It’s ugly, but I think it’s an ugly truth. Yes, the media did ignore Edwards in favor of the fancy “firsts” in this primary season, but he had his shot a couple times in the past. I sent him money in his presidential campaign and then again in his vice presidential campaign, and he didn’t win either. That wasn’t due to the media ignoring him. The country has not decided to embrace the man and I’m guessing those people who do are ones who: A) are not voting according to racial politics; and B) are not members of the international wealth elite.

So you’ve got two groups that are basically in favor of the status quo, one who is benefited by it on all accounts and one who is hurt by it economically but benefited psychologically. The above refers to the second group.

In the first group is the international wealth elite that benefits for ensure poverty persists within every nation on Earth, especially the ones with free elections where an educated populace with enough free time and mental clarity to really know what benefits them and how to vote for their best interests would result in their loss of power. These ones want to make sure people have lots of babies starting early, have to work 2 jobs to support them, have to cling to their jobs just to have the safety of health care for their families, and even when the kids are out of the house have to start worrying about retirement and the demise of social security (which has funds siphoned off for other programs each year, even while we’re all threatened with the impending implosion of the program), and are convinced by the financial media establishment that they are benefited by mortgages even when renting would be better for them just so they can be further enslaved by debt. “Keep em scared and busy or they might just vote for revolution” that’s the plan, and it’s working quite well.

Go read Bob Somerby’s archives. Don’t blame the poor boobs at the bottom of the food chain if they internalized the narrative the media forced down our throats.

Wowsers.

Somebody had to say it… BTW, post # 1 caught my jaundiced eye. Prepare for an unforgettable year. Peace Frog…

I just want our next president to be less damaging than McCain will be - which means either of the two remaining dems will have to do. Whichever can win, that’s who I want.

See how well that worked out.

Obama and Clinton are both corporate candidates, clearly. Where’s the money? That’s where the answer lies. And obviously both have substantial corporate ties. How could it be otherwise?

Just riffing on all this. But my gut feeling is Obama has a better chance to win - contrast him visually and aurally with a slow and cranky old McCain, and Obama’s dynamism and charisma present a far more appealing image. Which matters, I guess, whether it should or not. Hill and Barrack are pretty similar on the issues, so for me it comes down to damage control: who can we get elected that will do the least damge? I guess it’s Barrack.

Wanted Edwards, but not to be … can he endorse either of these candidates? He’ll have to hold his nose, but politics makes strange bedfellows, so I imagine he can support one of them in the end.

You can be an asshole over at your own blog, where you have attacked me to your heart’s content. You don’t get to attack me here, on mine.

I’ve helped persuade her that all rich people aren’t corrupt, just the majority of them. Ack! It must be the poisoning.

Yeah, I’m not dancing in the streets about our pro-corporate choices, though I see clear differences in their outlooks, concerns, achievements and styles. And the main reason Edwards was more appealling was because he escaped the poverty trap and didn’t forget those who didn’t.
Kucinich, too, knew a deeper poverty.

I fall into poverty at every economic downturn, when I re-learn that, for those with lots of disposable income, I’m disposable, too. Skills, talent, professionalism, adaptability and loyalty matter not. So my bias, my poisoning remains, not as a chip on my shoulder, but as a realistic view of how callous most successful business people are.

And I convey to my kids not to let it affect their self-worth. It’s just human nature within a consumerist society to throw everything and everyone away.

I shrug, find a way to make it through the winters and car repairs during the down cycles, then move back into my car, always certain that I’ll be back on my feet before the next frost. Content that my soul won’t be sold to make it better for myself. And on the upturns, I give my disposable income to those I think can use what little I have to spare.

Poisoned? Maybe I am. I don’t suggest I’m close to perfect, but I try to get by on the least I can even when all the bills are paid because I can’t justify throwing things and people away.

no argument there.

by the way, mithras smells funny.

I really liked your piece.

i understand. but that’s why i asked whether any of the obama people we do know in common fall into that category. i mean, while i certainly don’t know all the people you do know, after years of hanging around the philly DL together, we certainly do know a lot of politically active people in common.

sometimes “many of the people i know” can start to sound a little like “some people say“

The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics. ”

Isn’t that some, however small, evidence of a concern for the unprivileged class? It’s certainly more than I did.

Senator Clinton certainly has argued long and hard on behalf of the unprivileged class, children in particular. But Senator Clinton has a lot of baggage, not just Whitewater but her votes in support of the Debacle in Iraq.

I may be as wrong about Senator Obama as I was about Governor Carter, but do I vote for his enthusiasm and message of Hope (backed up by more successes than Senator Clinton would acknowledge), or Senator Clinton’s deeper knowledge and experience but flawed judgment and unwillingness to admit mistakes? I miss the Edwards choice. And in the end I keep coming back to Senator Obama — potential wins out over a failure in judgment.

hey, don’t i know you? my support for obama has nothing to do with either of those things. i just think he’s better than clinton on foreign policy matters.

i also think he’s the more electable of the two democratic candidates (not that clinton is unelectable. she just has already accumulated a much higher negative score than obama has and that will make the race harder)

but other than that, i basically like both of them.

so tell me, we know several obama supporters in common, which ones like him for reasons of “transcendance and self-actualization”?

In my own particular company (a large financial institution) we have had one of our best year’s ever. Profits are remarkable (we don’t do mortgages) new business is booming and the stock price is at record highs. To reward us for our efforts management has announced that 16pct of the jobs in our division will be outsourced this year. (They call it “Knowledge Transfer”).
As a baby boomer over 50, I can kiss-off any chance of finding similar employment (or even employment with a 30 pct pay cut).
The issue here isn’t the size of the Divide between classes, its the size of the classes themselves. The issue is the destruction of the middle and even upper middle classes in this country. Its the creation of a larger and larger group of politically powerless economic hostages; locked into their commitements and completely at the mercy of the ruling class.

We are stuck in a Dickensian world where a tiny elite rules over a mass of terrorized and powerless workers. I am voting for Obama because both Hillary and McCain helped create this current class structure and have a vested interest in the growth of a lower class. While Obama’s progressive bone-fides are questionable he is looking in the right direction and talking about the right things. With Obama we have a chance, with Hillary (if she wins, which is doubtful) we will just get more of the same.

It’s true that this isn’t about me. It’s about my kids. That’s why I voted for Obama in the primary and will never vote for Hillary under any circumstances. I won’t vote if it comes to Hillary being the nominee. I will also consider renewing my passport. Our collective standard of living will never get any better than it is now. Cheap liquid fuels have made this incredible boom possible, and there is no political solution, short of permanent resource wars, to keep the “growth” going. Put the big picture together and you see a recession sliding into a depression, which, for the planet won’t be a bad thing. The corporations will wither and die and humans will become relocalized in outlook and economy. Ask yourself what part of the fractured states of America do you want to get stranded in when the pillars of our present lifestyle (cheap liquid fuel and cheap, easy credit) crumble? There’s your solution.

Railing about how the creatives need to reconcile with the workers is senseless. The historical dynamic is the inverse of the bolshevik formation — we’re on the way down, not on the way up. Status quo or change? Change is always better than the static hell we’ve been forced into by 20 years of Bushes and Clintons. This is just my 2 cents wearing my global glasses.