Senator Obama is a wonderful candidate in many ways, but he is not the messiah many of you seem to think he is. Love is blind, as they say, and my sense is that quite a few Obama supporters are "in love" and thus blind to some of the realities surrounding Obama's candidacy.
Chris Hedges has written an article designed to open people's eyes to the real connections Obama has with Corporate America (the hidden government), connections every bit as compromising as those of the Clintons.
Barack Obama's campaign message, filled with lofty promises of change and hope, is also filled with repeated reassurances to the corporate elite. Pick up a copy of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope." The subtext is clear. It is a steady reminder to corporate America, a reminder bolstered by Obama's voting record, that corporations would have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency.
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The corporations have gotten the message. The same Beltway lobbyists, corporate donors and public relations firms, the same weapons manufacturers, defense contractors, nuclear power companies and Wall Street interests that give Clinton and John McCain money, give Obama money. They happen, in fact, to give Obama more. And the corporate state, which is carrying out a coup d'état in slow motion, believes it will prosper in Obama's hands. If not, he would not be a viable candidate. We have come full circle, back to the age of the robber barons and railroad magnates of the late 19th century who selected members of corrupt state assemblies to be their pliable senators and congressmen and sent them off to Washington to do their bidding.
There have been some important investigations into Obama's links with major corporations, including Ken Silverstein's November 2006 article "Barack Obama Inc: The Birth of a Washington Machine" in Harper's magazine. Newsweek has also detailed many of Obama's major corporate contributors. Obama's Leadership PAC includes John Gorman of Texas-based Tejas Securities, a major supporter of Senate Democrats as well as the Bush presidential campaigns. It includes Winston & Strawn, the Chicago-based law and lobbying firm. It also includes the corporate law firms Kirkland & Ellis, and Skadden, Arps, where four attorneys are fundraisers for Obama as well as donors. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Henry Crown and Co., an investment firm that has stakes in industries ranging from telecommunications to defense, are all funding the Illinois senator.
The entire article can be read here.
As someone mentioned in the Comments section of the article, it is probably too late in the game for a real analysis to begin. The Obama campaign has successfully painted itself as a revolutionary movement and sold the story to the nation. If the superdelegates were to switch allegiance now, there would be a huge negative reaction among the true believers who would perceive this a persecution of their candidate. This would do great damage to the Democratic Party.
And just to answer questions about Chris Hedges, here is more about him: Wikipedia entry on Hedges.
As I have posted elsewhere, I will -- of course -- vote for him if he is the candidate, just as I would vote for Clinton if she wins the nomination (unlikely at this point). My strong support went first to Gore, then to Edwards. In my view, both Obama and Clinton are flawed and compromised but either would be infinitely better than Bush.
So, go ahead and vote for Obama, campaign for him, send him money, write diaries about him, but for your own sake, do it with your eyes open.