For the last several days, I've been thinking about the choice of John Edwards to quit. From the moment, and well before, I knew that the reason for his failure to garner a nomination would be because of corporate media blackout. I often read about the dinosaur that is print media, that it is cheapened and does not print quality news, and that it needs to move aside. But Corporate America just proved that it has a bite, one worth thousands, perhaps millions of votes.
Our Corporate Masters (OCM, from this point on), using subtle (or not so subtle) manipulations, bend the electorate to their will in many ways. Billions upon billions of dollars of 401k and pension cash were poured into a stock market to inflate prices, while a lenient Fed repeatedly cut rates, reducing the value of standard savings, stealing from the electorate, and giving to OCM. OCM then fed us SIV's and other real estate related monetary vehicles, and convinced us that you are noone or that renting was a waste of money, as they proceded to thieve away the meager paychecks that we are given. They convinced us, with an almost religious fervor, that the free market is always more efficient than the government (and it is, when run by incompetent individuals). Every day, advertising convinces us that we need to buy, buy, buy. If it wasn't so successful, America wouldn't depend so much on consumerism for our economy to stay afloat.
And they proved this week that they get to select our president. While there are many qualities that make the Democratic options for President better than the Republican ones, their opinions and plans for healthcare and taxes, among other things, still leave OCM in charge when their ideas are passed. The only individual that had a chance and that refused to kowtow to their will, by refusing payments from lobbyists, by suggesting that we create a government healthcare system, and that the small person needed someone in their corner, has removed themself from the race.
In order for the system to change, it will have to fail. Unfortunately, for this to happen, we needed something bigger than John Edwards, but his media blackout, and the responses of the blackout by the voting public (they didn't vote for him) prove that OCM still has huge pull in the world, through our standard media delivery. No matter how big DailyKos and other blogs are, they are still bigger, they still have a large audience.
That is why systemic failure is inevitable. Health Care will continue to get more and more expensive, until, like the 1929 stock market crash, the system fails, and the government will need to pick up the pieces. Will this be sooner, will it be later? I don't know, an injured beast will fight harder for life than many a healthy one. As more and more corporations refuse to carry health insurance because of the associated expenses, the private insurance companies will begin to fail. OCM will fight government insurance plans even after this. If our government is able to provide stable health care, it will disprove one facet of their near-religious argument, that the private system is always better. And people will listen. They will listen to the pretty news lady on the television set who sings to them in her perfectly honed-for-television voice that a goverment system will be terrible - just look at UK and Canada! And the people will listen.
The housing and credit system is entering complete failure. Heck, within a few months, I won't even need to buy a house. I'll just rent a truck every seven months and move from squat to squat. OCM is losing money over this too, but it will get bailed out. The Fed is trying now, by dropping rates (stealing from our savings, and giving to OCM), and giving huge amounts of credits to the banks, where they will charge us exorbitant fees to use that money because we don't have anymore to spend. This system will collapse, and the free market will be put back in place with even more massive non-fed (meaning: government) bailouts, and people will say that it's necessary, because that is what OCM says. My tax dollars, and the tax dollars of my child, and perhaps even her children, will be used to bailout OCM.
The dollar is crashing, and is entering failure. It is only getting worse while they try to 'save' the economy. All these things are associated, but OCM will not let the standard plebian see that. The people here at DailyKos know this, thanks to several excellent diarists, but the OCM controlled MSM still reaches so many, and they have proven their power, again.
Until this behemoth is defeated, Until its power is diminished, either through attrition (less people watching and reading MSM) or through regulation (reinstallment of the fairness doctrine and ending massive corporate ownership of news media), the voices of many will be drowned by the megaphone of OCM. This is the real battle. This is the podium that they use to quell the voice of many, and it is the fight that we must win to move forward.
Or maybe I'm crazy. I don't think I am, I'm just calling it how I see it.