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OpEdNews Op Eds    H1'ed 8/18/10

Why Progressives Should View Robert Gibbs' Rebuke as a Triumph

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Bill Hare
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In place of approaching White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' recent well publicized rebuke of progressives in a troubling context, how about instead examining the positive side?

My response is, congratulations progressives, you earned the rebuke. Now take a well deserved bow.

How long were progressives to be expected to play the same gullible duopoly game of rigging a system for the benefit of the top one-half of one percent?

Did it occur to Gibbs and others that progressives do not fit into the passive zombie mode to which the frequent viewers of Fox News and listeners to Rush Limbaugh delightedly occupy?

In 2008 the campaign of which Gibbs was a leader stressed comprehensive change as the forces of Barack Obama sought to turn back the effort of Hillary Clinton.

The Obama strategists knew how furious the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was as neocons ran rampant in a Bush-Cheney administration where 9/11 was used as a perpetual propaganda linchpin and war was launched in the name of preserving peace.

In George Orwell 1 it is taught that crises continue to be manufactured and/or used to justify conflict. With that conflict multinational corporations such as Halliburton, Bechtel, and Monsanto achieve gigantic profits.

This type of conduct, we were repeatedly told, would not be tolerated in an Obama Administration, nor would the likes of waterboarding and rendition. Miscreants would be investigated. If the facts warranted trial would follow and imprisonment rendered upon conviction.

So what happened when Obama achieved power? How vigilantly has Attorney General Eric Holder pursued egregious violations of the U.S. Constitution and international law?

A few weeks ago CIA Director Leon Panetta, when asked about the Afghanistan War, used the Bush-Cheney 9/11 card to say that we needed troops there to thwart al Qaeda, evoking the Twin Towers tragedies as justification.

Meanwhile the opinion molders, the talking heads representing Democrats and Republicans, seek to direct thinking along traditional duopoly lines.

An appearance several months ago involving traditional Republican media representative Tony Blankley, who gained fame as a stalwart of Reverend Moon's Washington Times, and Dee Dee Myers, who held the same White House press secretary position under Bill Clinton that Robert Gibbs holds today under Obama, is apt to demonstrate what passes for mainstream media political dialogue.

Their discussion represented the vapid as well as artificial level of television conversation occurring during supposed confrontations between left and right, Republican and Democrat, that is presented as grist to inform America's citizens.

Blankley made what was expected to serve as a magnanimous admission that the "issue" pushed vigilantly by rightist spokespersons about Barack Obama having been born in Africa rather than Hawaii and hence not eligible to become president was silly and wrong-headed.

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Began in the journalism field in hometown of Los Angeles. Started as Sports Editor and Movie Writer at Inglewood Daily News chain after working in sportswriting of high school events at the Los Angeles Examiner.

Received a bachelor's in (more...)
 
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