the process of trying to scare voters into voting against him. Obama made reference to the fact that he didn’t look like all the other presidents on the “dollar bills.” What bothered me was that mccain’s accusation of Obama injecting race into the campaign and the discussion that ensued on Countdown was a classic example of how the republicans are attempting, and at least temporarily succeeding, into totally twisting the debate. mccain’s accusations totally succeeded in switching the discussion from the offensive add to whether or not Obama was injecting race into the campaign. It was not only on this one show, but on several others, there was little outrage at the subtle, subliminal racial overtone of the mccain ad with the two white “bimbos.” In fact about the only thing I saw all the “commentators” agree on was that if the topic turned to race, this would be bad for Obama. Well, it was so obvious to me that the mccain strategy is to turn the topic to race and then blame Obama for this happening that it made me a bit sick to my stomach, but as I watched the networks (and keep in mind that I refuse to watch fox because I just got fed up with watching and listening to water carriers for the republican party portraying themselves as “fair and balanced” news) fall for this I started to get a bit worried. I fully realize that it is in their best interest to have a “horse race,” that if Obama pulls away to a huge lead it will cost them (the various media outlets) millions upon millions of advertising dollars through lost viewership of the campaign, but I worry even more that the media is part of the corporatocracy that has been in seventh heaven since bush arrived on the scene and they may be willing to do every thing they can to keep Obama and the democrats from getting into the White House. I believe these huge corporations have gotten so infected by their own greed that the welfare of our country is secondary to their profits and power. And mccain has proven himself to be willing to say whatever they (the invisible “advisors” from the bush campaigns) tell him to say (and he’s really not very good at reading teleprompters and note cards) and somewhat a baffoon, which we see from an occasional transparent moment where his remarks are unscripted and show his lack of intelligence along with his lack of understanding of the key issues that he supposedly is the expert on (ie; Iraq/Pakistan border, Iran training Al Qaeda, Chechoslovakia, etc). This gets me back to the ad with Spears and Hilton. How anyone with knowledge of our history in this country and especially the history of the republican party could not see that ad for what it was – a blatant racist message – very subtle to those people who don’t pay close attention or who are naive enough to think that race is no longer an issue in this country – but simply a blatant message to white citizens in key parts of this country connecting a black man with white women, is beyond me. The least I would have expected from Keith Olberman would be one of his passionate “Special Comments.” I guarantee you that virtually every black man in this country fully understands the real message of that ad. It was not intended for people who might think that Obama “is not ready” to lead – it was intended for the white men in Pennsylvania, down South, West Virginia, Michigan – I’m not sure where they ran the ads, but in states where they know that race is an issue, and they are going to make sure that it is an issue, and most frustratingly to me they will accuse Obama of injecting the so-called “race card” into the campaign while they do it. If these people get away with this, “We the People” deserve whatever comes from it. I actually saw republican “pundits” say that the huge crowds that Obama drew in his trip through the Middle East and Europe were an indication that he was not ready to lead, that he is nothing more than an empty speech, that having a president that is admired world wide would not be important. One person even had the audacity to say that the 200,000 plus people who showed up in Berlin, waving American flags, were there because of some rock concert and they just hung around to hear Obama speak, like it was some kind of coincidence. They used words like “arrogant” and “over-confident” for Obama’s demeanor instead of words like confident or competent which would have been used for Reagan or someone of his ilk. Again, this to me is a bunch of people who just can’t accept the idea of the most powerful position in the world being held by an African American. My advice to them is that if they don’t get a clue, and if they could somehow manage to get mccain into office as their next stooge, it won’t be long until the president of the US is not the most powerful office in the world. I believe the rest of the world is watching this election as closely as we are. They want to see this country return to the ideals that made us the leader of the free world in the first place. But these people are not idiots as our present government would have us believe, and our economy is on the verge of collapse. Whether we pull out of this malaise has a lot to do with our relationship with other countries (not to mention who wins this elections), especially the ones who have a financial grip on this nation due to the incredible shift of our wealth to their countries in the form of dollars during the last 35+ years of Reaganomics. I believe they’ve had enough of our greedy wasteful practices and if mccain somehow gets into office, one of the first consequences will be the shift from the dollar to the euro as the world’s default currency. When that happens, our troubles will be magnified significantly. In addition, if Barack Obama is defeated by a sofisticated effort to play the race card, there will be hell to pay in our nation. It is very clear to me, even if the white population of this country doesn’t “get” what the republicans are doing, the black population does. I would expect a backlash of major proportions if this election turns on subtle racist attacks on Senator Obama. My advice to anyone who is in a position to have influence in these matters, if mccain can’t get onto the issues and off of the relentless attacks, especially the ones with racial overtones, there should be a concerted effort to label him the racist he apparently is. Remember, this ad didn’t come from some other source, it said “I’m john mccain, and I approve this message.” This is the man who fought against a holiday for Martin Luther King, a man who is prone to tell racially insensitive “jokes,” a man who you can’t believe a word he says due to his saying so many things that contradict his own words. The negativity and the subject matter of the republican operatives behind mccain’s campaign along with mccain himself need to hear a clear message from the pundits and from the voters, there is no room for race in this race!

Last night as I was trying to injest all the different views of what is happening in our present economy and to look at them through the prism of Naomi Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine” (every adult in the US should read this book) I couldn’t help but visualize in my mind the phrase “Those who choose to ignore history are destined to repeat it.” I’ve been following the stock market’s ups and downs now for over a year and listening to all the pundits is quite entertaining. It just seems to me that there are a bunch of people trying to figure out how to make as much money as possible prior to the inevitable crash of our economy. And the thing that bothers me most, after reading this book, is that I believe there are some “invisible” high rollers that “We the people” have no idea who they are or what their true agenda is, that are licking their chops at the disaster that lies ahead. For them, it is not about my welfare, the welfare of my children, the welfare of their fellow citizens, or anything else but the opportunity to make as much money as possible. I had always believed that this phenomenen began with the Reagan administration, but after reading this book, I now believe the philosophy was conjured up in the 50’s by a bunch of people who were bitter about the New Deal and how it created a broad middle class in America and allowed society to expect more from the wealthy in the form of taxes, etc. I now think their philosophy was behind Richard Nixon’s expansion of deficit spending in the early 70’s which Reagan compounded to my shock in the 80’s and the two bush’s took to heights unimagined by people like me who think the government should live within its means. The great irony in all this is that the republicans have actually convinced the people during this time that they were the party of the fiscally responsible and the democrats were the party of “tax and spend.” Of course Jimmy Carter cut Nixon’s deficit in half during his four years in office only to be voted out in favor of Reagan who promised to “cut taxes and balance the budget.” What a joke that was – but it seems like the memory of our people is very short. Despite Clinton’s budget surpluss the people once again fell for the cutting taxes and balancing the budget from gw bush – although it is apparent to me that bush got into the white house through vote fraud, but that’s a story for another day. Now these Wall Street pundits are arguing back and forth over what will “heal” our economy and what has to happen to get the stock market going upward again with a clear choice between more of the same (mccain) and an infusion of resorces aimed at the middle class (Obama). It is amazing to me that even the republicans can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak. My major concern is that I believe our economy is to the breaking point. Most of the history I’m talking about here is the 80’s and Reagan, but I believe people need to start revisiting 1929 because I believe a crash of that magnitude is sitting on the horizon, ready to cripple this nation for years to come – and, yes, I believe there are many who are actually encouraging this to happen. Let me give an example of how I believe this works. Take the present “gas crisis.” I’ve looked in many places to try to verify that there is a gas shortage, with no success. Even the Saudi oil minister said that them adding more oil to the market wouldn’t effect prices because there was no demand for it. In other words this “crisis” is the result of manipulation by people with a hidden agenda. The other day I went to buy gas, and it really struck me when my wife said: “Wow, it’s only $3.98 a gallon!” My first thought was that these invisible people have succeeded in changing our mindset. “Wow, only $3.98 a gallon” can you imagine saying that even 6 months ago. The end result is that now the oil companies are using this “shock” to get the oil in the ANWAR wilderness area in Alaska “online” and to get additional offshore oil leases despite the fact they have something like 68 million acres of oil leases that are not being accessed and the fact there is not an oil rig in the country, supposedly, that is available for additional drilling. It’s all a sham to increase their “inventory” before the two oil men are nothing but a bad memory to the vast majority of Americans. The scary part of this is that mccain is trying to use this to his advantage by spewing the nonsense of the bush administration. I really hope he is not able to pull this off, but remember, those who choose to ignore history are destined to repeat it. The thought of a repeat of the bush administration makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t believe the American people will fall for this, but the bigger concern is that if they do, I believe we are destined to repeat the calamity of the 30’s. These “invisible” people who are pushing the “free market” agenda that has destroyed the middle class in many other nations and is trying to do that in our own nation would love to lead us into a depression. They have billions of dollars to use to buy up all the remains of the businesses that will fail and the group at the top of the hierarchy in this country will become noticeably smaller. Having a baffoon such as mccain, who has proven he will say anything to anyone if he thinks it will get him a vote, will play right into their hands. I have hope that the majority of Americans will see past their lies and give Obama a chance to turn this around before the disaster strikes, although I’m not altogether certain that it isn’t already too late. For anyone who might read this I would just say again, those who choose to ignore history are destined to repeat it – we have seen Viet Nam repeated in Iraq with bush and I hope that somehow we can avoid him leading us into a repeat of the great depression.