Link: http://ddjango.blogspot.com/2009/09/silence-of-freedom.html

I know I'm not the only one, but I have to ask ...

Who's watching the store? Who is leading the Cabinet? Who is corralling the Democrats? Where does the buck stop? Instead of a presidency, we've bought into nothing more than a traveling wild west variety show, complete with gunslingers and the Snake Oil Salesman-in-Chief. The deluge of words over the weekend was simply over the top. For once, Faux Noose had the right idea in snubbing the guy.

Maybe it just ain't so great that we got ourselves a president that can string a few intelligible words together. At least Dubbleduh tended to be hilarious on the podium from time to time and we really didn't have to listen to him very much. This Obama cat just won't shut up. Nothing more than a cheerleader, but it remains to be seen just where the team is and where the game plan is supposed to get us.

It's not just the volume of words in his grand speechification tour. It's that the content still means no more than "hope" and "change". This man brings nothing to the table but thousands of vague generalities.

John McCain remarked that it might not be a good idea to put such an inexperienced man in the Oval Office. He was onto something. The problem, however, was not much Obama's lack of experience, as his total lack of any real political power to forward what may have been a "progressive agenda". He has no political capital to wield, no deals to cut, no long-term alliances with powerful Senators and Congresspersons. As a result of continuing the previous administration's policies of self-defeating wars, indefensible war crimes, obeisance to criminal banksters, and ignoring the now non-working poor, he has lost the support of all but the most hypnotised so-called progressives who swung the election for him.

A quick reminder here that he has betrayed no one. He promised nothing of substance. The people who insisted on endowing him with qualities he does not possess are culpable. They voted for their dreams, they elected an illusion - an arrogant, self-worshipping one, but an illusion nonetheless.

Witness John Pilger ...

The clever young man who recently made it to the White House is a very fine hypnotist, partly because it is so extraordinary to see an African-American at the pinnacle of power in the land of slavery. However, this is the 21st century, and race — together with gender and even class — can be very seductive tools of propaganda. For what matters, above race and gender, is the class one serves ...

During his brief period in the Senate, Obama voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He voted for the Patriot Act. He refused to support a bill for single-payer health care. He supported the death penalty. As a presidential candidate, he received more corporate backing than John McCain ...

In his book, Dreams From My Father, Obama refers to the job he took after he graduated from Columbia University in 1983. He describes his employer as “a consulting house to multinational corporations.” For some reason, he does not say who his employer was or what he did there. The employer was Business International Corporation, which has a long history of providing cover for the CIA with covert action, and infiltrating unions and the left. I know this because it was especially active in my own country, Australia.

Obama does not say what he did at Business International; and there may be nothing sinister, but it seems worthy of enquiry, and debate, surely, as a clue to whom the man is.

During his brief period in the Senate, Obama voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He voted for the Patriot Act. He refused to support a bill for single-payer health care. He supported the death penalty. As a presidential candidate, he received more corporate backing than John McCain. He promised to close Guantanamo as a priority and has not. Instead, he has excused the perpetrators of torture, reinstated the infamous military commissions, kept the Bush gulag intact and opposed habeus corpus ...

The horrible truth, therefore, is that Barack Obama was not elected ... he was elevated, as a shining symbol to mesmerize the population, by the elite class, to be their spokesperson. Nothing more than a cheerleader, but it remains to be seen just where the team is and where the gameplan is supposed to get us, although a great many more folks now have an inkling.

It is clear that Obama loves the spotlight. He loves it when all eyes are on him, enraptured by his rhetoric. But that's the problem, isn't it? If he stays in our face, pouring out his fine ideals with empty, vague "promises", we forget to look at all the Machievellis behind all the curtains. We forget about the Kissingers, Brzezinskis, Emmanuels, and Geithners who continue to connive and pull the puppets' strings. Obama, I'm afraid, is a shill. A front man. Just another political con artist.

So what do we do? A good first action is to stop listening. Just turn him off.

An old and dear friend of mine wisely counseled me once to listen very little but watch very carefully. He said, "Don't tell me you love me. Show me." I admit Obama's very good at what he does - but all that is is talking. He has already proven that he's a bit thin in the integrity category and thick with contradictions.

Next, we can try to overcome our deep ideological differences and learn something from the rabid right. In my opinion, they are better organized and significantly more motivated than the majority of liberals, progressives, and moderate Democrats. Although I loathe their values, laugh at their political poverty, and reject much of their methodology, they were able to put a noticeable few thousand in the streets of DC. They were heard. They had an impact. Ridicule them if you must, but give them credit for at least some measure of concerted action.

The best the Left seems able to do is organize yet another fruitless - and perhaps violent - anti-globalization rally for the up-coming G20. Borrrring.

At any rate, if we can't silence Obama, we can turn our silence against him. We can turn a deaf ear. We can find no more joy in listening to him than listening to talking barracudas and silly sock puppets on Fox and MSNBC. Turn them off. Let them fight it out with words with each other.

I have a small daydream. In it, I am walking up Pennsylvania Avenue in the midst of two million people. There are no speeches, no slogans, no shouting. Except for the echo of four million feet on the pavement, there is utter silence. A silence of protest. A silence of sadness. The silence of true freedom. A few people carry signs. But they all just say one thing ...

"NO MORE".