Am I the only one who noticed that, during the debates, almost every time John Edwards began to speak about one of his central campaign themes, corporate power and corruption in Washington, Wolf Blitzer would begin to interrupt him? Brain Williams at NBC did it too. Edwards could ramble on all day long, but as soon as he mentioned corruption, he was suddenly out of time.
Then, after Edwards dropped out, the eulogies for his campaign, at least in the corporate media, reduced his message to fighting poverty. How quaint. No message of corporate power or corruption in Washington. Suddenly Edwards's whole campaign was about poverty. You would think he had been running for president of the Salvation Army.
We're seeing the same thing with the Obama speech. In today's New York Times, plastered all over the front page of their 'Week in Review', are African American lips. Seriously, you really have to see it. African American lips. Suddenly, with all that's at stake, from war to the economy to global warming, and yes, corporate power, this election is all about race. Of course, the Times is not alone. While Obama himself has never made race a campaign issue, the corporate media has done it for him.
We can attribute the sensationalization of Reverend Wright, or the propping up of Hillary's faltering chances as keeping the race alive for ratings. Maybe that's all it is. But the systemic pattern of occluding our candidates messages every time the message involves corporate power, or anything that even resembles populism, is not about ratings. General Electric didn't buy a TV network to provide a platform for the common folk to redress their grievances. GE and Time Warner are direct beneficiaries of the very corruption in Washington CNN and NBC don't want to talk about.
We saw this same phenomenon at work after Jim Webb spoke the unspeakable during his Democratic response to the State of the Union address last year. I wrote a diary about it. What were the unspeakable words? "Corporate influence." The corporate media's response? It never happened.
Are they really this stupid?
A freshman writing student could identify the dramatic climax of Obama's speech. "Not this time." In fact, if you had to title the speech, that would be it. But in the corporate media, that part of the speech doesn't even exist. Because if they acknowledged that part of the speech, then that would mean the candidate was getting to set the terms of the debate. This cannot be allowed. Let's revisit that part of the speech. It's really good.
Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.
This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st Century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care, who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life.
This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag.
We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
This was nothing less than Obama reasserting what this election is about. Issues that affect all races, all Americans. I'm sure Obama understands that hardship breeds contempt. And that one of the best ways to heal class and racial divisions is for everyone to get a piece of the pie.
But the corporate media doesn't want an election about crumbling schools, jobs, or special interests. And they sure don't want to talk about this, also from Obama's speech:
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze -- a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.
Now, when we compare the actual message of Obama's speech with the way it's been covered, we have only two possibilities: the corporate media are so incredibly stupid that they can't even comprehend a fairly straightforward narrative, or they are at it again, manipulating the national debate to their advantage - they are all millionaires you know, beneficiaries of the very corporate power Obama, Edwards and Jim Webb have spoken of.
At least we in the netroots should have Obama's back. The establishment media is trying to hijack this election. We have to fight back. "Not this time" should become our mantra, right up there with "Yes, we can." Even if the corporate media refuses to acknowledge what the people and the Barack Obama want this election to be about, at least we can get it right. Right?