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What “Change” In America Really Means
- Text size
John Pilger
Information Clearing House
November 13, 2008
My first visit to Texas was in 1968, on the fifth anniversary of the assassination of president John F Kennedy in Dallas. I drove south, following the line of telegraph poles to the small town of Midlothian, where I met Penn Jones Jr, editor of the Midlothian Mirror. Except for his drawl and fine boots, everything about Penn was the antithesis of the Texas stereotype. Having exposed the racists of the John Birch Society, his printing press had been repeatedly firebombed. Week after week, he painstakingly assembled evidence that all but demolished the official version of Kennedy’s murder.
This was journalism as it had been before corporate journalism was invented, before the first schools of journalism were set up and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around those whose “professionalism” and “objectivity” carried an unspoken obligation to ensure that news and opinion were in tune with an establishment consensus, regardless of the truth. Journalists such as Penn Jones, independent of vested power, indefatigable and principled, often reflect ordinary American attitudes, which have seldom conformed to the stereotypes promoted by the corporate media on both sides of the Atlantic. Read American Dreams: Lost and Found by the masterly Studs Terkel, who died the other day, or scan the surveys that unerringly attribute enlightened views to a majority who believe that “government should care for those who cannot care for themselves” and are prepared to pay higher taxes for universal health care, who support nuclear disarmament and want their troops out of other people’s countries.
Returning to Texas, I am struck again by those so unlike the redneck stereotype, in spite of the burden of a form of brainwashing placed on most Americans from a tender age: that theirs is the most superior society in the history of the world, and all means are justified, including the spilling of copious blood, in maintaining that superiority.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
That is the subtext of Barack Obama’s “oratory”. He says he wants to build up US military power; and he threatens to ignite a new war in Pakistan, killing yet more brown-skinned people. That will bring tears, too. Unlike those on election night, these other tears will be unseen in Chicago and London. This is not to doubt the sincerity of much of the response to Obama’s election, which happened not because of the unction that has passed for news reporting from America since 4 November (e.g. “liberal Americans smiled and the world smiled with them”) but for the same reasons that millions of angry emails were sent to the White House and Congress when the “bailout” of Wall Street was revealed, and because most Americans are fed up with war.
Two years ago, this anti-war vote installed a Democratic majority in Congress, only to watch the Democrats hand over more money to George W Bush to continue his blood fest. For his part, the “anti-war” Obama never said the illegal invasion of Iraq was wrong, merely that it was a “mistake”. Thereafter, he voted in to give Bush what he wanted. Yes, Obama’s election is historic, a symbol of great change to many. But it is equally true that the American elite has grown adept at using the black middle and management class. The courageous Martin Luther King recognised this when he linked the human rights of black Americans with the human rights of the Vietnamese, then being slaughtered by a liberal Democratic administration. And he was shot. In striking contrast, a young black major serving in Vietnam, Colin Powell, was used to “investigate” and whitewash the infamous My Lai massacre. As Bush’s secretary of state, Powell was often described as a “liberal” and was considered ideal to lie to the United Nations about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Condaleezza Rice, lauded as a successful black woman, has worked assiduously to deny the Palestinians justice.
Obama’s first two crucial appointments represent a denial of the wishes of his supporters on the principal issues on which they voted. The vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a proud warmaker and Zionist. Rahm Emanuel, who is to be the all-important White House chief of staff, is a fervent “neoliberal” devoted to the doctrine that led to the present economic collapse and impoverishment of millions. He is also an “Israel-first” Zionist who served in the Israeli army and opposes meaningful justice for the Palestinians – an injustice that is at the root of Muslim people’s loathing of the United States and the spawning of jihadism.
No serious scrutiny of this is permitted within the histrionics of Obamamania, just as no serious scrutiny of the betrayal of the majority of black South Africans was permitted within the “Mandela moment”. This is especially marked in Britain, where America’s divine right to “lead” is important to elite British interests. The once respected Observer newspaper, which supported Bush’s war in Iraq, echoing his fabricated evidence, now announces, without evidence, that “America has restored the world’s faith in its ideals”. These “ideals”, which Obama will swear to uphold, have overseen, since 1945, the destruction of 50 governments, including democracies, and 30 popular liberation movements, causing the deaths of countless men, women and children.
None of this was uttered during the election campaign. Had it been allowed, there might even have been recognition that liberalism as a narrow, supremely arrogant, war-making ideology is destroying liberalism as a reality. Prior to Blair’s criminal warmaking, ideology was denied by him and his media mystics. “Blair can be a beacon to the world,” declared the Guardian in 1997. “[He is] turning leadership into an art form.”
Today, merely insert “Obama”. As for historic moments, there is another that has gone unreported but is well under way – liberal democracy’s shift towards a corporate dictatorship, managed by people regardless of ethnicity, with the media as its clichéd façade. “True democracy,” wrote Penn Jones Jr, the Texas truth-teller, “is constant vigilance: not thinking the way you’re meant to think and keeping your eyes wide open at all times.”
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November 13th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
“Change” = same failed foreign policies, same “Israel first” bulls---, same tyranny, all under a sugarcoated label.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Change = COMMUNIST PURGE
who are his backers ????
what kind of society do they crave??
lock and load america ,KILL EM ALL
November 13th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
The change will be that we will be living the same way as the Palestinians. Wake up people, the Obama-nation is here!
November 13th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
You all ain’t gonna like change.
November 13th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
ALL HAIL BARAMA, BARAMA, BARAMA! LOL MCB
November 13th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Oh s--- 08′
November 13th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I dedicate the 2Pac song “I Ain’t Mad At Cha” to all the “”"African”"” “”"Americans”"”
of this nation that actually believe that Obama isn’t hustling them hardcore.
November 13th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
dont waste time waking people up unless its your family. most of these embecils need to die off anyway. let us handle this s---. get on youtube and type in SONS OF LIBERTY A MESSAGE TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER and enjoy this one. its on me. DO ITTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 13th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
someone posted something that was right on the money. If you spend any time trying to wake people up that you dont know, they will only dig in deeper and think you are a loon. Work to save your family and close friends. The sheep masses will die off because of their own actions. Dont become a sheep. Move to the country. Learn how to grow your own food and save what little equity you have left.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
ALL MUST OBEY LORD BARAMA OR HIGH PRIEST RAHM THE EMANUEL SHALL SEND FORTH HIGH GOD KASHSKARI TO WISH UNTO YOU FINANCIAL UNREST! KING HANK HAS SPOKEN! ALL HAIL BARAMA! BARAMA! BARAMA! ALOHA MCB
November 13th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
As I examine the Article and the comments, it saddens my heart. as for Obama and the News Media like Fox news that lies and when Mr. Tarpley was on the program they Smear a person that can shew proof of the lies and destruction that is being brought upon mankind. Wake up America! You have an Enemy you cannot see, but if you will open your minds and examine you can see the lies and deception He is putting in place. Satan is the father of lies, and the evil works that is being put in place, will soon bring a false peace first and then destruction will follow. this Work that Obama, and the men like Biden and folker and Emanuel, and the others will stabilize the economy so things will work. You will soon see the 10th World power set in place with the other 9. It is the W.E.O.G.. then the Son of Perdition will be seated in TYRE. This will be the end of Satan’s evil Works. When He shuts down the Banks so no man can buy or sell your attitude of name calling will do you no good. For you will either agree to His Works or you will reject them. these Men that lie against the word of God, and tell people that there is a Rapture will have their Knee Bow. and the these people in the News Media that lie and distort the Truth will also have their Knee Bow. Yes wake up America! To be Ignorant of the Evil Works that is being put in place to day will put one in danger of a Tormented Hell. 5 more things are to be put in place and you will face danger. You cannot serve 2 Masters, you cannot serve God and Mammon. the Carnal Mind cannot please God. these Mega churches are not of God and the men that lie against the prophecies of God, I fear for them. Yes, Time is short and if you are going to escape this destruction you will need the knowledge and understanding of the Living God, not some Religion that Satan set in place or some Government party that tells you they are going to give you the things you need. A Servant of the god of Israel joedr@theriver.com
November 14th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Alex your perception of the people of India as cosmic but poor and living in their own
excrement is only half the truth. The other half is truly spiritual people in India perceiving
you as a simple redneck who doesn’t know jack s--- about metaphysical truths and feeling
sorry for your impoverished position as tse-tse fly on the windshield of repeating cycles of
death and rebirth and inability to know truth and transcend your own more primitive karma.
Some people live in crude huts with dirt floors, others live in their own restrictive illusions.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:10 am
GIVE OBAMA A CHANCE…………PLEASE……………………………….THEN BITCH………………………..