After Bobby Kennedy

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After Bobby Kennedy

Postby chlamor » Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:21 pm

After Bobby Kennedy

John Pilger

Published 29 May 2008

Bobby Kennedy's campaign is the model for Barack Obama's current bid to be the Democratic nominee for the White House. Both offer a false hope that they can bring peace and racial harmony to all Americans, writes John Pilger

In this season of 1968 nostalgia, one anniversary illuminates today. It is the rise and fall of Robert Kennedy, who would have been elected president of the United States had he not been assassinated in June 1968. Having travelled with Kennedy up to the moment of his shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June, I heard The Speech many times. He would "return government to the people" and bestow "dignity and justice" on the oppressed. "As Bernard Shaw once said," he would say, "'Most men look at things as they are and wonder why. I dream of things that never were and ask: Why not?'" That was the signal to run back to the bus. It was fun until a hail of bullets passed over our shoulders.

Kennedy's campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name. Like Obama, he raised the expectations of young people and minorities. Like Obama, he promised to end an unpopular war, not because he opposed the war's conquest of other people's land and resources, but because it was "unwinnable".

Should Obama beat John McCain to the White House in November, it will be liberalism's last fling. In the United States and Britain, liberalism as a war-making, divisive ideology is once again being used to destroy liberalism as a reality. A great many people understand this, as the hatred of Blair and new Labour attest, but many are disoriented and eager for "leadership" and basic social democracy. In the US, where unrelenting propaganda about American democratic uniqueness disguises a corporate system based on extremes of wealth and privilege, liberalism as expressed through the Democratic Party has played a crucial, compliant role.

In 1968, Robert Kennedy sought to rescue the party and his own ambitions from the threat of real change that came from an alliance of the civil rights campaign and the anti-war movement then commanding the streets of the main cities, and which Martin Luther King had drawn together until he was assassinated in April that year. Kennedy had supported the war in Vietnam and continued to support it in private, but this was skilfully suppressed as he competed against the maverick Eugene McCarthy, whose surprise win in the New Hampshire primary on an anti-war ticket had forced President Lyndon Johnson to abandon the idea of another term. Using the memory of his martyred brother, Kennedy assiduously exploited the electoral power of delusion among people hungry for politics that represented them, not the rich.

"These people love you," I said to him as we left Calexico, California, where the immigrant population lived in abject poverty and people came like a great wave and swept him out of his car, his hands fastened to their lips.

"Yes, yes, sure they love me," he replied. "I love them!" I asked him how exactly he would lift them out of poverty: just what was his political philosophy? "Philosophy? Well, it's based on a faith in this country and I believe that many Americans have lost this faith and I want to give it back to them, because we are the last and the best hope of the world, as Thomas Jefferson said."

"That's what you say in your speech. Surely the question is: How?"

"How . . . by charting a new direction for America."

The vacuities are familiar. Obama is his echo. Like Kennedy, Obama may well "chart a new direction for America" in specious, media-honed language, but in reality he will secure, like every president, the best damned democracy money can buy.

Embarrassing truth

As their contest for the White House draws closer, watch how, regardless of the inevitable personal smears, Obama and McCain draw nearer to each other. They already concur on America's divine right to control all before it. "We lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good," said Obama. "We must lead by building a 21st-century military . . . to advance the security of all people [emphasis added]." McCain agrees. Obama says in pursuing "terrorists" he would attack Pakistan. McCain wouldn't quarrel.

Both candidates have paid ritual obeisance to the regime in Tel Aviv, unquestioning support for which defines all presidential ambition. In opposing a UN Security Council resolution implying criticism of Israel's starvation of the people of Gaza, Obama was ahead of both McCain and Hillary Clinton. In January, pressured by the Israel lobby, he massaged a statement that "nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people" to now read: "Nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognise Israel [emphasis added]." Such is his concern for the victims of the longest, illegal military occupation of modern times. Like all the candidates, Obama has furthered Israeli/Bush fictions about Iran, whose regime, he says absurdly, "is a threat to all of us".

On the war in Iraq, Obama the dove and McCain the hawk are almost united. McCain now says he wants US troops to leave in five years (instead of "100 years", his earlier option). Obama has now "reserved the right" to change his pledge to get troops out next year. "I will listen to our commanders on the ground," he now says, echoing Bush. His adviser on Iraq, Colin Kahl, says the US should maintain up to 80,000 troops in Iraq until 2010. Like McCain, Obama has voted repeatedly in the Senate to support Bush's demands for funding of the occupation of Iraq; and he has called for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan. His senior advisers embrace McCain's proposal for an aggressive "league of democracies", led by the United States, to circumvent the United Nations.

Amusingly, both have denounced their "preachers" for speaking out. Whereas McCain's man of God praised Hitler, in the fashion of lunatic white holy-rollers, Obama's man, Jeremiah Wright, spoke an embarrassing truth. He said that the attacks of 11 September 2001 had taken place as a consequence of the violence of US power across the world. The media demanded that Obama disown Wright and swear an oath of loyalty to the Bush lie that "terrorists attacked America because they hate our freedoms". So he did. The conflict in the Middle East, said Obama, was rooted not "primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel", but in "the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam". Journalists applauded. Islamophobia is a liberal speciality.

The American media love both Obama and McCain. Reminiscent of mating calls by Guardian writers to Blair more than a decade ago, Jann Wenner, founder of the liberal Rolling Stone, wrote: "There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him, and underneath that ease lies a resolute discipline . . . Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do: to summon 'the better angels of our nature'." At the liberal New Republic, Charles Lane confessed: "I know it shouldn't be happening, but it is. I'm falling for John McCain." His colleague Michael Lewis had gone further. His feelings for McCain, he wrote, were like "the war that must occur inside a 14-year-old boy who discovers he is more sexually attracted to boys than to girls".

The objects of these uncontrollable passions are as one in their support for America's true deity, its corporate oligarchs. Despite claiming that his campaign wealth comes from small individual donors, Obama is backed by the biggest Wall Street firms: Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, as well as the huge hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. "Seven of the Obama campaign's top 14 donors," wrote the investigator Pam Martens, "consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages." A report by United for a Fair Economy, a non-profit group, estimates the total loss to poor Americans of colour who took out sub-prime loans as being between $164bn and $213bn: the greatest loss of wealth ever recorded for people of colour in the United States. "Washington lobbyists haven't funded my campaign," said Obama in January, "they won't run my White House and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am president." According to files held by the Centre for Responsive Politics, the top five contributors to the Obama campaign are registered corporate lobbyists.

What is Obama's attraction to big business? Precisely the same as Robert Kennedy's. By offering a "new", young and apparently progressive face of the Democratic Party - with the bonus of being a member of the black elite - he can blunt and divert real opposition. That was Colin Powell's role as Bush's secretary of state. An Obama victory will bring intense pressure on the US anti-war and social justice movements to accept a Democratic administration for all its faults. If that happens, domestic resistance to rapacious America will fall silent.

Piracies and dangers

America's war on Iran has already begun. In December, Bush secretly authorised support for two guerrilla armies inside Iran, one of which, the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, is described by the state department as terrorist. The US is also engaged in attacks or subversion against Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bolivia and Venezuela. A new military command, Africom, is being set up to fight proxy wars for control of Africa's oil and other riches. With US missiles soon to be stationed provocatively on Russia's borders, the Cold War is back. None of these piracies and dangers has raised a whisper in the presidential campaign, not least from its great liberal hope.

Moreover, none of the candidates represents so-called mainstream America. In poll after poll, voters make clear that they want the normal decencies of jobs, proper housing and health care. They want their troops out of Iraq and the Israelis to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbours. This is a remarkable testimony, given the daily brainwashing of ordinary Americans in almost everything they watch and read.

On this side of the Atlantic, a deeply cynical electorate watches British liberalism's equivalent last fling. Most of the "philosophy" of new Labour was borrowed wholesale from the US. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were interchangeable. Both were hostile to traditionalists in their parties who might question the corporate-speak of their class-based economic policies and their relish for colonial conquests. Now the British find themselves spectators to the rise of new Tory, distinguishable from Blair’s new Labour only in the personality of its leader, a former corporate public relations man who presents himself as Tonier than thou. We all deserve better.

http://www.newstatesman.com/north-ameri ... in-kennedy
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Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:22 pm

Larry Teeter talks about the CIA and RFK

John Pilger Confirms Multiple RFK Shooters

http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=0A63123B19465B4D
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Postby Sweejak » Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:07 pm

The video link says: "you do not own this playlist".
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Postby streeb » Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:14 pm

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Postby Sweejak » Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:28 pm

Thanks.
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Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Jun 07, 2008 12:16 am

John Pilger - The War On Democracy

http://youtube.com/watch?v=to6uNUTf8g4

Here's the other
Larry Teeter talks about the CIA and RFK
http://youtube.com/watch?v=h6thJeYm1sE



sorry I thought I could post my playlist
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Sat Jun 07, 2008 12:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby Sweejak » Sat Jun 07, 2008 12:21 am

Have you all seen "Evidence of Revison" I think the Sirhan stuff is mostly in part 5.

http://tinyurl.com/2x92hr
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Postby 8bitagent » Sat Jun 07, 2008 4:32 am

John Pilger certainly isn't afraid to voice an unpopular opinion, that's for sure.

Hell, the reason he lists why he doesn't trust Obama, are the same reasons why the right wing should embrace him.

John Pilger is anti war to the core, and I love it.

One thing tho...John Pilger's documentaries are some of the most explosive, soul crushing, revelatory films done on politics. New Rules of the World,
The War On Democracy, etc...these films show how much genocide, assassinations, coups, etc the CIA and the Western corporatocracy has been involved in. He also confirms the conspiracy on Bobby Kennedy.

But...

He still buys the official 9/11 story, shamefully like Palast, Chomsky, etc.

Amusingly, both have denounced their "preachers" for speaking out. Whereas McCain's man of God praised Hitler, in the fashion of lunatic white holy-rollers, Obama's man, Jeremiah Wright, spoke an embarrassing truth. He said that the attacks of 11 September 2001 had taken place as a consequence of the violence of US power across the world. The media demanded that Obama disown Wright and swear an oath of loyalty to the Bush lie that "terrorists attacked America because they hate our freedoms". So he did. The conflict in the Middle East, said Obama, was rooted not "primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel", but in "the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam". Journalists applauded. Islamophobia is a liberal speciality.


But Mr Pilger, that's a lie.

The "terrorists" "attacked America" because they were brainwashed and instructed to by a number of transnational interests beholden or in league with corporate Western globalists(such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Dubai, etc)

It's shameful and embarassing that Pilger, like many otherwise solid exposers of the NWO, can't see past this litmus test.

Bobby Kennedy might have only been anti war at first people it was the "in" thing to win votes, but I think RFK ended up being way more anti
elite than Obama ever will be...and thats why RFK is no longer with us.
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Postby erosoplier » Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:00 am

Doesn't Pilger get about? And what a name dropper! On the phone with Aung San Suu Kyi, walking through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel a few steps behind RFK...


8bitagent wrote:It's shameful and embarassing that Pilger, like many otherwise solid exposers of the NWO, can't see past this litmus test.


It's a litmus test allright, but all it can tell you is whether you'll get your pieces published in the New Statesman or not.

Bobby Kennedy might have only been anti war at first people it was the "in" thing to win votes, but I think RFK ended up being way more anti-elite than Obama ever will be...and thats why RFK is no longer with us.


I'm finding it hard to believe, but I actually agree with you here, 8bit. I was going to make a similar point: If RFK was so establishment, then why was he eliminated? It's a rather large fault in Pilger's reasoning.

And Obama is in a sticky situation now - the longer he lives, the more it will become apparent to all that he is an establishment stooge. If he gets taken out then we will know that we should never have doubted him and that another great man has been lost.

I do agree with Pilger that "Should Obama beat John McCain to the White House in November, it will be liberalism's last fling" - its last fling for this and the next generation anyways.

But I don't agree with him that "Islamophobia is a liberal speciality." Only a fake liberalism can be Islamophobic.
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Postby chiggerbit » Sat Jun 07, 2008 11:28 am

One thing I've noticed about people like Chlamor and Pilger who hold estreme views on a subject, anti-war in this instance, is that these people set such a high bar for their issue that NO one is likely ever to meet their bar. But what I find most interesting is that the political candidate whose stands are more similar to these people's standards are the very candidates people like Chlamor and Pilger verbally flog to death for not being pure enough, while ignoring the candidates whose stands are more dissimilar. Obama could become president, and immediately begin bringing home the troops, and yet Pilger and Chlamor would likely continue to verbally flog him, because he won't be pure enough.
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Postby sunny » Sat Jun 07, 2008 11:53 am

Kennedy's campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name.


Ok. Screw BHO, but what the hell did RFK have to do before Pilger credited him with "achievemnts"? Save the effing world?
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Postby 8bitagent » Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:23 am

erosoplier wrote:Doesn't Pilger get about? And what a name dropper! On the phone with Aung San Suu Kyi, walking through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel a few steps behind RFK...


8bitagent wrote:It's shameful and embarassing that Pilger, like many otherwise solid exposers of the NWO, can't see past this litmus test.


It's a litmus test allright, but all it can tell you is whether you'll get your pieces published in the New Statesman or not.

Bobby Kennedy might have only been anti war at first people it was the "in" thing to win votes, but I think RFK ended up being way more anti-elite than Obama ever will be...and thats why RFK is no longer with us.


I'm finding it hard to believe, but I actually agree with you here, 8bit. I was going to make a similar point: If RFK was so establishment, then why was he eliminated? It's a rather large fault in Pilger's reasoning.

And Obama is in a sticky situation now - the longer he lives, the more it will become apparent to all that he is an establishment stooge. If he gets taken out then we will know that we should never have doubted him and that another great man has been lost.

I do agree with Pilger that "Should Obama beat John McCain to the White House in November, it will be liberalism's last fling" - its last fling for this and the next generation anyways.

But I don't agree with him that "Islamophobia is a liberal speciality." Only a fake liberalism can be Islamophobic.


Yeah, I find it highly disappointing that Pilger, who says he was
right there when the bullets flew in the Ambassador kitchen,
dismisses RFK as just an oppurtunist puffing out empty rhetoric.

JFK and RFK could be considered stalwarts of the PTB, but not when it came to the final months of their lives. People change.

I mean I'd love to see Obama undermine the powers that be...truly bring about alternative energy, curtail the war machine, etc...
and some of that may happen on the surface.

But I don't know...historically, when the real bad crazy stuff hits the fan(like world wars), the elite always have a Democrat in charge.
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Postby 8bitagent » Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:26 am

sunny wrote:
Kennedy's campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name.


Ok. Screw BHO, but what the hell did RFK have to do before Pilger credited him with "achievemnts"? Save the effing world?


Again, this is why Pilger's pro official stance on 9/11 is perplexing.

Pilger has had whole documentaries exposing the millions of people he says the CIA, Kissinger, Rockefeller, Pentagon, etc has directly or indirectly murdered in genocides, coups, etc...

Pilger claims the "Serbian genocide on Muslims" was a hoax, he now says RFK was full of crap...

But oh, 9/11 was done by Osama, because "of our meddling of foreign policies". This is the favorite position of the Chomsky, Ron Paul, Bill Mahers, Olbermanns, Palasts, Wright, and Pilgers of the world...people who expose parts of the elite through humor or speeches, but fail the ultimate litmus test.
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Re: After Bobby Kennedy

Postby Eldritch » Sun Jun 08, 2008 10:13 am

John Pilger wrote:Kennedy's campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name.


"No achievements," eh? What a stupid thing to write, especially since it is demonstrably false.

But that's what John Pilger is known for: sensationalist polemics and foregone conclusions—oh, and fewer personal achievements on his own than either of these two men he dismisses.
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Re: After Bobby Kennedy

Postby 8bitagent » Sun Jun 08, 2008 6:28 pm

Eldritch wrote:
John Pilger wrote:Kennedy's campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name.


"No achievements," eh? What a stupid thing to write, especially since it is demonstrably false.

But that's what John Pilger is known for: sensationalist polemics and foregone conclusions—oh, and fewer personal achievements on his own than either of these two men he dismisses.


That's what's troubling. When you watch on video google "New Rules of the World" and "The War On Democracy", you think to yourself(or at least I did) "Holy crap, these are some of the most dangerously explosive documentaries exposing the powers that be Ive ever seen".

But then he says how RFK was just an empty shill, that the "truth" of 9/11 is that it was all just an angry Osama bent on "blowback", how most the massacres on Bosniaks were hoaxes in Serbia, how people are unfairly attacking China and Myanmar, etc.
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