Responding to a question about his access to Obama and what he would advise him if they did speak, Wright inappropriately used the term Jews.  I am certain he was really referring to White House Chief of Staff Raum Emmanuel who as part of his job does control access to the president.  It was a poor choice of words, an ignorant remark, made in anger and frustration to lash out foolishly at someone standing between himself and a young man he had felt a kinship with, but it was not necessarily a sign of deep seated anti-semitism.  Bigotry against Jews is a plague upon our society that is so ingrained that often people don’t realize they are perpetuating it.  It is appropriate to point out that the Reverend Wright was wrong to use the word as a term of derision.  But it is not a story that warranted several days of media buzz.  I doubt it would have gotten as much attention as it did had it not been for the other, real story, that should have shocked America and made society examine its darker recesses.  The rest of Wright’s remark stressing that he believed Obama should hold to the principles that led him to seek public office and not compromise to the political hacks who care only about winning elections at any price, is a more important story than the ill thought remark.  Important not just in relation to Obama and whether or not he is really following his conscience, but for politics in general.  If everyone who sought public office followed Reverend Wright’s advice how much better the world would be.  Politicians acting on principle, doing what is right instead of acting on avarice and doing what is expedient.  That would be worthy of a round table discussion. 

Also note that no other evidence of active anti-semitism was reported against Wright.  No investigative team of crack journalists scoured the Reverend’s past to see if a charge of anti-semitism was warranted against him.  Rather the media was content to seductively lay out this one instance in virtually the same breath as the story of the Holocaust Museum shootings and let the audience draw the inference.  Having never made the accusation of anti-semitism directly they maintain a comfortable deniability.  Titillate the audience with innuendo but stop an inch short of defamation.  And people wonder why I would sooner believe a story in the National Enquirer than the National Post. 

I am sure, as my wife suggested, that had Lincoln farted during his famous speech on the battlefield at Gettysburg CNN would have been first out of the gate with the story.  Video footage of screwed up noses and quick glances amongst those directly behind Lincoln would have circulated on YouTube by now.  A panel of pundits would convene to ponder the political significance of the fart.  Was Lincoln wafting a message to the retreating Southern army?  Was the stench of this particular fart such as to raise concerns about the president’s health?  Should someone with a flatulence problem be trusted with the most powerful office of the state?  Oh yes I am sure Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper would devote an entire show each to this pressing news event.  And Rick Sanchez would be calling for a dictionary to look up the word flatulence.

The G20 fiddled as London burned with passion.  People from all over descended on the city.  Once more unto the breach Shakespeare said and so they came.  CNN, that bastion of unbiased and insightful news, giggled at the foolish simpletons who clashed with police commenting that the protests would have no effect except perhaps on Gordon Brown, the host.  His public image moving forward in his career might be tarnished.  Oh how sad.  Well let the CNN info-tainers chuckle away.  The result is just to put these passionate people in some pretty fine company.  Thomas Payne, Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King.  All of these icons of past days were laughed at, their ideas considered absurd.  Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win!”  So I guess those of us who believe there is something to shout to or at our leaders have reached the second stage.  We are making progress .   And from recent events stage three seems to be warming up in the bull pen. 

Inside the imps of imperialism plotted their next move.  With illusion worthy of the great Harry Houdini they declared they had pulled a diamond out of the dung.  With a trillion dollars to developing economies and a vague promise of greater regulation they announced that they would avert a depression.  Translation:  they can keep the system they so love, which benefits they and their friends greatly.  By so doing they also avert what might be the greatest political upheavals since the Great Depression and the revolutions of 1848.  At least they hope they will.  The trillion dollars is to be dispensed through the IMF and the other usual suspects.  It will come with a heavy dose of liberal laissez-faire political doctrine as is the wont of these agencies of the imperial powers.  These institutions all operate on weighted voting so that the major economic powers can control the show.  Bye-Bye any concept of justice.  States will be told to reduce spending in areas such as education, health care and social services.  These things are all under attack in our own societies so it is necessary to keep THOSE people even worse off. 

Outside people cried for real change.  Shouted to have their voices heard.  The were corraled into small areas by police, a procedure called kettling.  They were not allowed to leave the area.  Parents who had to pick up their children at school were refused.  And by extension, frightened children waited, many probably terrified when parents who were always on time were hours late.  But the British courts had approved the practice.  There were no washrooms.  People were forced to find privacy where they could.  Ostensibly this was done to prevent property damage.  After all property is far more important in our society than people.  But even this formal response to the media, when questioned, was a lie.  Each individual in each area had to submit to be photographed and give particulars before they could leave at end of day.  This violates British law but as we know in Canada the “Law” is above the law. 

So why go through this indignity.  Millions of others sat at home and did nothing, content that their leaders would look after them.  It is simple.  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young put it in a song called Ohio, “How can you run when you know?”  The people in the streets of London knew and they could find their way there, their voices trumpeting the collapse of the walls of the Bank of England.  Others know and they write their politicians.  Others write letters to editors or blogs or let their friends know.  None of us can change the world by ourselves.  But if we all do our part.  Whatever it is.  The world will change and it must.

Photos retrieved from Guardian UK online (see link in sidebar under News).

Would you want a president that spent every waking hour thinking only of your foreign wars, bank and industry bailouts and unemployment figures?  Would that make any of those things better?  And hey what about sleep?  Maybe the president should get hooked on bennies and stay awake 24/7 because after all the United States never sleeps.  The economy moves on, insurgents attack in the Gulf or Central Asia, somebody is working the final hours of their job or losing their home.  How dare he sleep!  We shouldn’t wake him up with that 3am. phone call.  What is the lout doing dozing off in the first place?  (Wonder if he got it yet and how he responded?  It did seem last fall that it was the most important issue of the campaign to those of us looking on.)  Or even worse he and Michelle would take the nation’s time to say howdy to each other horizontally if you know what I mean.  Image the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs calling at such a moment.  He hears a terse ‘WHAT?’from the president and asks for permission to launch the American nuclear deterrent and only hears a chorus of yes! Yes!! YEs!!! YES!!!! on the other end.  Guess we are all cooked. 

Sorry if I am beginning to get a little absurd here, but really!  Maybe the news media should ask itself if it doesn’t have more important things to cover than this nonsense.  But since they have run out of story ideas on Paris’s panties they have to have something so it’s Barack’s brackets.  CNN and the rest of them are what puts the laughter into professional journalism.  Not in the sense of covering the funny story which is good as we all need lighter moments in our lives, but in the sense of their childish obsession with the trivial and mundane.  To paraphrase Monty Python ‘I hope there is intelligent journalism somewhere in the universe because there is bugger all down here on earth.’

You may have noticed that I have added some links on my sidebar under the Palestine category and also under News recently pertaining to the Middle East.  I hope you will check out some of these.  Stay informed.  Do what you can do to help.  Counterbalancing the weight of disinformation coming out of the mainstream media is more important that donating but give if you can to those links that ask.  Make sure your friends, family and political leaders know where you stand.  Make ‘Never again!’  a real commitment.