Obama Revelations

Obama Revelation #1: Where did the money really come from Obama?

Image: nymag.com

Obama claimed that the funding from his campaign came from grassroots organizations, and not from large corporations. In Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics, Paul street cites in a speech given in Greenville, South Carolina, "Washington lobbyists haven't funded my campaign, they won't run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am president."

Obama also wrote supporters through e-mail, "Candidates typically spend a week like this-right before the critical June 30 financial reporting deadline-on the phone, day and night, begging Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs to write huge checks. Not me. Our campaign has rejected the money-for-influence game and refused to accept funds from registered federal lobbyists and political action committees (Street, 13)."

In reality according it was just the opposite according to opensecrets.org, Obama only recieved 32% of his funding from small donors. His top contributors included investment bankers Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, and JP Morgan Chase; utility and nuclear giant Exelon; media giants Time Warner and Google, and the multinational, corporate globalist law firms Skadden, Arps et al, Sidley Austin LLP, and Latham & Watkins (Street 21).

Image courtesy of Google Images

# 2: The Obama Brand

Image courtesy of flickr

Obama paid a pretty penny to build up his marketing strategy. Paul Street points out that according to the Federal Election Commission, by 2008, Obama had spent $52 million on, "media, strategy consultants, image-building, marketing research, and telemarketing (Street, 61)." The money went into the hands of firms like GMMB, and the Parker Group, who are both big-client, corporate-marketing firms. These groups built the "Obama Brand," and were in charge of making Obama look as appealing as possible to the American people.

We learned how important looks can be in an election from the televised Kennedy, Nixon debate in 1960. David Croteau and William Hoyness discussed this topic in their Those who watched the debate on television gave Kennedy a slight edge, and those who listened on the radio gave it to Nixon. "Nixon declined to wear the heavy makeup that aides recommended. On camera, he appeared haggard and in need of a shave, while Kennedy's youthful and vibrant appearance was supported by the layer of television makeup he wore (233, Croteau, Hoynes)." This debate was significant because it proved that in politics, looks matter. And during the campaign, who looked better on television? The charismatic Obama, or the weathered McCain?

Picture from Google Images

#3: Obama-The Ultimate Showman

Image: Wikipedia

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman, he argues that the sole purpose of television is purely for entertainment. Television news exists only to amuse us, and not to truly inform. “’Giving off’ impressions is what television does best (97).” He continues, “Our priests and presidents, our surgeons and lawyers, our educators and news casters need worry less about satisfying the demands of their discipline than the demands of good showmanship (98).” Postman believed that all politicians on television behave like actors.

I couldn’t believe it, but here is President Obama making history by being the first sitting president to appear on a daytime talk show, namely: The View.

#4 Obama 2.0

The Obama campaign harnessed the power of the internet to earn himself a spot as our Commander In Chief. He wasn't the first to use the internet as a marketing tool, but he was the first to successfully weave technology and the internet into the fabric of his campaign. Early on in the campaign, Obama reached out to the internet community utilizing social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and Youtube. Obama also received far mentions on attention on blogs as well. I found these graphs in an article written by Frederic Lardinois.

#5: The media’s love affair with Obama.

The Media seemed to love Obama almost as much as the American hopefuls brainwashed by the idea of change. Paul Street notes in Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics, “Obama received by the most favorable coverage of any presidential candidate in the first five months of the presidential primary campaign.” Street added, “Two Democratic candidates received more coverage than all the Republicans combined (62).”

Matthew Sheffield wrote about this in his article, NBC Admits: Media in Love with Obama. He includes a quote from a very unhappy former president Bill Clinton, expressing his displeasure with this obvious trend. During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Bill Clinton said, “It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, ‘Well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war.’” Clinton continued, “And you took that speech you’re now running on off your Web site in 2004. And there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since.” He added, “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

#6: Call Obama Seabiscut

The American media has gotten a reputation for covering political elections like a spectator sport. This "horse race" coverage is a bad thing. Croteau and Hoyness believe the media are too often less interested in where candidates stand on the issues than in their electability as measured by polls. They write, "Candidates who can demonstrate their electability by doing well in early polls are much more likely to attract the campaign contributions-before any votes are cast-that are essential to run an effective campaign (239)." Coverage of elections this way highlights winning tactics, rather than substance, and therefore corrupts our ability to make informed choices.

Image: Google Images

"We usually cannont, or do not, experiance firsthand the goings on of public life. Consequently, as citizens, we are partially reliant on the news media for an informative and accurate account of what is happening in the world around us. That is why the media are such an important element of the democratic process. Citizens in a democracy need adequate information to make informed decisions and to take appropriate political action (Croteau and Hoyness, 240)."

#7: Obama Nation

The Obama campaign, through all of its actions, left followers starry-eyed and willing to follow Obama regardless of his campaign policies, and promises. His campaign was full of so many messages of hope and change, his speeches delivered so eloquently full of charisma, I became an outspoken Obama supporter, along with masses of Zombies, who also bought it all.

An article written for The Economist, titled, The Obama Cult, says the following: “Mr. Obama has inspired more passionate devotion than any modern American politician. People scream and faint at his rallies. Some wear T-shirts proclaiming him ‘The One’ and noting that ‘Jesus was a community organizer.’ An editor at Newsweek describes him as ‘above the country, above the world; he’s sort of God.’ He sets foreign hearts fluttering too. A Pew poll published this week finds that 93% of Germans expect him to do the right thing in world affairs. Only 14% thought that about Mr. Bush.”

I found a pretty funny video on Youtube demonstrating the lack of knowledge some Obama supporters had during the campaign.

#8: How Anti-war?

In a speech titled, Moving Forward in the Middle East, delivered to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in 2005, Obama said, “The U.S. invasion of Iraq was profoundly illegal, violation the United Nations Charter’s ban on aggressive and unprovoked warfare. By some estimates as of this writing, it has caused the deaths of more than 1 million Iraqis and led to the exodus and displacement of millions more.”

Liberal foreign relations scholar Stephen Zunes discusses Obama’s shift in opinion on the war in his article Barack Obama on the Middle East. He wrote, “Once Elected to the U.S. senate… his anti-war voice became muted. Obama supported unconditional funding for the Iraq War in both 2005 and 2006….Obama didn’t even make a floor speech on the war until a full year after his election. In it, he called for a reduction in the number of U.S. troops but no timetable for their withdrawal.”

With election season coming up I am mildly disturbed by the lack of talk about our foreign occupations. The Tea Party constantly accuses Obama of horrendous acts, but rarely discusses the wars, from which I have heard no quarrel. Could it be that our democratic president is more conservative on policies of foreign affairs than we were first made to believe? Or could it be that Obama just sold out on his personal beliefs, and decided to play ball with special interests?

Image courtesy from my friends at Black Agenda Report

#9: More conservative than first thought

America became far more conservative under the Bush era, and has continued to stay closer to the right under Obama. Jackob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson discuss this trend in their book, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. They wrote, "American politics made a stunning transit to the right even as the American public has not," producing a, "stark disconnect between the public and elites" Hacker and Pierson continued, "The Republicans who have tended to run the U.S. government since 2000 have seemingly defied the laws of political gravity." Street contends "transforming the nation's priorities in profoundly regressive, militaristic, and repressive ways even while possessing only the slimmest of majorities (Street, 180). During Obama's campaign, he told masses about how he would have joint conversations with democrats and republicans, and usher in a new era of politics.

#10: Thanks Huxley

Postman wrote, "What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as perpetual round of entertainments, when serious conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vauderville act, than a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility (Postman 136)."

How am I supposed to believe in a political process that I know is rigged from the start? The media constantly distracts us by diverting our attention away from local and foreign issues that are important. I know that much of what appears through the media is directly tied to the interests of profits. If it doesn't make money, its most likely not on TV. Why are we so addicted to bullshit?