OK - Let's go what if here. What if Obama couldn't really do much?

[Taverner]

Let's just say that the old adage Bill Hicks used to describe....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNzvIsLtyZo

What SHOULD we do?

[Newest Reality]

1. I am sensing an

"all of the above" might have been a befitting option.

[Marr]

2. That Bill Hicks joke is funny, but I don't know why people take it seriously.

You don't need to threaten anyone when you control the process. You just filter the candidates, grooming the ones you want for office. If Obama wasn't a Wall Street sycophant, he never would've been labeled a "bright new political star" back in 2004, or instantly dubbed one of the only two "serious candidates" before a single primary vote had been taken in the last presidential election.

[pscot]

3. You think we were set up

If that were true, why wouldn't the other candidates have called him out? That's a very cynical view.

[Newest Reality]

4. I'm sorry, but that

cynical view comes almost intuitively from paying far too much attention to the whole process and is a by-product of trying to understand the system. Some may not like it or debate the points, but what can you do when it hits you in the face time and time again?

We have a Status Quo. We have the masses. Change that benefits the masses is always a challenge and a threat to the Status Quo. Some change can be like a mortal blow to power, control and manipulation. How easy and simple do you think making changes is? What is actually at stake, (as opposed to manufactured consent and manipulated perceptions) in the game? How powerful is belief and how does it relate to facts?

Just what would you do and how would you set-up and maintain a system if your place in it were ascendant and you wanted to maintain or further that position at all costs? What would the masses mean to you and how would you keep them in their place in a way that would avoid a bloody mess and potential chaos? What ways and means would you, yourself use?

Answering those questions from a third-party perspective might help you understand the cynicism and help to circumvent a projection of your own values onto those who hold the keys and lock the doors for the rest of us.

[Taverner]

6. However, after I read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" it became clear

That there isn't a 'Conspiracy' per se, but thousands of people all working in their corporation's best interests. And if those best interests mean a President of Country XYZ has to be eliminated, so be it.

So its not a conspiracy but rather a conspiracy of thousands if you will

But who the hell knows?

[pscot]

8. I read that book

I thought it failed on a number of levels. If Paul Revere had ridden through Middlesex banging on doors and hollering, "Somebody's comming", the Minutemen would have roled over and gone back to sleep. The reluctance to incriminate anyone was a glaring ommission. As moral exculpation, finding your conscience after you've done the dirty and gotten rich at it seems tawdry at best.

[Taverner]

10. Not naming names was a big problem with that book

Still - it did enlighten me to a lot of things that in retrospect, were spot on

[Marr]

7. You're suggesting some sort of cartoonish "smoke-filled back room".

The problems are systemic. Massive wealth inequities that have been allowed to develop in this country, and political inequities come with them. Moneyed interests have the biggest bullhorns, and they sell a very narrow message 24-7. Go ahead and look up the commentary in corporate media outlets on the last presidential election. Months before the first primary vote was taken, they were almost unanimous in calling Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the only two "viable candidates" on the Democratic side.

Now why would that be? If you say it's because they had the biggest campaign war chests, you're making my point.

Of course I think the political process is rigged by money. I'm not in diapers anymore, and I have a functioning pair of eyeballs. It's pretty damned obvious if you care to look around.

[Taverner]

11. You're right when you say the problem is systemic

The smoke-filled room is an analogy. It's basically Corporate America, and chances are if someone gets the nomination from either party, they have been thoroughly tested in terms of loyalty, and exactly whom they serve. Corporate America would never let a Bernie Sanders or Eugene Debs get a nomination or get elected. They own the road to the White House, and they'll be damned if anyone gets to drive on that road but one of their own.

[Javaman]

5. Nice alliteration. :) nt

[Bucky]

9. Funny

Facetious, but funny.