CLINTON/ABC AMBUSH,TAG-TEAM OBAMA IN PHILLY… WILL WE NOTICE, VOTE ACCORDINGLY?

Watching ABC’s Pennsylvania debate last night I had the feeling that I had either unmindfully drifted into that hazy territory of the chronically conspiracy obsessed, or I was witnessing something that I had never seen so clearly before, live and in-living-color: the grinding gears of the unholy marriage of big business and big politics, coming together in an ugly display of their self-interest, bullying Sen. Obama, as well as every voter in Pennsylvania and in effect in the country in a desperate attempt to Hail-Mary the rock down field into scoring territory.

Charlie Gibson set the ground rules up front, such as they were to be, flexible but not permissive. Really Charlie? Not once did you ring the bell on Clinton, who if I didn’t know better, or want to believe better of our political process, seemed to take each question as her cue. You could almost see the handwritten Cliff notes running through her head, as she launched into one speech after another on the essay question at hand- the latest raps on Obama’s questionable associations, or the re-wringing of his most recent misstatement for the hundred and fiftieth time for the first forty-five minutes of the two hour time slot. An embarrassingly grueling time, after which I took a breath, I steadied myself, and I resolved to start anew, to give my country, my country’s trustworthy mainstream media, a chance to redeem itself, the benefit of the doubt for the good of us all. But of course we only got more of the same, and straight through the few substantive questions, into the staged recap by a “journalist” standing by in one of Philly’s historic, and for some of us at least democratically symbolic cites. In a suspiciously curt way ABC’s man-on-the-scene then rattled off Clinton’s various takings of Obama to task, on such vital issues as Rev. Wright and the infamous beaten-to-death “bitter” remark in a tough but kind as she could be manner. So transparent, even Charlie Gibson had to laugh in embarrassment, a reaction wreaking of, ‘Hey! Couldn’t you have played it up a little? Don’t you know that we’re supposed to appear impartial in this thing?’

PLEASE. DO YOU THINK THAT WE ARE ALL STUPID, OR JUST ENOUGH OF US SO THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH IT?

And George Stephanopoulos as moderator? Hmm … Wasn’t he Bill Clinton’s press secretary? And a Disney owned ABC with its CEO Robert Iger, isn’t he a big Hillary Clinton supporter, a big campaign contributor? Makes you stop and think, doesn’t it? It should, but don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t connect all the dots. You’re not supposed to see behind the curtain. It’s hard enough to figure out what these people are up to on our behalf when we have all the facts. But as Bob Dylan put it in a time long ago but so very discouragingly similar to the one we live in now, “Look out kid they keep it all hid.”

And the most discouraging thing about last night was that it was just the tip of the iceberg, a symptom of a systemic, insidious, lethal, hope-breaking, apathy-inducing problem that in my opinion, is the issue of our time. The one that we will have to tackle if we are to see improvements in our lives or in the lives of our children, our grandchildren, great granchildren … etc., and that is the power that big business concerns wield over our politicians, the ones we elected into office, the ones supposed to act on our behalf, who are supposed to have our best interests in mind, not Disney’s. The ones that even in our time of disbelief, can bring lumps to our throats and water to our eyes, the ones we entrust with our futures and the futures of our descendants, the ones that we put our faith in to deliver us from a life of random shootings– school shootings no less, in our high schools, universities, and now even  in our middle and elementary schools– of a monopolized pharmaceutical industry that charges us much more than we can afford to pay, of health insurance costs that are out of reach to many and at best provide a net to catch us one moment before we hit the ground, right before our bodies splatter into untreatable, of a war that has been the most privatized of all wars, a war that when it all comes out years from now, I believe, will prove itself to be just what many of us suspected all along, a bonanza of a business opportunity waged only with those special interests in mind. And when millions of dollars are gained or lost on Wall Street with the minuscule movement of a stock in one direction or the other, can we really wonder why those that can, do not hesitate to manipulate it? Wake up America, Americans, the country I love, the people I love, we are being duped, taken, scammed, hoodwinked. Doesn’t it make you angry? Doesn’t it make you sad? Isn’t your heart broken for the country that we used to claim with such pride that has since sold us out?

Truth is, until recently, I didn’t have anything against Hillary Clinton. In fact, coming into this campaign season I was more likely to vote for the Senator from New York than anybody. This is not an election for the unelectable. This, like 2004, is not a time to vote for a candidate that cannot win; and this comes from a guy who has voted for Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, and who also voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush The Elder, and who has still not quite gotten over the fact that even though “W” early in ‘04 seemed to be, either due to an oblivious brain or a sinister heart, leading us into disaster, still managed to persuade 52% of the American voters that he was the better man for the job.

I enjoyed the refreshing illuminations of the few honest candidates on both sides this time around; but in candor, I have to say that Ron Paul was the only Republican that I would have considered in November. But I liked Kucinich and even Gravel for his upturning of the poker table, and Senator Joe Biden, as the old time workhorse too tried and tired to lie about much at this late stage of his game. And if Hillary, Bill’s tried and jaded comrade in the rough game of big time political survival gets the Democratic nomination, I like most of us on the blue side of the political template will vote for her; but it will be reluctantly, with a heavy heart and braving an irritating hitch in my git-along, because I believe that with a vote in that direction, in either direction if Obama is out of the picture, will be a vote for “big business” as usual.

I heard a number recently a couple of times that some of you may not have heard, a statistic that brings some perspective: In the late sixties, forty years ago, there were under 3,000 lobbyists, special interest liaisons running around D.C. Now … are you ready? There are ten times that many, somewhere around 30,000 of these characters operating in the capital. Guys that are paid money, lots of it, to influence the Congress and the Senate, to either champion their bills, bills that in most cases are pre-written for the politicians, or to vote pro or against bills that will either greatly hinder or aid their industry. Their interests, not yours and not mine, but theirs. Such as whether the sick can buy medications they need to stay alive from Canada at a reasonable rate or not. Which in many cases, means that they have or have to go without; which, in some cases- we have no way of knowing how many, means they live or die. In America? Really? This is how we live? This is how we treat our elderly, our parents and grandparents, our neighbors from the old neighborhood that never complained about throwing our balls back onto our side of the fence, and now and then even gave us a tip or two to improve our batting or pitching, or threw in an extra handful of penny candy from time to time on the house at the five and dime store just because they could and it made them and us feel good for a while. It affirmed something to us about us. Something that made us feel better about who we were, about who we all were and what America was; was of course being the operative word.

In generalities it’s simple. The grasping of it in any depth is always more complex or at least more involved. Suffice it to say that it costs around one hundred million dollars to run for president today, and who of us, other that the extremely rich or extremely corrupt can afford to run? Who, except for the few candidates, two that I can name off the top of my head, Barack Obama and Ron Paul that refuse to take special interest money, and who finance their campaigns strictly from grass-root donations, can take office in early 2009 beholden to nobody? Can wake-up on day one, look at themselves in the mirror and say, “I owe no favors and no special considerations to anyone, other than to the greatest number of Americans?”

If a bill comes across the desk to President X, a president that long ago sold him or her self out, right along with all of those high ideals and blurred good intentions of his well-intentioned youth, a bill that if he goes one way will benefit a major corporation/contributor, and if he goes the other will bring some relief, some correction to our freefalling quality of life, just an inch of an improvement that will enable us to carry with us a little more hope in our day to day lives, that will allow us to look into the eyes of our children and tell them without lying that it will be ok, that their lives will be better than ours. That this country, our country, their country, not Halliburton’s or Blackwater’s, not the United States of Fox or of Disney or of Bear-Stearns or Countrywide or any other non-living and breathing entity, tell me which way do you think President X will go? Consistently go? And where do you think that will leave us? Wake up Americans! Ignorance is no longer a defensible defense. Either that or you won’t be able to complain about it when things that matter to you, anything that matters to you, but lies in direct conflict with the interests that have so much more juice than you do in D.C. that you are invisible and your best interests aren’t even a genuine consideration.

Barack Obama presents us with an opportunity for a change, a change in the way business is conducted in Washington, D.C., and a challenge to be the best that we can be as a nation. Are we up to that challenge? Are we ready for a change that will restore us, we Americans, to the greatness which we once took as a given? America … it’s the greatest country in the world … Remember?