Why Is This True?

So… I just got an email from my best friend. It made me cry. Yesterday I sent her the link to the beautifully written, albeit somewhat partisan, analysis of why we should support Obama in the upcoming election. The piece, for the most part, avoided baseless smears and rhetoric and went carefully over the major decision points which one should look at when deciding who to vote for. It ended with this sentence, which struck me as particularly eloquent:

“At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.”

Her sister responded with a you tube link, a pitiful short film which, in the worst traditions of propaganda, contained mostly film of Obama sound bites (perhaps taken out of context), ominous music and multiple images of bombs, missiles, chanting Muslim extremists and, of course, the twin towers collapsing. There was not ONE real fact in the 5 minute film and it is titled “Obama’s Arrogance Just Became a Nightmare”

Before you dismiss her sister as a right wing ideologue, let me tell you a bit about her. She is a middle aged woman with 2 young daughters, a recent nursing school graduate and a decent, loving and kind person who is struggling to figure out what she thinks in this world. She wants to be responsible, to look at the facts and decide what is best for her family and her country. But she can’t. Because at this place and time in history, those who control our government and (for the most part) our media have a powerful weapon they use in this political shell game and this weapon is fear.

The maker of this film knows her, she is exactly who the film is made for. A decent caring person, neither far right nor far left, who does not have the time or inclination to research every single thing that she might need to know to make an informed decision. A mother, daughter, wife and sister who does not fathom what happens in places like Afghanistan, Palestine, Beirut, Oklahoma City and Iraq. She just wants to know that she and all those she loves are safe. And this film, devoid of facts, analysis or anything else informative, tells her that if Obama is elected, she and those she loves will be unsafe. The filmmaker knows that terrorist attacks and random bombings are her deepest fears and counts on her inattention to detail while the music is playing, the bombs are dropping and the extremists are screaming. They know she will not notice nuances like the fact that Obama is saying he will not fund “unproven” missile defense systems, that Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before we invaded, that Iraq had nothing to do with the events of 9/11 or that the attacks were not a function of a lack of military funding but a profound failure of our intelligence agencies and yes, even those in the White House at the time.

Most of all they play into her desire to believe that we can be made safe, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary. She is a good and decent person being sold a bill of goods because she just wants to live her life in anonymity….. and safety. She is symbolic of the vast numbers of middle class Americans who are repeatedly bamboozled with this exact type of propaganda into voting against their own best interests. By obscuring everything else behind this “curtain of fear”, they have talked her into voting to continue the utterly failed policies of the last 8 years, which have sent us spiraling into debt (which her daughters will bear the cost of), perched us on the brink of financial collapse, reduced our status in the world to that of court jesters and indebted us deeply to several foreign countries, including what may turn out to be the next great superpower, China.

Somehow they are able to keep her off balance, to distract her into believing that none of this is important, look away from that mess they say, look over here, the boogey man is coming and Obama is unlocking the door for him. And this is why I cry. I cry because I am afraid that I cannot fight the weapons that they use very effectively. I fear that I cannot fight deception, propaganda and obfuscation with fact finding and truth telling. It will not stop me from trying, but I no longer know if it is enough.

You see, I am not afraid of terrorists or bombs. They may indeed strike us again and there is nothing we can do to stop them, the world is too interconnected and porous and I do not believe they are the true threat. What I am afraid of are more mundane things that don't make good 5 minute film clips. Fascism, poverty, homelessness, poor health care, crumbling infrastructure and declining educational systems are what will do this country in, not terrorists.

May we awaken before it is too late for us and our children.

Hope, strength and courage for whatever lies ahead,
Suzanne