Keeping the pen mightier.

"The tongue is mightier than the blade."
--Euripides, d. 406 B.C

Obama preaches change. To me, Obama practices status quo. The old politics is intelligent people wielding the power of words to rule on behalf of the masses. The elite truly believes people who talk better and write better should rule. Democracy is tricky for elites, because the people--not an elite portion of them--are supposed to be sovereign.

The American elite has manipulated words to construct a phantom counter-elite the elite then knocks down on behalf of the masses. The elite portrays America’s counter elite as a minority of dirty businesses who pass money through K Street to run the country, in conjunction with right-wing talk radio, Fox News, and extremist, anti-abortion televangelists. The bad guys stole the 2000 election to put a puppet in the White House whom they have manipulated to go into Iraq for oil, to give tax breaks to the rich, to ship jobs to China, and to drown blacks in the waters of Katrina.

The elite will make America better by spending money at home where it should be spent, not wasting it abroad. Government is our friend. Controlled by the informed people, government will end war, create jobs, give us sound health, green the planet. And no victim will be left behind.

By contrast, in my view history progresses as the masses take direct control. In the elections of 1968, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004, the masses figured out the elite was trying to send America in a cosmopolitan, peace before victory, anti-faith direction and voted Republican. In 1976, 1992, and 1996, the masses believed Democratic-led government would improve their lives. In the Republican victories, 7 of 10 times, the people looked past the pen (the media) and saw the elite for what it is—contemptuous of average Americans. Obama, as agent of the status quo, wants power to remain with the elite, not pass to the unwashed. But to win, he must hide the truth that he seeks to strengthen elite power at the masses’ expense.